Last month, Stephen Kuper highlighted his concerns about the security of the global supply chain for rare-earth elements (REEs), particularly as it relates to sustaining the US defence force. Right now, it’s a bleak outlook. …
The Strategist on: "North of 26° south"
The idea of the north of Australia being central to the new concept of the defence of Australia in the 1970s derived from the key strategic fact that the only country in the region with …
The geographic and economic landscape of northern Australia, as well as its history and ecology, differ in fundamental ways from southern Australia with its large cities and well-connected inhabitants. Sparsely populated, the north typically has …
Each of Australia’s border security domains presents unique threats and operating challenges. Whether searching for illicit drugs in Sydney’s mail centre, processing passenger arrivals at Melbourne’s international airport or inspecting shipping containers in Fremantle, the …
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that more Royal Australian Navy vessels will be built at the Henderson shipyard south of Perth, and the plan appears to have bipartisan support. The 2016 defence white paper …
In a recent Strategist article, Dr Paul Barnes raised the issue of water management and water scarcity in the Top End. He argued that access to water as an essential service may be underrated in …
Australia faces a rapidly changing—and worsening—defence and security outlook that is increasingly at odds with the policy assumptions that underpinned the formulation of the 2016 defence white paper. That reality demands a rethink of our …
It’s hard to argue against the importance of a modern coastal city in Australia’s Top End to geopolitics, the economy and the nation’s security. Darwin’s long history as a military post attests to that. Populations …
Mention the term ‘space coast’ and the image of launch pads and gantries at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida come to mind. It’s a true spaceport that not only launches rockets but …
For over a century, Australian federal governments have periodically tussled with the question of what to do with, and at times how to defend, what they’ve long considered Australia’s underdeveloped and underpopulated north. The Australian …
Notions of ‘protecting country’ have, anecdotally at least, been a key motivation for Indigenous people to participate in Australia’s defence services since World War I. It may well be one reason they have been joining …
First announced in November 2011, the US force posture initiatives in northern Australia comprise a deployment of US Marines to Darwin and other parts of the north for about six months each year and increased …