As I pointed out in my previous post, there’s a much-neglected policy principle embedded in the conceptual framework that guides Australian defence planning: in the event of major deterioration in Australia’s strategic circumstances, the Government …
Before turning its attention to the future force structure of the ADF, the team writing the 2013 Defence White Paper will have to grapple with the rising cost of even maintaining the existing force. This …
In the 2009 Defence White Paper, the Government expected the ADF to carry out a number of tasks. In addition to its core war fighting roles, there were a number of secondary tasks, including missions …
Andrew’s recent chart demonstrated how Australia’s defence spending equals the combined budgets of the five biggest spending ASEAN countries. Charts like this do a great job of communicating the magnitudes of spending involved, and put …
Jason Lim responds to Tim Huxley’s post on Singapore–US relations: The relationship between China, the United States and Singapore is a complex one. Singapore has always seen itself as an ally of the United States …
The twin notions of force expansion and warning time have been integral to Australian defence planning since the 1970s. Yet over the years the focus on these issues has been neither strong nor consistent. Today, …
Defence Minister Stephen Smith used his ASPI speech on Wednesday night to make the definitive case for bringing the White Paper forward by a year. Close followers of the defence debate will be familiar with …
In my first post, I argued while there are very good historical reasons Australia should stay close to the United States, there are a number of factors for Defence White Paper writers to consider. Here, …
Paul Monk initiated a valuable debate on these pages about the role of risk in defence planning. As it happens, I’ve been thinking along similar lines for sometime myself. So here’s my take on the …
This post is the second on demystifying grand strategy; it looks at how we can influence others. Grand strategy involves interacting with others in a way that will change them to our advantage. Grand strategy …
For readers looking for a good one-volume text on strategy, I would recommend Beatrice Heuser’s work, The evolution of strategy: thinking war from antiquity to the present, published in 2010. Heuser, an academic at the …
It’s not hard to find examples of concerns about China’s military build-up. But how much should we actually worry about it? In my view, not as much as many commentators assume. It’s true that, at …
There’s a conundrum facing the writers of the Defence White Paper 2013. On one hand, Australia’s geography places it at the southern end of East Asia and its economy places it in a strong trading …
Singapore and the United States are linked not only by important economic relations, but also by a burgeoning defence relationship. Most recently in June 2012 the US announced that it would deploy as many as …
Having announced its intention to publish a new Defence White Paper in the first half of 2013, the government has now taken the curious step of issuing a new Defence Capability Plan (DCP). That is, …
The first step to victory is always working out the vital ground. Occupy that and you force the enemy to come to you. You’ve already achieved dominance and are halfway on the path to victory. …
There has already been some debate about the insurance analogy on this blog. I personally like the theme as it makes it easy to explain Defence funding to those not familiar with what our defence …
This week’s graph is an update of analysis started by ASPI in 2006. Drawing on annual figures published by the Pentagon, it analyses the real cost growth in the projected cost of the F-35 Joint …
Tony Abbott’s speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington last week had some messages for Canberra policymakers to help shape next year’s ‘blue’ Incoming Government Brief. The speech was oddly constructed as some commentators have …
Hugh White nicely joins the fray in focusing on the key difference between risks and threats: time. That is, a risk can turn into a threat over time, and vice versa. As Hugh says, risk …
