US defence secretary Ashton Carter told the world at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue that ‘the US–Australia alliance is more and more a global one. As our two nations work together to uphold the freedom of navigation and …
Sea State Defence contractor Raytheon has won a US$523 million (AU$687 million) contract to provide the US Navy with 47 Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block 1B interceptors. The missiles form the backbone of the US Navy’s …
Myanmar’s transition to fully-fledged democracy is going to be a slow one. While Aung San Suu Kyi’s popular with the international community, her NLD government has a lot on its plate. Regional and international investors …
Are modern-day frigates really cruisers, or is it just that the present-day needs of a frigate require the 6,000-plus tonnage of an old-fashioned cruiser? Alastair Cooper exchanged a polite broadside with ASPI’s Andrew Davies on …
A common refrain when discussing the future of airpower is that ‘the F-35 is the last manned fighter’ and the future belongs to unmanned systems. The expanding use of unmanned air systems (UAS) such as …
Over the next decade, the Australian Government is planning to acquire seven MQ-4C Triton unmanned maritime surveillance aircraft, which will operate alongside between eight and 12 manned P-8A Poseidons. Together, they’ll replace the RAAF’s 18 …
Fifteen years ago, I wrote a little book, entitled Globalization and its Discontents, describing growing opposition in the developing world to globalizing reforms. It seemed a mystery: people in developing countries had been told that …
Some big strategic brains fit the proof about why journalists shouldn’t run things—merely watch five of ‘em decide where to lunch. Robert O’Neill shatters that proof. Here’s a big strategic brain that can think and …
It was a good week for women in Japan, with the country’s first female Defence Minister (2007), Yuriko Koike, breaking through another glass ceiling to become the first female governor of Tokyo—despite sharp opposition from …
It’s difficult to keep track of disarmament fora. So readers could be forgiven for overlooking the fact that the UN’s Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations will hold its third …
Now everyone’s had their say. Some branded the decision to not nominate Kevin Rudd for UN Secretary General as puerile and pathetic, while others preferred to pretend the decision was simply a ‘difficult’ one on …
The Australian Department of Defence has a continuing attraction for the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) office. The attraction can readily be seen in the ongoing trend towards an ever-increasing commitment of the defence budget …
Welcome to The Strategist Six, a feature that provides a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. 1. Since Narendra Modi became the prime …
The Beat Money, money, money, must be… laundered? Last week, the Basel Institute on Governance released its 2016 Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index, an annual ranking of 149 countries on money laundering and terrorism financing risks. …
The sudden death of Professor Jeffrey Grey of the University of New South Wales, Canberra—the academic component of the Australian Defence Force Academy—at the age of 57 has profoundly shocked not only the relatively small …
During the festive season of 1978, in an underground corner of the Pentagon, a group of Defense Intelligence Agency analysts was burning the midnight oil. For some months, they’d been monitoring the deployment of Chinese …
As a long term critic of the ‘silver bullet’ approach to military capability development, Gareth Robinson’s recent piece on the Third Offset Strategy got me thinking. Given the wealth of technical capability and capacity within …
President Obama released a new Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on US Cyber Incident Coordination last week. The document laid out who’s in charge during ‘significant cyber incidents’ targeting the US, with significant incidents rated at …
The United States’ presidential campaign, already long and tumultuous, will no doubt become even more so in the coming months, as the two parties’ nominees, now officially selected, face off ahead of November’s election. But …
Electronic computer technology has moved from valves to transistors to progressively more complex integrated circuits and processor designs, with each change bringing higher levels of performance. Now the advent of quantum computers promises a huge …