Australia’s Pacific infrastructure boost
By Roland Rajah*
Australia has decided it is going to do a lot more infrastructure financing in the Pacific.
This is a welcome development. The Pacific...
NZ’s Pacific-China reset
By Christian Novak*
In February, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced a revised approach to the Pacific islands. Central to the coalition government’s ‘Pacific...
Coastguard academy would boost security for Australia and region
By John Coyne*
Over the past decade, maritime security concerns have featured prominently in ASEAN member states’ individual and collective agendas. Issues as diverse as...
‘Forward defence in depth’ for Australia
By Malcolm Davis*
Australia’s defence force structure has evolved over many years around defending the ‘sea–air gap’ as a perceived strategic moat. That construct dates...
The ANAO’s major projects report: missing sub-stance
By Michael Shoebridge*
It’s a fantastic idea: given the government is spending some 36.4 billion taxpayer dollars on defence, much of which is in the...
How the fleet forgot to fight
By Dmitry Filipoff*
Force Development
Exploring the future of conflict while preparing to wage it is a daunting task. Military forces are constantly attempting to perceive...
The new era of great-power competition
By Graeme Dobell*
The first strategic priority for Australia in the Indo-Pacific is to manage great-power competition. And the central trend of that competition is...
Boost to parliamentary defence committee needed
Secisions of national importance are made behind closed doors. The public, and even parliamentarians, must rely on promotional releases or leaked details for information about major programs. There are good reasons for secrecy. But secrecy doesn’t have to take precedence over accountability and good standards of governance. There is now a bipartisan judgement that Australia needs a new statutory committee with an exclusive focus on defence — a joint parliamentary committee on defence.
Action needed to avoid submarine capability gap
The recent advice from the chief of Australia’s navy that the first Shortfin Barracuda may not come into service until the mid-2030s is sobering news, Peter Briggs writes. It’s time to inject some competition and provide an option that could avoid the issues with the future submarine program that appear to be unfolding — an option that could provide additional submarines quicker, cheaper and with less risk. The solution is an evolved Collins
Indonesia has a stake in Lombrum plans too
By Evan A Laksmana*
During the November APEC Summit, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the US will work with Australia and Papua New Guinea...