¡Hola, comrades! This week saw the first commercial flight in over 50 years take-off from the US bound for Cuba, the most significant step toward rapprochement between Washington and Havana since Obama visited back in March. But …
Diversifying choice of fuel supplies can have a real impact on naval operational capacity, in addition to managing the costs sustaining capability. This month there’s been lots of naval talk about alternative fuels when the …
Since ASPI was established in 2002, the annual Cost of Defence has delivered 3,579 pages on defence budgeting and management. In total, that’s something like a million words, plus several thousand charts and tables. Most …
It has been a big week in the Middle East, as Russia became the first foreign military to operate from Iranian soil since at least World War 2. Russian Tu-22M3 bombers and Su-34 fighters took …
Sea State China’s naval capacity received a big boost this past week with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) adding not one but two vessels to its fleet. The PLA-N launched a Type 052D Luyang …
Istanbul, in western Turkey, is one of Europe’s great cities. As Constantinople, it was the capital of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and after its capture and renaming by Mehmed II in 1453, it served …
There’s renewed interest of late in the US Navy’s electromagnetic railgun. Plans to perform at-sea weapon testing appear to have been delayed in favour of further research. So, while development will probably continue, there are …
Are modern-day frigates really cruisers, or is it just that the present-day needs of a frigate require the 6,000-plus tonnage of an old-fashioned cruiser? Alastair Cooper exchanged a polite broadside with ASPI’s Andrew Davies on …
The US Department of Defense’s third offset strategy has prompted much discussion since it was first announced in November 2014. The strategy, which has been allocated a US$18 billion budget, aims to ‘offset’ growing Chinese …
The volume of traffic travelling through Australia’s maritime approaches—along with a diversifying threat environment—is putting ever-increasing strain on border security assets. In the coming years, Maritime Border Command will come under pressure to capture, filter, …
‘Alternative Futures’ is a methodology sometimes used in strategic planning, in which the robustness of current plans is tested against various hypothetical futures. (The RAND Corporation sometimes uses this approach—they used it to test US …
Jutland veterans were not alone in their experience of failure and feelings of regret after the First World War, nor in their desire to get the Royal Navy back on track. Andrew Cunningham, later to …