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Japan’s first National Security Strategy

Last month, the Japanese government released the country’s first National Security Strategy (NSS). For Australia, this strategy is of considerable interest now that Japan’s seen as our ‘best friend in...

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Towards an unmanned air combat capability (part 1)

Malcolm Davis’s recent post considered unmanned air vehicles (UAV) and falling tactical fighter fleet numbers. The issues raised are worth exploring further as they directly relate to the ADF’s future...

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Towards an unmanned air combat capability (part 2)

 My last post discussed the new air combat era of integrated manned and unmanned aircraft operations. There’s a clear technology push for the ADF to acquire Strike/ISR UAVs. But before that happens,...

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Defence efficiency and other mythical beasts

Desultory interest is stirring once again amongst the occasional Minister and the chattering classes in making Defence efficient. In this quixotic quest ASPI has recently made a wide-ranging,...

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Does Australia need thinking ANZACs?

In a new book (and recent excerpt), James Brown argues that the Australian defence organisation is fearful of what today’s ANZACs might say if they were allowed to. This means that ‘one of the ADF’s...

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What strategy for the new Defence White Paper?

The Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, recently addressed the National Security Institute (PDF). He gave a tour de force tour d’horizon, focused on the development of the 2015 Defence...

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Reader response: Russia and Ukraine

Kym Bergmann gives an interesting potted history of Crimea up until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. However, it’s important not to neglect what happened since then. In the case of Ukraine, in exchange...

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Using Coles to make Defence more effective and efficient?

The successful 2012 Coles review could be noteworthy for more than just advising on submarine sustainment. It might also suggest a different model to consider for improving the effectiveness and...

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Keeping the local jihadist menace manageable

 The Sydney siege and the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris have highlighted that jihadist violence is on the rise. But what can be done to keep us safe? In the clear absence of any effective grand...

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Strategy and China’s South China Sea

The failings of the counter-strategies, raised in William Choong’s provocative piece on China’s successful South China Sea strategy, have been ...

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Uncertainty, China’s rise and force structure planning

When talking about current defence and security matters there seems strong agreement on at least one characteristic: that the future is uncertain. Of course that’s true, and many things could...

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Defence and money: how to manage in an era of austerity?

Money it would seem really is the root of all evil, or at least the lack of it! Many defence commentators would agree with George Bernard Shaw in that judgement. The problem for Australian defence—and ...

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Australia’s quixotic quest for defence self-reliance: time to move on?

At a 6:30pm talk with reporters at the (now old) Officers Club in Guam on the 25 July 1969, President Nixon changed Australian defence policy. He announced that in future countries fighting internal...

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How to manage long project timelines? (part one)

Andrew Davies’s recent post about long project timelines highlights issues that everyone accepts but rarely factors into the planning and management of the future force structure; modern projects take...

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How to manage long project timelines? (part 2)

I discussed previously that force structure planning should take into account that new equipment projects have very long timelines—Andrew Davies’ post this morning explains clearly the downsides of...

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Soft power, strategy and policymaking

Soft power is back in vogue. The Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, stressed in the debate with Bob Carr at the Lowy Institute on Tuesday night that Australia needs to focus more on ...

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Strategic narratives, our defence white papers and their audiences

The idea of strategic narratives is stirring again (and here). The idea was reinvigorated a few years back by Mr Y, a US Army Colonel and a USN Captain, who proposed a new American national ...

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The Alliance is dead, long live the Alliance

Our well-worn alliance with the US ceased to exist a little while ago, at least in the way we’ve known it for several decades. The familiar parameters within which Australia operated for many years...

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2% of GDP: it might be logical, but is it rational?

Remarkably, there’s now bipartisanship in Australian Defence. Both major parties agree that the Defence Budget should be 2% of GDP. The only difference is the timing in getting there. While some...

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Making better national security (and defence) decisions

New governments always rethink the machinery of state. The main aim is to make better decisions than the last lot—if only principally to retain government at the next election! So, in the field of...

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Australia–Canada engagement and special operations forces

At first glance, the ASPI and CIGI push for Australia to help Canada engage our region to advance its economic interests doesn’t make much sense. Canada is doing nicely already—like in China for...

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Our special forces and the next white paper

To look at recent defence white papers you wouldn’t know that Australia’s special forces (SF) had been deeply involved in the 9/11 wars and have suffered half the killed in action losses. Indeed,...

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A ministerial-led sea-change on the way?

The principal Liberal Party defence proposals at the recent election were to increase funding, deliver yet another White Paper and have yet another reform program. All pretty standard stuff really,...

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Electronic surveillance of all by all

The arcane world of electronic surveillance is suddenly prominent. Based on Edward Snowden’s comments, the media holds that America dramatically expanded electronic surveillance after the 9/11...

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What’s the best kind of Navy for us?

Once again battle has been joined on the shape of Australia’s next Navy. While this may appear as merely differing opinions on our future navy’s role, lurking barely submerged are the omnipresent (sea)...

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Reader response to naval navel gazing (part 2)

Graeme Dobell produced two nice pieces on naval navel gazing, but perhaps lacks the courage of his earlier convictions! In his latest post he posits that: ‘The central strategic tension in Oz naval...

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Reinventing the Defence Capability Plan

The recent ANAO report on the Defence capability reform highlights the key role now played by the Defence Capability Plan (DCP). Since its introduction in 2000, the DCP has come to dominate the ADF...

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China, strategy and the ADIZ duel

China’s ADIZ extension certainly got everyone’s attention. Externally, the consensus was overwhelmingly negative and in encouraging other states to balance with the US against China, the ADIZ decision...

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Shortcomings of the next defence white paper (part 1)

The title of this post sounds outrageous. How can there be any shortcomings of the next Defence White Paper (DWP) when it’s yet to be written? But the next DWP won’t emerge from thin air—it’ll ...

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A Strategist retrospective: grand strategy – Australia and China

Originally published October 9, 2012. (This post was the final in a series by regular contributor Peter Layton on the topic of grand strategy. The previous ones are linked in the text and at the ...

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A Strategist retrospective: the declining USAF tactical fighter fleet

This post was originally published on November 12, 2012. (The Strategist will return with new material on Monday January 6, 2014) Andrew Davies’ graph of the week about the elderly USAF tactical...

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Shortcomings of the next defence white paper (part 2)

In part 1 of my post, I observed that the next Defence White Paper (DWP) will build upon its seven predecessors. That post looked inward at the resourcing shortcomings that DWPs generally feature. This...

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The third age of Australian Defence White Papers continues

There’s always a certain anticlimax when the latest Defence White Paper is released. The once-feverish anticipation eases as firm plans are set in concrete and potential maybes are accepted or...

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ANZUS in Trumpland—should we have seen it coming?

Andrew Davies’ recent post on the possibility of Donald Trump as US President presents an interesting alternative future that could cause a fundamental rewrite of our defence plans. In concluding, he...

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How to overhaul the dismal trade of strategy

There’s no shortage of dark, pessimistic visions out there, including a revisionist Russia, an assertive China, the end of globalisation, a declining America and an endless war on terrorism. A...

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The strategic dimensions of Australia’s new defence minister diarchy

For the first time Australia now has two senior ministers in the Defence portfolio, with Marise Payne as Minister for Defence and Christopher Pyne as Minister for Defence Industry. Minister Pyne is...

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The South China Sea’s worsening strategic dilemmas

The world has moved on but most South China Sea strategies are stuck in the past. For example, Australia’s policies have changed very little from 2011 to today. So instead, let’s think about strategies...

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Trapped in a long war

Australia has been part of America’s long war against terrorism since the war began in 2001. In the first stage (2001–02), al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was badly mauled in a quick special forces and...

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Five fifth-generation warfare dilemmas

The future of the ADF is ‘fifth generation’, or at least the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force think so. It might’ve been just a passing fad, given that the term originated as a ...

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Contested skies: our uncertain air superiority future

In war, there’s a constant to and fro. At times defence dominates, at other times offence. Technologies arise and fall. Disruption rules. This is noticeably so in today’s arcane world of air...

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A grand strategy Plan A for Australia?

Worry abounds. There are calls for radically new defence policies, a defence Plan B, a doubling of defence spending, a nuclear deterrent, a conventional one and, most recently, a national security...

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Non-technical measures can help reduce Australia’s vulnerability to foreign...

Most now agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, using social media manipulation to support its preferred candidate. In Australia, China has been engaging in old-fashioned...

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Beyond ‘balancing’: alternative US grand strategies for dealing with China...

It’s time to start paying attention. The US–China spat is doubling down. The hardline speeches given by Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe and then acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan at the...

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Social mobilisation in a contested environment

As geostrategic circumstances darken, there’s new interest in military mobilisation. For Australia, that involves moving the Australian Defence Force beyond its normal peacetime rate of effort. It can...

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Bringing the defence force into Australia’s climate-change fight

It’s time to structure the Australian Defence Force for this long, hot century. That doesn’t mean making it better suited to engaging in offshore climate-change-related activities, as the 2016 defence...

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Keeping the Australian Defence Force in the climate-change fight

A month on from my earlier post on bringing the Australian Defence Force into the global warming fight, a lot has changed. Responding to the national bushfire catastrophe, the government has deployed...

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The case for automated airbases in a post-pandemic Australia

There’s a constant in Australian defence: not enough people. In peacetime, the defence organisation’s difficulties with recruitment are an ongoing saga, occasionally surfacing in headlines like ‘Sailor...

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Designing an Australian grand strategy for China

For Australia, China looms large, but the reverse is not necessarily true. The Chinese Communist Party has many pressing issues domestically in managing 1.3 billion people and the world’s second...

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The ADF could be doing much more with artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a general-purpose technology that is steadily becoming pervasive across global society. AI is now beginning to interest the world’s defence forces, but the military comes...

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The defence gaps in Australia’s emerging grand strategies

The world is again a dangerous place. A very real war is underway in Europe, while in the Indo-Pacific China is undertaking a rapid arms build-up, the political leadership in Beijing is making...

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