By Vice Admiral RAY GRIGGS
TODAY (30 June 2014) my flag will be hauled down and I will hand over command of the Royal Australian Navy to Vice Admiral Tim Barrett. It has been the most enormous privilege for me, to be given the honour of leading you all for the last three years and being the professional head of the best Navy in the world. It is not an honour that many are given.
By SAM BATEMAN
CHINA'S positioning of a state-owned oil rig in waters near the disputed Paracel Islands has led to increased tensions between China and Vietnam. While this has been seen as another demonstration of Chinese assertiveness, a closer look may tell a different story.
By NORNAN FRIEDMAN
LAST December, the Chinese province of Hainan announced an exclusively Chinese fishing zone covering much of the South China Sea. Chinese coast guard ships arrested some fishing vessels and seized their catch. Protests drew the claim that this was not a matter of Chinese national policy, merely a policy broached by a provincial government – but there has been no retreat on the Chinese part.
By MIKE FOGARTY
“THE VIETNAMESE Revolution might be said to have begun with nationalism and ended with communism.” (Hoang Van Chi)
The French lost their Indochinese colonies due to political, military, diplomatic, economic and socio-cultural factors. The fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 signalled a loss of French power.
THE Royal Australian Navy has made tangible progress in the past three years at a time when "the operational tempo of our small force has been frenetic", Vice-Admiral Ray Griggs said in a major speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Lockheed Martin White Ensign dinner on 12 June.
A tribute to Chaplain Roy Lovitt RAN 1961-1977.
ROY LOVITT was an RAN Chaplain from 1961-1977. His daughter PAULINE LOVITT writes of her father's years of service.
NORMAN Friedman explains why the U.S. Government circulated a 'wanted' poster showing five members of a shadowly Chinese cyber-espionage unit, and it was not to get them into a courtroom.
By Commander David Hobbs, MBE, RN (Rtd)*
TO THE the logical mind, the most surprising element of the 2007 decision to build two Canberra class LHDs was the acceptance by the Australian Government of advice from a lobby group that fighter aircraft based in Australia, with their limited radius of action and fixed supply chains, could provide support for these ships and their 'all-arms' battle groups wherever they might be deployed.
Lieutenant General Angus Campbell reflections on Operation SOvereign Borders given at the National Security Dinner, hosted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Austal are here.