There is little to argue with in Beyond 2017: The Australian Defence Force and Amphibious Warfare by Ken Gleiman and Peter J Dean. It’s soundly thought out, well written, and concludes with a number of …
With RAN’s new amphibious assault ship HMAS Canberra continuing a series of intensive training and assessment periods, and its sister ship HMAS Adelaide readying for commission next year, Australia’s amphibious warfare capability is fast becoming …
The ADF currently lacks the tradition, culture and organisational expertise to maintain and deploy a world class amphibious warfare capability. The current command and control (C2) structures don’t adequately address the high degree of specialisation …
The ADF has developed a detailed, integrated and truly joint plan to develop and validate an impressive amphibious warfare capability by mid-2017 as part of Exercise Talisman Sabre. However this powerful joint force element will …
The Australian Army has been engaged in more than 15 years of continuous operations. Yet the challenges for Army do not rest. Today’s environment sees the pace of change accelerating, yet the fundamental nature of …
Andrew Davies’ three First Principles Review (FPR) posts on contestability (here, here, and here) make interesting reading for anyone who has been on both sides of capability arguments. While I agree with most of what …
China’s assertive maritime claims featured prominently in a speech from US Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Harry B. Harris to the #FSFleet dinner last night. In noting that overlapping maritime claims in the South China Sea …
December 2014 saw the Australian Army wind down its longest ever warlike commitment—after 13 years of continuous operations, Australian troops ceased combat operations in Afghanistan. Now for the first time in over a decade the …
Nic Stuart’s piece, ‘Forget the carrier option’, makes a large and important judgment: that politics and defence funding won’t allow the option of deploying F-35Bs on Australia’s LHDs. But in making that case Nic repeats …
Today’s a great day for the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Defence Force. It marks the commissioning of that $1.5 billion, 27,800-tonne behemoth soon to be known as HMAS Canberra. But as much as …
This post is part of a joint series hosted by The Strategist and The Bridge. Strategy is meaningless without an opposing force. Since Australia currently has only hypothetical opponents, a strategic endstate for Australia can only …
As memories are lost it becomes the role of commemorations to shape our view of history. The 40th anniversary commemorations of the Normandy landings in 1984 brought Ronald Reagan to Pointe du Hoc, where US …











