Time for a domestic security white paper

Areas such as counterterrorism, foreign interference, transnational organised crime, cybercrime, anti-corruption, money-laundering and financial crimes require strong leadership and effective national coordination.

How Australian industry helped win the Pacific war

The efforts of Australian industry, as well as the heroism of its troops, supported allied efforts to wrest victory over Japan in the Pacific theatre in World War Two.

Grim findings to come in war crimes investigation

Australians will be dismayed by the findings of an investigation into allegations that their special forces in Afghanistan committed war crimes, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has warned.

The missing pieces in Australia’s security strategy

A more comprehensive national strategy should involve a commitment that optimises the deployment of all policy instruments — diplomatic and economic, as well as military — to safeguard Australia’s national interests abroad.

Australia’s new defence paradigm

Prompted by China’s increasingly coercive international behaviour, Australia’s revised defence policy looks to protect Australian interests and support global resistance to Beijing’s rising brutality.

The long history of ‘non traditional threats’

Many of the ‘new’ threats to international security as are old as the organised military forces which contain them.

Walking the walk

The new force structure plan sets a clear direction for Australia’s military that engages with the new world we are living in. It positions Australia to resist coercion and deter conflict but now the hard work of implementation must begin.

Embracing cloud computing in national security

Policy makers should look beyond current technical security standards to unlock the capability benefit that cloud computing can bring to Australia’s national security.

Lessons for supply chain resilience from the defence industry

Defence industry experience shows that if Australia wants more resilient supply chains then it will take planning, prioritisation and an ongoing willingness from governments, the private sector and the public to endure higher costs.

Learning the lessons

Australian governments at all levels should have learned a lot between the onset of the bushfire season and the first stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Local industry content will secure defence funding support

Capability must always come first, but without the shared benefits of local involvement by universities, workers, SMEs and state and local government, defence spending risks losing community support.

Are manned fighters obsolete?

Elon Musk has told an American Air Force conference that ‘the fighter jet era has passed’. The British Defence Minister Duncan Sandys said the same thing in 1957, launching a disastrous white paper which destroyed much of the British aircraft industry. Is Musk right this time? Or is he making the same mistake of 63 years ago?