On 14 December 1944, the Royal Australian Fleet Auxiliary freighting tanker Bishopdale was in the Philippines in San Pedro Bay refuelling Australian and Allied forces when it was attacked by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft. Able …
Articles by: "Jennifer Parker"
The structure of the Royal Australian Navy since its inception has been determined by trading off capability, cost and workforce. Long lamented by naval historians and practitioners alike has been the view that Australia’s maritime …
US President Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘A good navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace’. Those poignant words were uttered in 1902 but they have a distinct relevance …
On the night of 31 May 1942, my grandfather was a young boy hiding under the kitchen table as Sydney went into a panic. The Pacific War, a distant thought to many Sydneysiders, had come …
The lead-up to Saturday’s meeting between Australia’s defence and foreign affairs ministers and their US counterparts was low key, as were the expectations. But optics and substance are not always perfectly matched with AUSMIN meetings, …
AUSMIN 2023 will occur against the backdrop of the largest ever iteration of Exercise Talisman Sabre in Australia’s north. Talisman Sabre, a bilateral exercise between the US and Australia, has long been a symbol of …
In the build-up to the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the sense of history was palpable. The original NATO construct of 12 members, formed in 1949, is now 31 and will soon be 32 …
There’s a growing trend for naval forces to acquire uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) because of the potential advantages they offer, such as reduced risk and the ability to provide a persistent presence. In a medium-sized …
Overall defence funding, 2023–24 Consolidated defence funding (including the Australian Signals Directorate) Funding $52.6 billion Growth on prior year 7% Real growth on previous year 1% Department of Defence government funding Funding $50.1 billion Funding …
The defence strategic review highlighted the need for the Royal Australian Navy to have two levels of surface combatants to provide ‘increased strike, air defence, presence operations and anti-submarine warfare’. While the DSR doesn’t directly …
Our dangerous times are driving an unprecedented tempo of strategy writing in Canberra. Having barely caught its breath since the AUKUS pathway announcement in March and the release of the defence strategic review (DSR) in …
The 2023 defence strategic review (DSR) identifies itself as ‘the most substantial and ambitious approach to Defence reform recommended to any Australian government since the Second World War’. It maps out a pivot for the …