Sea, air and land updates

Sea State The Friday before last, Defence Minister Kevin Andrews announced that the panel overseeing the competitive evaluation process for Australia’s future submarine project will be headed by Professor Donald Winter—a former secretary of the …

The future of undersea warfare

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 …

All the news that’s fit to 3-D print

  We’ve been thinking about the manufacturing sector in Australia in the wrong way. The general perception is that it’s in a terminal decline, which will be realised when the last of the big car …

The case for building submarines in Australia

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 …

Decoding the US and China

The strategic discussion between the US and China can’t be called a dialogue of the deaf. The talk is loud and each side hears the other. Yet a lot of mishearing is happening. Perhaps the …

ASPI suggests

Welcome back to another round-up of interesting things to read, listen and watch from the world of defence and security. First up, what should we do if the Islamic State ‘wins’? Live with it, says Stephen …

A body count is not a strategy

Last week US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a French interview that the American-led coalition had recorded more than 10,000 deaths of ISIS combatants since fighting against the group commenced last year. …

Pakistan’s pivot to China

In the last few months Pakistan’s Government has made a number of decisions that have drawn the country even further into China’s geostrategic orbit. And although China and Pakistan have had a long and fruitful …

A post-ANZUS world?

In my first post yesterday I set out the case for a radical reappraisal of our alliance with Washington. My argument doesn’t reflect a neutralist or anti-American disposition. Rather it’s an attempt to advocate a …

White Paper puzzles

It seems the 2015 Defence White Paper is only a couple of months away, so the big decisions about capability plans and funding should by now have been nailed down, and the White Paper team …

Has ANZUS passed its use-by date?

For 64 years the ANZUS alliance has been the holy grail of Australian national security policy—the alliance on which Australia relies in the event of an armed attack which it can’t repel alone. But there …

Cyber wrap

In what’s believed to be potentially the largest compromise of US government employee information ever, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was recently breached by hackers. The Department of Homeland Security announced that malicious …

Iraq: an avoidable catastrophe?

The unfolding humanitarian and political disaster in Iraq and Syria is ultimately a consequence of confusion, impetuosity, a preoccupation with tactical issues at the expense of strategic ones, and an ignorance of the political, communal, …

Killer robots? Getting LAWS right

Technology is steadily marching in the direction of increased autonomy, a change that will undoubtedly influence weapon platforms in the future. The notion of offensive use of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS)—systems that can independently …