• Reading Australia’s defence review

    Nicholas Whitwell     |      April 10, 2023

    The soon-to-be published Defence Review has to answer a lot of questions that all Australians need answers for regarding the challenges of today and tomorrow.

  • Innovation in defence

    Palmer Luckey     |      April 7, 2023

    There’s no secret government silo of advanced technology to save us if war breaks out. If the allied democracies are to prevail, we will need action at scale, and the only way to create a silo of advanced technologies is to build it.

  • Lost in the long grass

    Rodger Shanahan     |      March 31, 2023

    Commentators criticising the purchase of planes, submarines and tanks by the Australian Defence Force are quick to call these capabilities obsolete, but such glib analysis is seldom based on reality, let alone the history they inevitably reference.

  • A mountain of missiles

    James Dwyer     |      March 24, 2023

    Order is a product of power, and the purchase in recent years of a range of modern missile systems will help Australia deter aggression in the region in the years to come.

  • Continuity in strategic planning

    Brendan Nicholson     |      March 19, 2023

    The former Australian defence minister Ian McLachlan has made a timely plea for genuine bipartisanship in defence planning to provide advice based on experience and to ensure continuity across successive governments.

  • Submarines mean security

    Blake Herzinger     |      March 14, 2023

    Foreign charges that Canberra’s SSN program might promote conflict with Beijing or start a nuclear arms race should be dismissed as the self-serving propaganda of aggressor states.

  • AUKUS submarines strengthen Australian sovereignty

    Alex Bristow     |      March 14, 2023

    In a world becoming ever more interconnected, national security rests on an interpretation of sovereignty that embraces international partnerships, with trusted and reliable partners, especially the US alliance.

  • Don’t go easy on espionage

    Gillian Savage     |      February 24, 2023

    Australian businessmen and academics may urge decision makers to turn a blind eye to Chinese espionage and interference to protect their own interests, but Australia must robustly defend itself and democracy.

  • Australian sea power

    David Shackleton     |      February 18, 2023

    Bulking up the number of missile cells on new Australian ships will help our Navy deliver the firepower required to take on peer combatants on the world’s oceans.

  • Upgrading Australia’s defence production to industry 4.0

    Gillian Savage     |      February 12, 2023

    Australia has to radically rethink what various parts of Defence do and how to optimise the many opportunities presented by Industry 4.0 techniques.

  • Post war lessons for a prewar world

    Richard Dunley     |      February 3, 2023

    The current defence capability review being undertaken by Stephen Smith and Angus Houston could be informed by a similar exercise at the end of World War Two.

  • Talking about the sixth generation

    Malcolm Davis     |      January 13, 2023

    Adopting the next generation of air combat systems will help Australia protect itself from China and other potential aggressors in the future.