In his post on Duncan Lewis’ speech to ASPI, Peter Jennings gave us a good round up of the Secretary’s intent. Peter outlines three messages: match aspirations to the government-allocated funds; save and be efficient; …
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s decision to attend the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in the Cook Islands this week signals the growing strategic importance of the South Pacific. Clinton’s attendance may also be a …
The defence budget of the Republic of Indonesia has seen a significant increase in 2012, reaching US$8 billion—an increase of 29.5% from the previous year. The funding increase is intended to meet Indonesia’s minimum essential …
Current CIA Director and retired US Army officer, General David Petraeus argues that the most powerful tool any soldier carries is not his weapon but his mind. According to Petraeus, promising officers should be sent …
Defence Secretary Duncan Lewis’ speech to ASPI last week was a message (put nicely) to his own organisation to toughen up: stop squealing about spending cuts and start rebuilding the organisation to handle a harder …
Most discussions of cyber security are couched in terms of protecting computer systems, especially those belonging to government and managers of civilian infrastructure. No doubt the forthcoming government white paper on cyber security will also …
In mid-June I chaired an international conference in Perth aimed at developing responses to piracy and related crimes at sea. The meeting was sponsored by the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Defence, and …
Ben Moles’ post on Australia and the ‘Indo-Pacific’ is lucid and thoughtful. But its perspective may be too narrow. It is true that the physical and diplomatic reach of Australian policy as presently defined are …
The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ has recently slipped into the lexicon of Australian policymakers, in quiet supplement to ‘Asian Century’ and ‘Asia–Pacific Century’, with little questioning as to what this semantic shift actually means and achieves in …
Today the government announced that the RAAF will have 12 of its recently acquired fleet of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft equipped with the ‘Growler’ electronic warfare jammer package at a cost of $1.5 …
In the last budget, which saw Defence take a hammering in terms of cuts (the details of which ASPI has covered in numerous documents and posts), little has been said about the sanctity of the …
In a recent article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Siegfried Hecker from Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation suggested North Korea could conduct a third nuclear weapon test within as little as two …
It is often said that good fortune in politics comes down to timing—the same could be said of policy. Excellent policy work can be swept away by a change of government or ministerial reshuffle. Looking …
My previous posts have observed that the core force should have two principal attributes: it should be the base from which expansion should occur in the event of major strategic deterioration, and it should be …
A continuous theme of successive White Papers has been that our strategic challenges in the South Pacific come not from powerful states, but from weak ones. The idea that weak South Pacific states pose a …
With characteristic precision, Mark Thomson has put his finger on the primary question for Australian defence policy today: not how much should we spend on the ADF, but what do we want it to do? …
Yesterday it was revealed that a film crew will accompany Australian police, military and government officials as they head to Nauru and Manus Island to prepare for the arrival of an expected influx of asylum …
On current planning, the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper will be released within a few weeks. Former Treasury Secretary Dr Ken Henry and his team are finalising the report and Cabinet will consider …
Mark Thomson thinks that the recent irrational and irresponsible reduction in defence funding is retrievable. He thinks that we do not need a larger or stronger force than we have at the moment. He says that …
Choosing which grand strategy to use depends on how others can be influenced—however, this is only half of the matter. There is also an internal dimension where the power is developed that the external dimension …