David McDonough gave a stout defence of the Air Warfare Destroyer on this blog. In several respects it’s a superior platform to our existing fleet and some proposed alternatives—namely, the smaller, cheaper ships suggested by …
Dr Mark Thomson from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has authored a paper on The Strategist, analysing the recently released RAND report titled ‘Australia’s Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise – Preparing for the 21st Century.’ This memo …
Commissioned in September 2014 under a $2.5 million contract, the RAND report Australian’s Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise: Preparing for the 21st Century was released on 16 April 2015. The government says it’s developing an ‘enterprise-level Naval Shipbuilding …
In a remarkable public speech at ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet conference last month, the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet—Admiral Harry B. Harris—criticised China for engaging in an ‘unprecedented land reclamation’ effort, creating a ‘great …
Sea State Earlier this week, tensions between the US and Iran in the Gulf of Aden eased when Iranian vessels suspected of carrying arms for the Houthi rebels in Yemen began a slow retreat towards …
More evidence of Tony Abbott’s policy stance on the next generation of Australian submarines was revealed with the release of the RAND report into Australia’s Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise. By ignoring an Australian build for …
Despite press and broadcast reporting that largely focused on the omission of submarines, the RAND report on naval shipbuilding in Australia is a valuable contribution to the discussion of this important public policy issue. No …
As an early RAN submission to the former Force Structure Committee’s strategic policy consideration of the ANZAC frigate put it so breathlessly, ‘Australia is an island continent surrounded by sea’. The pleonasm notwithstanding, the proposition’s …
The second day of ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet conference has so far produced some forthright observations about the state of Australia’s naval shipbuilding industry, including the troubled AWD project. The conference’s final day coincides with …
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 …
With ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet conference now less than a week away, Sea State this week will continue last week’s examination of design options for the future frigate fleet. We’ll also take a look at …
This post is a contribution to a series leading to ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet Conference from 30 March to 1 April 2015. Registration closes 23 March. A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready, the long-awaited …