In a recent post, Neil James made some interesting points about defence spending metrics and the political economy of defence in a democracy. With the federal budget due in three weeks’ time, I thought I …
Articles by: "Mark Thomson"
In the world of strategic affairs, competition is almost always a bad thing. Be it jostling over territory, contesting freedom of navigation or an outright arms race, strategic competition tends to be both costly and …
The recent exchange between Graeme Dobell and Peter Jennings over Australia’s commitment to Iraq highlighted the critical roles to be played by Parliament and the Public Service when war is being considered. I have but …
As part of the Alliance 21 project, I was asked to give an Australian perspective on defence spending and the Australia–US alliance. Or, in other words, it was my job to explain why Australian defence …
We’re in Washington this week for the Alliance 21 project being run by the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. It’s an interesting time to be in Washington. Over the next 24 hours the US budget negotiations will come …
Since at least 1950 Australia’s defence policy has been predicated on US military strength. It behoves us, therefore, to keep a close eye on US defence policy. In one sense, recent developments are encouraging. The …
Earlier today, I took up an invitation to speak at the annual Australian Defence Magazine Congress. My task was to provide an update on the defence budget and make predictions about where it’s headed. The …
Dear Minister In some quarters, your promised 2013 Defence White Paper is already being ridiculed as ‘the white pamphlet’. Others take an even more pessimistic view, with Hugh White doubting that a document will be …
Hard times are upon Defence again, which will have implications for the way the nation’s military capability evolves. As Andrew Davies pointed out recently, much of the ADF’s capability today is thanks to a ramping …
The government’s recent announcement of a further delay to the $7.9 billion Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) project has been met with a degree of cynicism. Although the government says that the delay is needed to preserve workforce …
On Monday we promised to provide some suggestions for implementing the recent 364-page report from the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Reference Committee on ‘Procurement procedures for Defence capital projects’. Today we’ll discuss one …
The recent Senate committee report ‘Procurement procedures for Defence capital projects’ was naturally of great interest to us, concerned as it was with our core business. We weren’t dispassionate observers of the process either; we …