Wishful thinking dominates ‘failed’ White Paper
By Hugh White* THE 2016 Defence White Paper, launched last week, has been much admired for being hard-nosed about China, but it is only the latest in a long line of defence policy documents since 1994 that have tried to address the implications of China's rise for Australia's defence needs. And like them, it has failed, Huge White argues. Defence White Paper: playing by the rules
The 2016 Australian Defence White Paper puts a lot of stress on a "rules-based global order". Greg Raymond looks at the consequences and what this means for strategic defence thinking. It’s not America versus China: US Navy commander
The commander of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet says he is wary of the situation in the South China Sea being painted as a battle between the United States and China, but added that the presence of a Chinese missile system on a disputed island would not stop the US military from flying over the region. Australia’s West Coast Navy: the rise of HMAS Stirling
Serge DeSilva-Ranasinghe and Mitchell Sutton look at the increasing importance of HMAS Stirling, the largest naval base in Australia, and the only one on the country’s western seaboard. FoN exercise in South China Sea should be routine: Beazley
FORMER Defence Minister and Labor leader Kim Beazley says Australia should conduct routine freedom of navigation exercises through the contested waters of the South...
Photos from the recent International Fleet Review in India
Photos from the recent International Fleet Review in India. photographs by Michael Nitz of NAVAL PRESS SERVICE. China gearing for East Asia dominance: US commander
CHINA is "changing the operational landscape" in the South China Sea by deploying missiles and radar as part of an effort to militarily dominate...
Italy sending Russia a new nuclear waste transport vessel to haul submarine reactors
AN Italian barge and floating dock designed for Russia to further assist in transporting Soviet legacy nuclear waste to safe storage will soon be...
Naval Academy students learning to sail by the stars (again)
FOR centuries, sailors used sextants to plot their location on the trackless sea, lining up stars in the sky to find their own place...
Inside the US Navy’s radical plan for ‘Moore’s law’ warships
THE US Navy’s next generation surface combatants will be developed with information technologies baked into the core of their designs. While the Navy’s current generation of warships like the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers use digital information technology, they were designed in a different era when technology did not evolve as rapidly as today. The next generation replacement for those vessels will have to incorporate digital-information technologies from the outset – and will have to keep pace with rapid technical advancements, Dave Majumdar writes.