On 13 August 1940, the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air arm, set out to destroy the Royal Air Force’s ability to defend the airspace over and around Great Britain. That day 79 years ago—code-named Adlertag (‘Eagle day’)—was …
The Strategist on: "Defending Australia"
The biggest threat to Australia’s alliance with the United States has always been posed by the US—and what it demands or fails to deliver. Wars have strengthened, not weakened, the alliance. In the Pacific war …
In his provocative new book, How to defend Australia, Hugh White suggests a strategy of ‘sea denial’ for Australia’s defence. To protect a large island from threats posed by geographically distant potential enemies, this makes …
Hugh White’s latest book has stimulated an important debate on the defence capabilities needed to preserve Australia as a sovereign state. In the recent posts on this subject on The Strategist, there’s been recognition of …
The old defence dictum that talking dollars is a necessary condition for talking policy is applied in spades in Hugh White’s most recent book. After a discussion in the early chapters of our strategic challenges …
Hugh White’s How to defend Australia is an elegant book but also something of a party trick: engagingly clever but not realistic. It will be essential reading for every national security master’s degree by coursework …
Hugh White sees the US–Australia military alliance weakening, possibly disappearing, as China’s rise undermines US hegemony in East Asia and as US relative power wanes. ‘We will really be on our own’, he observes in …
In recent weeks a lively debate has swirled around Hugh White’s canvassing of a possible indigenous nuclear-weapon program in Australia’s future—or, more accurately, in that version of Australia’s future where the US presence in Asia …
Hugh White, in his new book How to defend Australia, calls for a complete revision of Australia’s grand strategy and the force structure we maintain for our defence. His basic premise is simple. China is …
Hugh White’s latest book, How to defend Australia, has attracted much attention. As the book’s back cover rightly claims, White is ‘Australia’s most provocative, revelatory and realistic commentator on defence’. But, as he himself might …
Hugh White’s new book, How to defend Australia, has stirred up a hornet’s nest on the topic of potential nuclear proliferation. In one sense, that’s a surprise, since anyone who’s read the relevant chapter knows …
Hugh White’s How to defend Australia shows a master storyteller at work. It’s part of a debate Australians must have. While the book starts that debate, its core judgements shift from possibilities to certainties, and …