The past year brought a renewed focus on Australia’s deteriorating security situation and maritime capability. Despite the maritime emphasis in Australia’s 2024 defence announcements, the country remains far from being adequately positioned to defend its …
The Department of Defence is the largest single landholder in the Commonwealth and one of the largest overall landholders in Australia. The Defence estate comprises 70 major bases, 100-plus training ranges and more than 1000 …
Defence cooperation between Australia and Japan has yet to find its top gear but, after a cautious start, that relationship is in pole position among Australia’s regional security partnerships. The road ahead may soon lead …
The Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant review has laid out plans for the Royal Australian Navy to grow larger, with more firepower in the coming decade to ensure that it can meet the challenges highlighted in the …
As a country ‘girt by sea’, Australia must enunciate a clear maritime strategy that recognises the scale of its maritime territory and responsibilities, its dependence on trade for its prosperity and the increasing value of …
Defence Minister Richard Marles has announced that decisions on the surface combatant fleet review will not be made public until 2024. This analysis was an outcome of the defence strategic review, which recommended that the …
Last month, in my article ‘To corvette or to not corvette: the defence strategic review and the Tier 2 surface combatant’, I outlined some of the debates and one specific option for the independent analysis …
Every year the Australian defence commentariat replays a ritualised dance that goes like this. First, the Australian National Audit Office releases its major projects report providing detailed information on the progress of around 25 of …
In 2009, Australia’s government decided that it would replace eight Anzac-class frigates with nine ships optimised for antisubmarine warfare (ASW). There was no justification in the Royal Australian Navy capstone doctrine for acquiring and optimising …
The latest revelations about the Royal Australian Navy’s Hunter-class frigates confirm much of what we knew about the problems besetting the program, but add a level of granularity far beyond the general admissions made by …
As the Defence Department’s deputy secretary for strategy between 2009 and 2012, I asked US counterparts on three occasions about the likelihood they would share submarine nuclear-propulsion technology. The answer was the same each time: …
At an ASPI conference a few years ago, I remarked that I thought that major surface combatants had been obsolete for many decades, and that the only reason we hadn’t noticed was that there hadn’t …
