Can Defence convert money to capability?
It’s a brutal time to be a Commonwealth public servant working on the budget. Portfolio additional estimates statements—the mid-year budget update for portfolio agencies—were...
RN chief outlines vision to 2035
The First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key outlined his vision for the Royal Navy to 2035 to defence and shipbuilding industry leaders at Rosyth....
Frigates and changing defence planning
By Peter Jennings*
For the moment, Defence Minister Peter Dutton has decided to stick with the troubled Hunter-class frigate program. With his usual candour, he...
Defence planning catch-up needed
By Malcolm Davis*
The 2020s have begun a period of rapid change for Australian defence planners. The government’s 2020 defence strategic update and accompanying force...
Options for Australia’s n-subs
By Pete Sandeman*
The political and strategic ramifications of the AUKUS pact involving the US, UK and Australia continue to reverberate, but the details of...
Time to ditch “non-traditional security”
By James Goldrick and Blake Herzinger*
It is high time that we remove the term “non-traditional security” from our consideration of maritime affairs, and either...
DARPA and DSTG – and a case of espionage
By Clive Williams*
When I worked at the Australian embassy in Washington in the early 1990s, I would sometimes accompany scientists from our Defence Science...
Port Darwin: lost opportunities
By John Coyne*
It seems we’ll be waiting until at least sometime in the first quarter of 2022 for the government to decide on the...
Expanding threat spectrum for surface ships
By Sam Goldsmith*
The threat spectrum for surface combatants — ships that can engage air, surface, subsurface and shore targets — is rapidly expanding and...
Implementing Australia’s nuclear submarine program
ASPI is releasing a new report ‘Implementing Australia’s nuclear submarine program’ by Andrew Nicholls, Jackson Dowie and Dr Marcus Hellyer. This report analyses the decision space available...