The great white fleet

America’s “Great White Fleet” came to Australia in friendship in 1908, but China’s red flotilla had very different intentions earlier this year.

Naval gazing

Australia must respond with clarity to China’s growing naval capabilities and take control of the region’s strategic future in partnership with its allies, lest it cede the seas to a hostile foreign power intent on asserting dominance.

Gun boat diplomacy

China has the largest navy in the world and has its addiction to gun-boat diplomacy from the South China Sea to the Tasman should provoke a debate about defence in the forthcoming election.

Ships still have a place at sea

Despite the growing lethality of anti-ship missiles and hunter-killer submarines, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, the head of Australia’s Navy, firmly believes that surface sea power still has a major role to play in modern conflicts.

Is bigger big enough?

The Federal Government’s plan to expand Australian naval power is welcome, although the review tacitly accepts that a lack of manpower is as big a problem as a lack of modern ships and missile firepower.

Navy 2.0

The Federal government has unveiled its plan to revamp the Australian Navy, but given the struggles of recent ship procurement projects, will it solve our current problems – or just create new ones?

Final voyage

The 60th anniversary of the loss of HMAS Voyager after a collision with the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne prompts us to remember the 82 brave men who lost their lives in peacetime as they trained to defend their country.

Australia’s vanishing surface fleet

Australia’s navy is a fraction of its former size, and the focus on nuclear powered hunter killer submarines means there is little money left to expand the number of surface combatants.

Navy blues

Australia’s failure to contribute a ship to allied efforts in the Red Sea to protect civilian shipping exemplifies a broader failure to support our allies and invest properly in naval capability.

Reviving the Royal Australian Fleet Auxiliary

In an era of reduced strategic warning time, bold decisions are necessary and risk must be accepted to gain strategic and operational advantage. Re-establishing the Royal Australian Fleet Auxiliary is an option worth considering.

Australian sea power

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.

That sinking feeling

The vulnerability of surface ships to attacks by air and submarine has been clear since the Second World War and Australia’s small number of high value naval assets might be exposed in any future conflict with a sophisticated adversary.