In my role to lead and prepare an Army to serve its nation, my career experience has developed in me a profound commitment to the value, indeed the necessity, of joint, inter-agency, coalition and allied …
The Beat Groomed for drug trafficking An ABC report describes how an Australian man with disabilities was groomed by internet scammers to unwittingly traffic $300,000 worth of methamphetamine to China, where he was arrested and …
At present, Defence is executing around 180 major capital investment projects with an aggregate value in excess of $123 billion. Consistent with what’s at stake, defence acquisition is subject to annual audit and periodic external …
A decade ago, there were some critics ready to predict a downturn in international peace operations. The start of the 21st century had seen a return of peacekeeping from East Timor to Liberia, but critics …
It’s ConnectSmart week across the Tasman, an event that seeks to raise awareness of cyber security in the New Zealand community. National Cyber Policy Office director Paul Ash has encouraged Kiwis to come up with …
ASPI’s 2015 Land Conference this week foreshadows a number of Government policy announcements that will directly or indirectly impact the Australian Army and its future operational tempo and force structure. The Conference will be an …
Amidst increasing alliance concern that the United Kingdom is approaching the point at which ‘little Britain’ may, in military terms, be both perception and reality, the British government has embarked upon a new Strategic Defence …
‘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 United Nations appears to have seized on its 70th anniversary this year to undertake a series of high-level reviews (previously noted here). Long awaited among them have been the outcomes of the High-level Independent …
Sea State Japan’s Defense Ministry plans to build two new destroyers armed with Aegis’ upgraded Ballistic Missile Defence system, which is capable of shooting down both high-altitude ballistic missiles and low-altitude anti-ship missiles. The first …
Public debate about reform of our citizenship laws continues to be hampered by a significant categorisation error. Whether Australian citizenship should be held by traitors remains the heart of the matter. The core issue is …
Australia and Canada have similar defence problems. Both have a continental area to surveil and defend; and both front onto three oceans, while having to build their defence forces from the resources of relatively small …
In February 2015, President Barack Obama listed climate change alongside international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and infectious disease in a new national security strategy. The US National Security Strategy called climate change ‘an urgent …
Indonesia’s economic slowdown seems to be going from bad to worse with economists and business leaders blaming a lack of confidence in Joko Widodo government’s policies as much as plunging exports and a drop in …
ASEAN’s leaders are worried about what history tells them about the future of Southeast Asia. The fears about the lessons of history are a discordant note as ASEAN steps up to a great moment in …
Kicking off today’s round-up is an infographic on the world’s major oil trade flows. No surprises, the Middle East tops the list with the 850.1 million tonnes of crude oil flowing out of the country …
If you thought the Australian budget was a difficult beast to wrangle, you won’t envy the Chinese government’s predicament. Deutsche Bank predicted earlier this year that Chinese central government revenue will grow by a mere …
Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. It’s not an anniversary likely to attract much attention in the average Aussie pub, but perhaps one that strategists might like to mark. The battle …
Three weeks ago, the finance minister announced the third delay, and the fourth get-well initiative, for the beleaguered Air Warfare Destroyer program. In case you’ve lost track, delays and remediation initiatives were announced in 2011 …
After a year of ‘degrading and destroying’ Islamic State (IS) overseas and well over a decade confronting the broader threat of Islamist militancy at home, there are no doubts: we are losing on both fronts. …