Tony Abbott today set the course for future government policy on naval shipbuilding in Australia. In his speech to ASPI’s Future Force Structure Options for Army Conference, the Prime Minister committed the government to a …
‘A 30-40% premium’, ‘3 AWDs for the cost of 9’, ‘500 more jobs in SA for future submarine sustainment’—all snapshots from recent Government media releases. The Government appears to be preparing the political ground for …
The definitive statement on the roles and required capabilities of future Australian submarines must await the release of Defence White Paper 2015 and associated Force Posture Review, both due in August-September this year. It seems …
Much has been made of the recent release of the report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) into the emerging era of undersea warfare. The wide coverage that the report received in …
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last 25 years, it’s that government can’t successfully run naval dockyards in Australia. This is why the National Commission of Audit recommended the immediate privatisation of ASC. There …
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 …
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 …
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 …











