Andrew Davies’ recent post on The Who, What, Where, and Why of the Future Submarine reverts to the beginning of the argument about submarines. Anyone who read my earlier response, ‘Why submarines for Australia?’ would …
One of the main features of the Indonesian President’s speech to last week’s Jakarta International Defense Dialogue was the concept of ‘strategic trust’. Admitting this was difficult to define, he referred to it as ‘an …
As Andrew mentioned last week, we were recently invited by RUSI ACT to talk about challenges and prospects of the next Defence White Paper. Actually, it was more about the White Paper after next, as …
If we learn more from losses than wins, then the Canberra system has much to gain from examining its lousy performance in the processes that took Australia to war in Vietnam and Iraq. For Australia, …
Earlier this week, the RUSI ACT asked Ben Schreer and myself to talk about the next Defence White Paper. This is a challenge because we’re going to get a new Defence White Paper (DWP) in …
It’s uncommon for the US Defense Department to be moved by North Korean rhetoric and war-mongering, but the recent escalation of threats has succeeded in eliciting a response from the Pentagon. The US announced over …
In every relationship, personal, professional and diplomatic, negotiations and their subsequent compromises take place every day. Advantages are leveraged and exploited continuously. Some situations see small concessions or trade offs for mutual satisfaction while others …
For a sovereign democratic nation, Andrew Davies’ contribution ‘The who, what, where, and why of the future submarine’ posits some alarming notions. The first relates to an assumption that irrespective of a direct threat to …
What of the issue of nuclear deterrence in the US–Australia alliance, and more generally in the western Pacific region? For some, in America as well as Australia and elsewhere, this is chiefly a matter of …
As the military modernisation the Asia Pacific continues, Taiwan is now looking at whether it can build its own submarine fleet. If you’ve seen the movie Argo—the Hollywood version of the rescue of six US …
In my last blog post I explored how the New York Times hacking incident had raised the stakes in the cyber domain to an unprecedented degree. Having had time to reflect on this statement, I’ve …
Earlier this month, The Economist carried a front-page story on ‘Aspiring Africa’ with the tag-line: ‘The world’s fastest growing continent’. The article praised the significant progress that has occurred in Africa over the last decade, …