Mark Thomson and I have been following the status of the Collins class submarines for some years now, and we’re happy to see the upbeat new installment of the Coles review (PDF). There’s some good …
Debate: "The Submarine Choice"
From an inauspicious and somewhat controversial start, the CEP has leapt into pride of place as the ‘process of choice’ for the Government when considering large maritime defence projects. Not only has it been used …
In their paper supporting Option J, Andrew Davies and Benjamin Schreer don’t just rebut some of the strategic arguments raised against it, but also provide their own argument on strategic grounds in its favour. Their …
With continuing uncertainty in Australia about the future direction of SEA 1000, it’s both interesting and refreshing to visit Sweden to see what’s happening regarding the development of the next generation of submarines. There’s a …
I think the Option J scenario has finally reached some equilibrium – competitive evaluation it is. But I do wonder at suggestions that we should do a hybrid build or build overseas and then fit …
The government doesn’t seem to understand the words it has been saying on submarines. It has committed to a ‘competitive evaluation process’ for the future submarine project—a term not used in defence circles—and some seem …
A soap opera typically has a number of common features: forced characters, somewhat unbelievable; a plot in which dramatic events occur frequently but the story itself doesn’t reach any sort of conclusion; a familiar setting …
After reading Peter Briggs’ excellent posts on why Australia should build its own submarines (here and here), it occurred to me that we may be missing a more important element of the discussion. Recently, I …
Late last year Benjamin Schreer speculated on what 2015 might hold for the Australia–Japan security relationship. One of the issues he identified as being important in its development was that of potential cooperation on Australia’s …
The case for building the next generation of RAN submarines in Australia begins with the stand-out attributes that make submarines so important for us: they must be able to operate in areas a long way …
There has been considerable public debate about Australia’s future submarine program with much of the focus being centred on whether submarines should be produced locally or procured offshore. But surprisingly little of the debate has …
There’s been a wave of recent media and political commentary about the future submarine. The debate has tended to slide around the central question of whether or not to build them in Australia, and to …