Peter Jennings’ recent post on the 2014 QDR led me to read the report—and its 50% longer, more ambitious and less focussed 2010 predecessor. I’ll adopt Peter’s format of worries and hopes/opportunities for Asia-Pacific allies and …
Last week I spoke at the RAAF Air Power Conference in Canberra on the theme ‘Airpower in Australia’s future strategy’ (full text available here (PDF)) the essence of which I’ll set out over the course …
As Peter Jennings observed in a recent post, the Quadrennial Defense Review makes for sobering reading for Americans and allies alike. With its troop and cost reductions and emphasis on modernisation yet discussion of heightened …
To gauge the seriousness of the danger on the steppe, one has only to imagine German troops on Ukrainian territory, separated by a narrow front from Russian forces, quite possibly engaging them. If the US …
Welcome to the cyber wrap for another week. Just to mix things up, we’ll be coming to you each Tuesday for the next little while. Now for an update on all things cyber: Offensive cyber …
Over a long career in Canberra hackdom I’ve often marvelled at the way the Australian Defence Force thinks about itself. The strangeness in the way the Oz military understands what it is—soul, history, purpose, future—has …
Readers of the recently released US Quadrennial Defence Review will be struck by one major characteristic: namely, a fondness for the notion of ‘rebalancing’. Asian readers looking for signals of the Obama administration’s commitment to …
I refer to Peter Layton’s excellent piece following on from my original post lamenting the seeming inability of many western leaders to understand the Russian position in this unfolding mess. Peter refers in part to …
It’s fair to say that, despite the existence of initiatives and organisations such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), Indian Ocean regional architecture is under-developed. This reflects …
China has once again raised its defence spending by a double digit percentage. There’s nothing new about that; the average rate of growth since 2002 has been 14.6% according to official figures. Usually, the annual …
This week, Chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (pictured above), made a bold speech that accused the CIA of hacking into a stand-alone network used for an investigation into the agency’s …
Kym Bergmann gives an interesting potted history of Crimea up until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. However, it’s important not to neglect what happened since then. In the case of Ukraine, in exchange for …
When the Australian National Audit Office’s audit report on the Air Warfare Destroyer program was released last week, I was told by a veteran journo that it was a bit of a disappointment to his …
The Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, recently addressed the National Security Institute (PDF). He gave a tour de force tour d’horizon, focused on the development of the 2015 Defence White Paper (DWP). He explained …
As Sunday’s referendum in Crimea approaches, there seems little doubt that the peninsula’s majority Russian-speaking population will vote for a return to rule by Moscow instead of Kiev. However, it seems unlikely that the result …
The commercial woes of Qantas have blanketed the airwaves and newspapers of late, but the government’s intent to change the Qantas Sale Act to allow more foreign ownership of the airline seems unlikely to be …
The recently released US Quadrennial Defense Review 2014 (PDF) describes a difficult set of challenges for the United States military—challenges that have big implications for our alliance. The headlines have focussed on overall cuts to …
Russia has tightened its physical grip on Crimea this week, though offensive operations have largely been taking place online. Apart from the anticipated DDoS attacks, analysts from security firm BAE have disclosed the nature of …
In late February, I attended the Ditchley Park conference on power rivalries in Asia. A sub-theme of the conference was to explore whether the region was being drawn into an arms race. Like all good …
Last week, we attended a workshop on Information and Cyber Warfare, organised by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. Bringing together speakers from a range of countries and backgrounds, it discussed …