Scott Morrison’s speech at the launch of the defence strategic update and new force structure plan was fascinating. No fewer than four times he said that the deterioration in Indo-Pacific security was as concerning as the slide …
As the Australian government’s finances come under increasing pressure from the effects of Covid-19, so too might the scope for some forms of Defence investment in new capital equipment. That could pose difficult challenges for …
There’s a big international weapons program that probably doesn’t pass the post-coronavirus pub test for supply chain security. As US President Donald Trump’s recently said, ‘It’s a certain fighter jet, I won’t tell you which, …
Australia has so far managed the Covid-19 pandemic as well as anywhere else on the planet, except perhaps our near neighbour New Zealand or the vibrant techno-democracy of Taiwan. That’s lucky, because if our federal, …
‘I’m also very confident in terms of the methodologies that have been developed and refined over the course of many of these projects and I’m very confident in the fidelity of the data that we …
In the first part of this series, I noted that Australia’s Department of Defence spends a relatively small percentage of its budget on national support tasks (less than 0.2%), but around 40% of its capabilities …
The Australian National Audit Office has just released its latest report on Australia’s $80 billion future submarine capability. It set itself the task of examining ‘the effectiveness of Defence’s administration of the Future Submarine Program …
Originally published 29 April 2019. The 2016 defence white paper and the decades-long integrated investment program will deliver a future force that includes 72 joint strike fighters, several hundred infantry fighting vehicles, nine new frigates …
Originally published 5 November 2019. We’ve known for a while that SEA 1000, the Defence Department’s future submarine program, is going to cost a lot of money—we just haven’t known exactly how much. But as …
We seem to have been both naughty and nice this year. The Australian National Audit Office isn’t going to put its much-anticipated report on the future submarine program in our stocking before Christmas and we’ll …
On a recent episode of ASPI’s Policy, Guns and Money podcast, analysts Marcus Hellyer and Andrew Davies debated the question of whether Australia needs an additional long-range strike capability. The issue had just been raised …
We’ve known for a while that SEA 1000, the Defence Department’s future submarine program, is going to cost a lot of money—we just haven’t known exactly how much. But as time moves on and Defence …