Ten steps to stop World War Three

Tobias Ellwood’s new book calls on western societies need to step up their economic, energy and military resilience and should be a wake-up call for both strategic leaders and generalists.

A divergent approach to defence

Donald Trump’s support for Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine was laid bare in yet another gaffe this week, but Ukraine’s success against Russian targets underlines the growing ability of cheap missiles to strike at expensive infrastructure.

25 years ago, today

The 9/11 terrorist attacks killed almost 3,000 people and provoked decades of war and recrimination. A quarter of a century later, will the West’s national security systems be resilient enough to withstand the next sudden shock without losing sight of the broader strategic environment?

Where there’s no will, there’s no way

Australia isn’t prepared for conflict unless it can build and defend the will to fight and the national civil preparedness and resilience inquiry, adopted in July, offers an opportunity to begin that conversation.

Rumours of war

Australian defence strategy used to assume we’d have at least 10 years’ warning of an impending war. We no longer have that luxury.

The Thucydides trap in Western tech

For the first time in modern memory, the nation posing the most threats to Australia – under sea, on the sea, in the sky, in cyberspace and in space itself – is our largest trading partner.

Hold the line on terrorism laws

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is right to reject the removal of religious motivation from Australia’s terrorism laws proposed by the nation’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, as it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what those laws are designed to do.

We still need a navy in the age of drones

The successful use of inexpensive drones against naval targets proves that drones can disrupt but not replace traditional sea power.

Pointing the finger

Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO has revealed that former Australian residents working for the Islamic regime in Iran perpetrated a series of terrorist attacks against Jewish targets in Australia.

Australia’s fight for algorithmic sovereignty

Australia’s defence debate is about more than ships, aircraft and missiles as competitive advantage increasingly depends on the software, data and AI systems embedded within them.

Battles of perception

Australia’s vulnerability in future crises may not stem from a lack of military capability, but from how quickly confusion, mistrust and informational disruption can shape public and political responses.

The wrong time for the right idea

Australian governments have always grappled with the problem of how best to defend Australia against potential adversaries, when others might not be able, or willing, to arrive in force to save the day, and the Defence Strategic Review of 2023 and the National Defence Strategy (NDS) of 2026 sit within this long tradition of independent Australian thinking.