One of the strengths in Australia’s relationship with Japan is our shared ability to deliver substance as opposed to verbal bombast unmoored to practical outcomes. Australia claims to have strategic partnerships with many countries, usually …
Originally published 21 September 2021. If the architects of the AUKUS pact and its headline initiative to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines imagined it would be seen as proliferation neutral, the reality might not be …
Originally published 30 September 2021. It is correct, as former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has asserted, that few of the questions raised by the government’s announcement that Australia will acquire nuclear-propelled submarines (SSNs) have been answered. …
Former defence minister Kim Beazley has delivered a sobering comparison between how Australia dealt with the lead-up to World War II and the complex and deteriorating strategic situation it faces now. Now governor of Western …
Australia may have a way of very cheaply and quickly expanding its submarine force, improving its defences this decade and preparing for its planned nuclear-powered boats. We might do this by buying good second-hand submarines …
Australia’s freshly drafted free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom is an example of what can be done when two countries decide to put some priority and effort into cooperation. Good results flow. What a shame …
Sea state HMS Queen Elizabeth has returned home from its seven-month maiden deployment to the Indo-Pacific. The aircraft carrier led Carrier Strike Group 21, which cumulatively covered around 500,000 nautical miles, visited more than 40 …
The brisk construction of AUKUS—the new Australia–UK–US technology-focused trilateral that made world headlines in September—reflects how much the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific is changing, and how quickly. Traditional security issues continue to loom large, …
On 16 September 2021, the Australian government announced that it would acquire a nuclear-powered submarine capability with support from the UK and the US as the first measure of business under the AUKUS technology-sharing partnership. …
The sad saga of the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter has been running for a long time. Back when I worked in the Department of Defence, we used to occupy ourselves from time to time calculating how …
This month marks 30 years since the USSR collapsed voluntarily. It’s rare in world history that such a militarily powerful empire disappears without going to war. The Soviet Union had 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads, 260 …
A recent test flight of Boeing Australia’s Airpower Teaming System, the second such flight in the ‘Loyal Wingman’ program, which currently has two test aircraft, saw the first aircraft retract its undercarriage for the first …