Hugh White sees the US–Australia military alliance weakening, possibly disappearing, as China’s rise undermines US hegemony in East Asia and as US relative power wanes. ‘We will really be on our own’, he observes in …
You don’t have to be as pessimistic as I am about the future of American power in Asia to start seriously thinking about what we should do if it falters. You only have to accept …
Australia must massively reorganise its planned defence structure by selling off most of its surface ships, abandoning those still to be built and replacing them with a fleet of 24 or even 36 submarines and …
Successful defence white papers have to find the right resting place between four sets of demands: politics; strategy and policy; military capability; and money. That’s what makes them so interesting, and also so hard to …
The first question that people ask me about the defence budget is, ‘Will it reach 2% by 2020–21 as the government promised?’ The short answer is yes. According to the budget papers, the consolidated defence …