news Pages

The military balance is shifting China’s way, and half-abandoning a policy of strategic ambiguity won’t change that. Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. Hugh White. 27 September 2022. The more often US ... more ...

Being able to sink ships doesn’t end a war. Australia should consider ballistic nuclear missile subs as an alternative. Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. Peter Layton. 29 September 2022. Nuclear-powered attack submarines ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Nick Danby. 28 Sep 2022. In September 2014, Sri Lanka stirred the embers of conflict in the Indian Ocean region by allowing Chinese naval vessels to dock at one of its ports. At the time, India took issue with the visit, ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. John Coyne. 29 Sep 2022 The terms of reference for the defence strategic review provided by the government to the independent leads are just short of two pages long. The length of this document doesn’t do justice to all that the ... more ...

War On The Rocks. John D. Maurer. 27 September, 2022 On Oct. 8, 1973, the Israel Defense Forces launched a major counterattack on Egyptian positions in the Sinai spearheaded by three armoured brigades. Israeli commanders expected to repeat their rapid 1967 victory over the ... more ...

The Spectator. Jonathan Sumption. 24 September 2022. Review of ‘Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate” by M.E. Sarotte. Yale University Press, This is an important and topical ... more ...

Submarine deals and ship deployment hint at Beijing’s power projection Nikkei Asia. Ken Moriyasu and Kiran Sharma. 27 September 2022. TOKYO/NEW DELHI – ... more ...

American sea power has always hinged on the nation’s ability to build and maintain alliances and partnerships. Proceedings. Tom Hone. July 2022. ... more ...

**Admiral Hyman G. Rickover ** This speech was delivered by Adm. Rickover at a Luncheon Meeting of the San Diego Rotary Club, San Diego, California, on Thursday, February 10, 1977. Voltaire once said: “Not to be occupied and not to exist are one and the same thing for a man.” ... more ...

Proposal seeks to expedite capabilities for ally by mid-2030s, until it can build its own, in bid to counter China Wall Street Journal. Michael R. Gordon. 23 September 2022. The Biden administration is exploring an arrangement to expedite Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines to ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Robert “Tony” Vincent. 23 September 2022. Aurora Borealis is the scientific term given to the natural light phenomenon of the Northern Lights. On July 9, 1962, the light phenomenon that Hawaiians watched was anything but natural. On that day, the ... more ...

A broader view of security offers enormous potential benefits for Australia. Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. Victor Abramowicz. 20 September 2022. n August this year, the Australian government announced a holistic Defence Strategic ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Robert Haddick. 21 September, 2022 Washington has already lost the war for Taiwan — at least according to the most recent wargames organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The think tank’s simulation of a conflict between the ... more ...

Reuters. Kirsty Needham. 20 September 2022. SYDNEY, Sept 20 (Reuters) - China sees the Pacific islands as an area of significant strategic interest ... more ...

War On The Rocks. David Walton. 20 September 2022. Is advancing women’s interests worth destroying America’s most elite military units? One can hardly peruse media (social and otherwise) without hearing histrionic tales of plummeting standards and woeful urban legends of the crumbling of ... more ...

Spectator Australia. Justin Bronk. 18 September 2022. In the run up to the Russian invasion in February airpower analysts, including this author, were gloomy about Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace. Even the more optimistic assessments assumed that Russia would mount a significant air ... more ...

How To Ensure China Can’t Dominate The Pacific? DR. JAMES HOLMES: THE NAVAL DIPLOMAT. August, 2022 If you harboured any doubt that the first island chain represents the focal point of strategy, counterstrategy, and counter-counterstrategy in the Western Pacific, take a gander ... more ...

Defense Media Network. Norman Friedman. January 2022. Most observers think of the Gulf War as a land and air campaign; surely the naval aspect was secondary. In fact it was primary: Without the seapower, the war could ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Brendan Nicholson. 6 Sep 2022 The prospect of the Royal Australian Navy’s promised nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) being built in Australia is firming up, along with a determination that they will be of a design shared with the United States or the ... more ...

Don’t expect any more tank columns massing on highways like sitting ducks. Defense One. Patrick Tucker. 14 September 2022. TEL AVIV, Israel—The future ... more ...

The Strategist. Lawrence Freedman. 14 Sep 2022. “How did you go bankrupt?’ ‘Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.’ ― Ernest Hemingway, The sun also rises As with bankruptcy so with military defeat. What appears to be a long, painful grind can quickly turn into a ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. James Garlick. 15 Sep 2022. A significant proportion of defence commentary these days is focused on quickly and cost-effectively enhancing the Australian Defence Force’s lethality in the context of China’s growing power and assertiveness. Much of this discussion is concerned with ... more ...

Australians deserve the details of what nuclear-powered submarines mean – for national defence and identity alike. The Interpreter. Sam Roggeveen. 13 September 2022. On 15 September 2021, Prime ... more ...

Ex-Google, DOD leaders paint dire picture unless U.S. organizes to win technology races. Defense One. Lauren C. Williams and Patrick Tucker. 12 September 2022. ... more ...

With diplomatic tensions and conflict commanding the world’s attention, it is increasingly clear that a new age of military operations beckons. Naval Technology. Andrew Tunnicliffe. 12 September, 2022 ... more ...

The first of five new corvettes recently arrived at King Faisal Naval Base in Jeddah, upgrading the Saudi fleet’s capabilities in the Red Sea. Breaking Defense, Agnes Helou. 9 September, 2022 BEIRUT — ... more ...

A narrative of resentment and betrayal The Atlantic. Tom Nichols. 10 September 2022 Run Amok I spent years teaching military officers who served in conflicts all around the globe. I am not naïve about the viciousness ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Michael Shoebridge. 2 Sep 2022. There’s a moment to realise that you’re being played for a sucker. That moment has come for the Australian government in the case of the current Solomons Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare. Since the new Australian ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Amin Saikal. 31 Aug 2022. As the Russo-Ukraine conflict continues with no resolution in sight, we are painfully reminded of not only the horror of war, but also how often major powers’ interventionism, for whatever objective, hasn’t paid off. These powers ... more ...

Defense News. Masao Dahlgren. 23 August 2022. History’s bloodiest wars often begin with ... more ...

The Strategist. Jeffrey Wall. 1 Sep 2022. The first visit to Papua New Guinea by Foreign Minister Penny Wong was probably a success the moment she arrived in Port Moresby. It removed, or at least eased, one longstanding irritant in the Australia–PNG relationship. It ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Graeme Dobell. 31 Aug 2022. Great powers don’t die in bed, the realist judgement goes. Empires fall amid flames and war. Not so, answered Mikhail Gorbachev, proving his greatness by achieving the gentle end of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s achievement was ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Rob Bourke. 30 Aug 2022. Dominating the debate on Australia’s defence-capability development is a long list of expensive new weapons to buy. But there are two broader issues to consider: the likely cost of development substantially exceeding the Defence Department’s planned ... more ...

‘Embarrassment’ as new aircraft carrier’s landmark mission to the US hangs in the balance over major fault The Telegraph. Dominic Nicholls and Danielle Sheridan. 30 August 2022 HMS Prince of Wales’s “landmark mission” to the ... more ...

Technological Advancements Are Helping Kyiv Succeed Foreign Affairs. Lauren Kahn. 29 August, 2022. At the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, most experts expected that Kyiv would fall quickly. Ukrainian forces were ... more ...

Silencing dissent also nips innovation in the bud Nikkei Asia. 29 August 2022. It emerged in the central Chinese province of Henan in June that local authorities had abused an anti-COVID app to contain the movements of more than 1,300 people. Yang, who lives in Shandong Province, is one of ... more ...

Adm. Gilday calls New Delhi an essential strategic partner of the future Nikkei Asia. Ken Moriyasu. 27 August 2022. TOKYO – India will ... more ...

The Australian. Ben Packham. 26 August 2022. Australia is looking to push ahead with the expansion of its F-35 stealth fighter fleet and is considering buying US B-21 bombers to give the nation a new long-range strike capability, in ... more ...

Why Beijing Can Afford to Bide Its Time Foreign Affairs. Oriana Skylar Mastro and Derek Scissors. 22 August, 2022. As relations between the United States and China have spiralled down to a half-century low, ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer. 25 Aug 2022. According to media reporting, the Australian defence company DefendTex will provide Ukraine with 300 of its Drone40 small uncrewed aerial vehicles. The specification sheet for the D40 says it has a range of 20 kilometres and ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. David Brewster. 25 Aug 2022. A recent study published by the US Army War College looks at how geography constrained the Soviet military presence in the Indian Ocean and the lessons that can be drawn for China’s efforts to become an ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Christopher P. Twomey. 22 August 2022. The Chinese military exercises that began on Aug. 3, 2022, have initiated the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis. The most immediate reason for this was Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei. But this is a ... more ...

The Australian. Cameron Stewart. 24 August 2022. A $6bn proposal to acquire three new air warfare destroyers ... more ...

Five questions with surface navy stakeholders Defense News. Megan Eckstein. 22 August 2022. WASHINGTON — The ... more ...

2022 Goldrick Conference Flyer.pdf 2022 Goldrick Conference Program.pdf ... more ...

National preparedness for a cross-strait emergency has been far behind what is necessary. The Diplomat. Kosuke Takahashi. 20 August, 2022. While China is increasing military pressure on Taiwan following the controversial visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, Japan is in ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Bob Moyse. 19 Aug 2022. In his latest ASPI Strategic Insight paper, Michael Shoebridge identifies the key challenges Australia’s defence strategic review faces. The terms of reference for the review say that its purpose is ‘to consider the priority of investment ... more ...

Forbes. David Axe. 18 August 2022. The commanders of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet are scared to send their surviving surface warships beyond sight of the Crimean coast. It’s not hard to understand why. In keeping 20 miles or so ... more ...

Why Time Is Running Out to Secure U.S. Interests Foreign Affairs. Gregory Poling. 18 August, 2022 Since the 1980s, the People’s Liberation Army Navy has sought to be the dominant power in the South China Sea. China has ... more ...

Center for International Maritime Security. Bill Shafley. 18 August 2022. A destroyer squadron (DESRON) staff’s employment as a Sea Combat Commander in the Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) construct is unnecessarily narrow and prevents a more lethal and agile strike group. Tomorrow’s fight requires multiple ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Michael Shoebridge. 17 Aug 2022. The Labor government’s defence strategic review will explore how the Australian military is positioned and enabled to operate in our region as the security environment requires. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the review on 3 August ... more ...

What Washington Can Learn From Beijing’s Overreaction Foreign Affairs. Ryan Hass. 16 August, 2022 In the aftermath of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ill-timed trip to Taiwan, China’s leaders were determined not to let a good ... more ...

Quadrant. Tom Lewis. 13 August 2022. The story of the midget submarine raids on Sydney is one in which senior commanders bungled and got away with it. Meanwhile, the commanders of the small ships that attacked and sunk two of the submarines went unrewarded. ... more ...

Baird Maritime. Anthony Bergin. 9 August, 2022 In January, the UK’s defence chief, Tony Radakin, warned that Russian submarine and underwater activities were directly ... more ...

“Under-manned units over-operate, resulting in an unrested and less specialized force. And the only real solution to this issue is to add fresh bodies to the force.” Breaking Defense. Mackenzie Eaglen. 12 August 2022. ... more ...

An analysis of foreign ministry statements from across the Asia-Pacific region reveals which countries are hewing close to China’s line, which lean toward the U.S., and which are staying neutral. The Diplomat. Shannon Tiezzi. Editor in Chief. 13 August 2022. ... more ...

The Australian. Paul Dibb. 15 August 2022. When announcing his Defence Strategic Review on ... more ...

A 2022 Reality Check On PLA Enlisted Force And Related Matters War on the Rocks. Marcus Clay, Dennis J. Blasko, Roderick Lee. 12 August, 2022 Modelled after the Soviet Red Army at its creation from its name to its first flag, the People’s Liberation ... more ...

Being Ready Is the Best Way to Prevent a Fight With China Foreign Affairs. Elbridge Colby. 10 August, 2022. Why isn’t the United States doing more to prepare for war with China ... more ...

The Mandarin. John Glenn. August 2022. There have been at least 50 Defence reviews in 50 years. The 2015 First Principles review listed 48 since the 1973 Tange review and there have been quite a few since. Not all were about procurement, of course, but all have been about better ... more ...

Valdai. Prokhor Tebin. 04 August, 2022. The new Naval Doctrine is strikingly different from the 2015 edition. The world described in it seems much more disturbing and dangerous; its potential for conflict has increased significantly, Valdai Club expert Prokhor Tebin writes. On Russian Navy ... more ...

USNI. John Grady. 5 August, 2022 Despite China’s recent aggression toward Taiwan, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster argued this week that Taiwan “not an easy military problem” for Beijing to solve. Speaking during a Hudson Institute online forum on Thursday, the retired Army ... more ...

How the War in Ukraine Turned Moscow Into Beijing’s Junior Partner Foreign Affairs. Alexander Gabuev. 9 August, 2022. The war in Ukraine has cut Russia off from much of the Western world. Barraged ... more ...

PLA announces continuation of military drills that were due to end Sunday Nikkei Asia. Thompson Chau. 8 August 2022. TAIPEI – Beijing’s encircling of Taiwan with large-scale ... more ...

Washington, Beijing and Taipei are watching each other closely as events unfold near Taiwan. Politico. Paul McCleary and Lara Seligman. 5 Aug 2022. ... more ...

Aukus could create unintended consequences Spectator. Ramesh Thakur. 6 August 2022. The Turnbull government’s decision to buy a fleet of diesel submarines from France instead of Japan was unsettling. Conversely, France’s existing nuclear-powered submarines, while eschewing nuclear weapons, would have cost less cost and ... more ...

The Strategist. Malcolm Davis. 4 Aug 2022. The Labor Party’s pre-election promise of a defence force posture review has now taken shape as a much more expansive strategic review encompassing the Australian Defence Force’s structure, posture and investment requirements over the next 10 years ... more ...

The Strategist. James Goldrick. 3 Aug 2022. Australia’s recent change of government provides a useful opportunity to reflect on the problems of the South China Sea and the way ahead for our national policies. In a sense, the clear continuity between the approach of ... more ...

Four unmanned surface vessels sailed with manned ships, sharing data and testing how they would operate with the larger U.S. fleet. Defense One. Caitlin M. Kenney. 3 August 2022 JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii—Docked by the sunken wreckage of a 1909 dreadnought, two ... more ...

Defense News. Megan Eckstein. 4 August 2022. MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII — ... more ...

Why Indo-Pacific Power Hinges on Taiwan Foreign Affairs. Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Caitlin Talmadge. August 2022. Of all the intractable issues that could spark a hot war between the United States and China, Taiwan is ... more ...

The Australian. Greg Sheridan. 3 August 2022. Australia’s Defence Force will be reshaped under an ambitious ­review to be announced on Wednesday by Anthony Albanese and the Defence Minister. The ... more ...

First hand account of the engineering success story behind Britain’s two new warships The Telegraph. Sir Bernard Gray. 1 August 2022. Asecret cabal of shadowy mandarins conspiring to subvert the state. The armed ... more ...

Spectator. David Archibald. 31 July 2022. In his 1966 book Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley noted that the Chinese communist regime in the 1950s was insanely aggressive. The Nationalist government they replaced had been just as expansionist. It was allegedly a Nationalist fishing boat ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Layton. 26 Jul 2022. 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 late to the game. Given this, defence forces ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer. 27 Jul 2022. The Labor government’s election platform contained a commitment to conduct a ‘defence force posture review’. Historically, Australia’s defence posture reviews have mainly considered where Australian Defence Force assets are based. Different stakeholders have inconsistent goals: the ... more ...

What interim solutions should Canberra explore ahead of the delivery of the Royal Australian Navy’s future SSN fleet? Defence Connect. 26 July 2022. During a visit to Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia earlier this month, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence ... more ...

How will the modern battlefield change as nations compete for hearts-and-minds through new information vectors? Almost every modern analysis of information operations cites the Sun Tzu line “to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” And rightly so. In the ... more ...

Don’t build a fleet to fight off a Chinese invasion force; build one that gives the U.S. and allies more options. Defense One. Bryan Clarke. 26 July 2022. U.S. Marines are using this year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise to practice with allies the tactics they would use to disrupt ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Chris Bernotavicius, Michelle Macander, Danielle Ngo, And John Schaus. 26 July, 2022 The U.S military is at risk of repeating Russia’s logistics failures in Ukraine during a war in the Indo-Pacific. One of the enduring images from Russia’s disastrous invasion ... more ...

Baird Maritime. Trevor Hollingsbee. 29 June, 2022 A popular conception is that international communications nowadays rely mainly upon satellites. This, though, is very far from being the case. There are about 440 undersea cables stretching over a total of 885,000 kilometres. These cables ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Koichiro Takagi. 22 July 2022. With the development of AI, neuroscience, and digital applications like social media, senior officers and strategists in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) claim that, in the future, it will be possible to influence the ... more ...

How can Australia offset the geopolitical risks of Chinese ascendancy in the event of a steep decline in US power? Defence Connect. Charbel Kadib. 22 JULY 2022. The Australian public is increasingly wary of Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, with recent military confrontations a ... more ...

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and the Limits of Military Power Foreign Affairs. Lawrence Freedman. July/August 2022 In February 27, a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian forces launched an operation to seize the Chornobaivka airfield near Kherson on the Black Sea coast. Kherson ... more ...

Admiral Sir Ben Key says ‘focusing solely on the bear risks missing the tiger’ and that China would have been emboldened by the Ukraine war. The Telegraph (UK). Danielle Sheridan. 19 July 2022. ... more ...

Defense News. Sebastian Sprenger. 15 July 2022. COLOGNE, ... more ...

The White House is expected to announce another weapons shipment to Ukraine this week. Defense One. Jacqueline Feldscher. 19 JULY, 2022. ... more ...

CIMSEC. Przemyslaw Ziemacki. 18 July 2022. Amphibious and transport operations can play a vital role at all levels of war, but landing craft can do much more than just move things – they can also shoot. The global growth of anti-access/area denial capabilities favours ... more ...

Defence Connect. 13 July 2022. With US defence spending and materiel flowing into Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is essential that US policymakers not overlook the looming security challenge in the Indo-Pacific. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth month, US ... more ...

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will visit Tehran next week, along with the leader of Turkey. But competition in oil markets reflects a complicated new landscape. New York Times. 12 July 2022. Tricky diplomatic terrain awaits as Russian leader travels to Tehran. ... more ...

The Australian. Adam Creighton. 13 July 2022. Defence Minister Richard Marles has cast doubt on the chance the nation’s first nuclear powered submarine — which he said could be UK-designed — would arrive much before the 2040s, fearing a “capability gap” will emerge as ... more ...

Self-inflicted damage is irreversible as long as Putin remains in charge Nikkei Asia. Ian Bremmer. 20 June 22. Russia continues to make gains on the ground in Ukraine, particularly in the Donbas region, where the ... more ...

Moscow’s withdrawal from strategic Snake Island shows ‘A2/AD’ is not easy Nikkei Asia. Sinan Tavasan. 5 July, 2022 ISTANBUL – When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, its ... more ...

Ukraine and the Dangerous Rise in Military Spending Foreign Affairs. Nan Tian, Diego Lopes da Silva, and Alexandra Marksteiner. 7 July, 2022 In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a host of countries ... more ...

Recent comments from Chinese officials highlight how Beijing purposefully conflates existing legal terminology with its own extra-legal claims. The Diplomat. Raymond Powell. 29 June, 2022 On June 13th, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin held an extraordinary press conference in which he made a ... more ...

China’s non-kinetic physical anti-satellite weapons, including DEWs, will play a critical part in future warfare. The Diplomat. Oskar Glaese. 29 June, 2022 China’s soon-to-be-completed space station has garnered much media attention as a symbol of Chinese power projection into space. In comparison, little attention ... more ...

Such a move would strengthen the international rules-based order Nikkei Asia. Kosuke Takahashi. 5 July, 2022 Bringing up a lot of good reasons for its self-justification, ... more ...

War On The Rocks. David Johnson. 5 July 2022. How would the high-tech U.S. military fare in a war against China or Russia? The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War may provide some answers. It may call into question some deeply held U.S. military axioms. Two of ... more ...

NATO’s game-changing commitment to boost military spending and high-readiness ­forces will transform the European balance of power in favour of democracies. But the opposite is occurring here. The Australian. Alan DuPont. 1 July 2022. ... more ...

The Australian. Greg Sheridan. 2 July 2022. With the NATO summit in Spain, attended by Anthony Albanese, ideological conflict has gone global. Australia lines up with its old friends, the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, even, astonishingly, New Zealand, and against its old enemies, ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer and Andrew Nicholls. 28 Jun 2022. In our previous post, we considered the likelihood of the US providing Australia with Virginia-class submarines this decade. Doing so would require the US Navy to give up two of its nuclear-powered attack ... more ...

CIMSEC. Steve Wills. 29 June 2022. The recent loss of the Russian Navy guided missile cruiser RFS Moskva from a cruise missile strike called forth many comparisons to previous losses of large surface combatants, including the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano and even the ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Dustin Walker. 29 June 2022. Eight years ago, Vladimir Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine and illegal seizure of Crimea forced the United States to get serious about deterrence in Europe — and pay for it. In the proceeding years, the ... more ...

The Australian. Hugh White. 25 June 2022. Our pro-war with China posture will do us great damage even if it never comes to war itself. As long as America ... more ...

The Strategist. John Garrick and Yan C. Bennett. 17 Jun 2022. President Xi Jinping’s ‘China dream’ now extends across the Pacific Ocean, where his foreign minister, Wang Yi, recently completed a Pacific islands tour of sweeping ambition. Set against the backdrop of China’s stagnating ... more ...

Why China Isn’t Poised to Invade Foreign Affairs. Andrew J. Nathan. 23 June , 2022 Concern is growing in Taiwan, in the United States, and among U.S. allies in Asia that China is preparing to attack Taiwan ... more ...

USNI. Mallory Shelbourne. 15 June, 2022 A bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled legislation that would help the Royal Australian ... more ...

The Spectator Australia. Jarrod Brady. 15 June 2022. Amidst the foreboding context of a declining West and a rising China, the Australian Defence Force is historically weak and shows little sign of changing course. The ADF is beset by a threefold disease of absent ... more ...

The laws set by the United Nations 40 years ago no longer suit the fight against modern-day crime on the high seas. The Lowy Institute. Thu Nguyen Hoang Anh. 9 June 2022. ... more ...

Marles warns build up is the biggest since WWII; concerned about Solomon deal NikkeiAsia. Rurika Imahashi and Kaori Takahashi. 14 June, 2022 TOKYO – China’s rapid military buildup is the biggest in ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Joe Bruhl. 14 June 2022. America’s ambivalence toward Africa puts it at a dangerous disadvantage there — and impacts U.S. leadership around the globe. While Washington focuses on the Russian military threat in Eastern Europe and Chinese expansionism in the ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 6 Jun 2022.Michael Shoebridge. The 26 May incident where a Chinese fighter aircraft fired flares and chaff at an Australian maritime patrol aircraft in international airspace above the South China Sea, risking a potentially fatal crash, is not an isolated episode. ... more ...

The Australian. Peter Dutton. 8 June 2022. When the AUKUS agreement was signed last ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer. 8 Jun 2022 In March, shortly before federal election, the Coalition government released a defence budget that continued its record of delivering the funding it promised in the 2016 defence white paper and 2020 defence strategic update. For 2022–23, ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Richard Dunley. 2 Jun 2022. Since the AUKUS announcement was made in September last year, a huge amount of ink has been spilled discussing the capabilities of nuclear-powered submarines, the merits of the potential designs, and the challenges of ensuring the ... more ...

Spectator Australia. Jarrad Brady. 1 June 2022. Australia is facing an existential crisis that demands immediate and radical action. The confluence of China’s rise, a declining America, and the parlous state of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) pose the gravest threat to Australia since ... more ...

The United States should pursue offensive mining capabilities against China in the Yellow Sea and the Pearl River Delta. USNI. Proceedings. Commander Victor Duenow, U.S. Navy. June 2022. ... more ...

Washington fears a possible Chinese invasion by 2027. It will need all the help it can get Nikkei Asia. Ken Moriyasu. 1 June 2022. ... more ...

The Australian. Greg Sheridan. 5 June 2022. An open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles Dear Anthony and Richard, Congratulations on your election win – majority ... more ...

War-Gaming Reveals How a U.S.-Chinese Conflict Might Escalate Foreign Affairs. Stacie L. Pettyjohn and Becca Wasser. 20 May, 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the specter of nuclear ... more ...

Compelling evidence suggests the Hornet CO deliberately filed a misleading report after the puzzling ‘flight to nowhere’ in the Pacific war’s pivotal battle. USNI Proceedings. Craig L. Symonds. May 2012 ... more ...

How Commercial Satellites Are Upending Conflict Foreign Affairs. Erik Lin-Greenberg & Theo Milonopoulos. 30 May, 2022 Days after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an emotional address to the European Parliament, pleading for ... more ...

The Thousand-Year Struggle Over Ukraine Foreign Affairs. Anna Reid. May/June 2022 On the evening of February 21, 2022, three days before Russian forces began the largest land invasion on the European continent since World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an angry televised ... more ...

While the contributions U.S. codebreakers made to victory at Midway are well known, cryptanalysts played a similarly important—though less appreciated—role in determining Japanese intentions leading up to the Battle of the Coral Sea. USNI. Proceedings. John Prados. June 2022. ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Brahma Chellaney. 24 May 2022 With global attention focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s territorial expansionism in Asia—especially its expanding border conflict with India—has largely fallen off the international community’s radar. Yet, in the vast glaciated heights of the Himalayas, ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. John Coyne. 25 May 2022 It took a while, but the idea that Australia’s strategic environment has become more uncertain seems to have been accepted by policymakers. Also largely accepted is that this period won’t just pass—in time, historians might measure ... more ...

The Royal Navy will soon have three new frigate classes, namely the Type 26, Type 31 and Type 32 but how much do you really know about them? This brief guide should bring you up to speed on the basics. UK Defence Journal. George Allison. 25 May, 2022. ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Zack Cooper and Gregory Poling. 24 May 2022. The biggest announcement from President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia may be the one that got the least attention. The Quad, a grouping consisting of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, ... more ...

Security pact tests old benefactors like Australia amid vaccine diplomacy rush Nikkei Asia. Elizabeth Beattie. 17 May, 2022 ... more ...

CIMSEC. Robert C. Rubel. 18 MAY, 2022. Thomas Friedman’s 13 April New York Times opinion piece recounts an interview with John Arquilla, a distinguished former grand strategy instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School. In explaining Ukraine’s impressive military performance in the face of ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Mike Pietrucha. 18 May, 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off a flurry of handwringing over Taiwan. Russia, in this interpretation, “broke the ice” by attacking Ukraine, emboldening China versus Taiwan. But any such action by China would likely run ... more ...

Security pact tests old benefactors like Australia amid vaccine diplomacy rush Nikkei Asia. Elizabeth Beattie. 17 May 2022. TOKYO – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison boasted in March about how his country’s COVID-19 vaccine aid to Pacific islands had prevented a Chinese “incursion” into the region. About two weeks later, ... more ...

Calls to cut burden drowned by need for U.S. and Japan to face off China Nikkei Asia. Yukio Tajima, Ryo Nemoto, and Shogo Kodama. 14 May, 2022 TOKYO/NAHA, Okinawa – Sunday ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Jennings. 10 May 2022. Unexpectedly, the loudest exchange in the pre-election debate between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese on Sunday night was over the Port of Darwin. The 99-year lease of the port to a Chinese ... more ...

CIMSEC. Richard Mosier. 12 May, 2022 The concept for Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) is based on three bedrock tenets: the distributed force must be hard-to-find, hard-to-kill, and lethal. For decades, the Navy has been focused on and has continuously improved its fleet defense capabilities ... more ...

Dear NHSA Members and Volunteers in NSW, Although this message is primarily addressed to those of you resident in Sydney, please read the attachment and pass it on to others in Sydney whom you feel may have an interest in supporting your Society. The attachment is an appeal for volunteers ... more ...

Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. Sam Roggeveen. 10 May 2022. Frustrating Beijing’s ambitions to create a sphere of influence is overwhelmingly a diplomatic task, not a military one. ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Bob Moyse.12 May 2022. The electioneering in Australia over the security agreement between China and Solomon Islands has obscured important questions about why the deal came about and its future implications. At the core of China’s grey-zone tactics is the principle ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer.11 May 2022. There will be much celebration of the Royal Australian Navy’s achievements at this week’s Indo-Pacific Sea Power Conference and maritime exposition. They are significant. Five years of Indo-Pacific Endeavour activities have demonstrated the navy’s ability to generate ... more ...

Don’t say we haven’t been warned The Spectator. Dimitri Burshtein. 7 May 2022. The recently signed security pact between the Solomon Islands and the People’s Republic of China is a shot across Australia’s bow. It warrants a thorough reassessment of security strategies and policies ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Conrad Crane. 9 May 2022. At the turn of the 20th century, Polish Jewish banker Ivan Bloch compiled a detailed analysis of the potential effects of war between major powers. He saw a world of interconnected economies with vast industrial ... more ...

The world looks very different when viewed from the North Pole. Dr Pippa Malmgren’s Post 18 April 2022 We see the Finns moving their tractors to the border with Russia and banning all vehicles with Russian ... more ...

Organizations and people who can rapidly and effectively adapt are more likely to prevail. USNI Proceedings. Captain Gerard Roncolato, U.S. Navy (Retired). May 2022. ... more ...

Destruction of critical infrastructure by long-range precision strikes has become the Russian Navy’s newest mission. Proceedings, May 2022. Commander Joshua Menks, U.S. Navy, and Michael B. Petersen ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Lesley Seebeck. 4 May 2022. The early days in any great undertaking can be chaotic. The AUKUS partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States was announced last September, and it may be a little premature to worry about ... more ...

Watching Russian setbacks in Ukraine, Washington eyes expanded fuel storage in Japan Nikkei Asia. Ryo Nakamura. 4 May, 2022. WASHINGTON – The U.S. ... more ...

SMH. Peter Hartcher. 3 May 2022. Beijing may have established the political foundation for a military base in Solomon Islands, but Australia has options for responding. Other than fuming and threatening. Australian politicians like to call the South Pacific region “Australia’s backyard”. So what do you do if the tendril ... more ...

War On The Rocks. David Finkelstein. 2 May 2022. Among those observing the Russian military’s ongoing operations in Ukraine, few will be watching and assessing its performance more intensely than those in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Analysing the wars of other countries ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Jennings. 28 Apr 2022. Australia’s Pacific security problem is simple: we’re not thinking big enough about our role and we have convinced ourselves that we’re incapable of moving quickly to counter China. Canberra policymaking has dumbed down. Note how big ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Brahma Chellaney. 28 Apr 2022. When the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was first conceived as a strategic coalition of the Indo-Pacific’s four leading democracies, many doubted that it would amount to much. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi mocked it as a ‘headline-grabbing ... more ...

A naval base in Equatorial Guinea would be a calamity for Washington Nikkei Asia. Liam Gibson. 30 April 2022. How ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Andrew Davies. 28 Apr 2022 Just for a change, there’s a bit of heat around discussions of the future of armour and surface ships. I thought ASPI analyst William Leben’s recent Strategist piece was a good one in its attempt to ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. David Shackleton . 28 Apr 2022. In 2009, Australia’s government decided that it would replace eight Anzac-class frigates with nine ships optimised for antisubmarine warfare (ASW). There was no justification in the Royal Australian Navy capstone doctrine for acquiring and optimising ... more ...

Spectator. Christopher Blattman. 26 April 2022. As horror mounts over Russia’s war crimes, the clamour for Vladimir Putin to be held to account is growing. Joe Biden has accused Russia of committing genocide in Ukraine and has labelled the Russian president a ‘war criminal’. ... more ...

Quadrant. Peter Smith. 27 April 2022. _AP News flash, April 27, 2036: The longstanding president of the Independent Republic of Western Australia (IRWA), Mark McGowan, has announced his government’s intention to sign a security pact with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Western Australia ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Andrew Goodman. 26 April 2022. Observers commonly describe Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a reckless gamble. But the Putin I came to know in St. Petersburg during the early 1990s was not a gambler in the classic sense, much less a ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. James Jeffrey. 19 Apr 2022. Once better known for its distinctive style of making potent coffee and its gelatinous confectionary cubes called Turkish Delight, these days Turkey is making a name for itself through a more deadly means: as a major ... more ...

War On The Rocks. B.J. Armstrong. 21 April 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine appears, on the surface, to be a land war. Newspapers lead with photographs of burned-out tanks, and on television and online we hear about the Belorussian border and truck convoys ... more ...

In Sydney, the NWOA will form up in Castlereagh Street between Hunter Street and Martin Place at 0915. We will be positioned astern of the Naval Association and ahead of YARRA. The march is expected to step off at 0930. ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Jennings. 21 Apr 2022. China’s treaty on security cooperation with Solomon Islands has two key purposes. First, it helps to extend the military reach of the People’s Liberation Army, complicating America’s task of moving its own forces through the Pacific. ... more ...

The Australian. Ben Packham. 21 April 2022. Australia and the US are bracing for the rapid deployment of ­Chinese security forces to ... more ...

Modern Australian military theorists must look back to the Falklands War to glean essential lessons in distributed lethality and logistics in remote and island centric warfare, writes former naval officer and defence industry analyst Chris Skinner. On 12 April 1982, the United Kingdom declared ... more ...

The Lowy Institute. Susannah Patton. 20 April 2022. Australia’s relationships with countries in Southeast Asia are not bad. The prime minister or foreign minister could happily turn up in any regional ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Paul Greenfield and Jon Stanford. 13 Apr 2022. Since the British Type 26 was announced as the reference design for Royal Australian Navy’s nine Hunter-class frigates, the program has been controversial. The recent leaked report on the system design review was ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Jason W. Davidson. 14 April 2022. In the midst of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, NATO turned 73. Strangely, this might be the alliance’s best year ever. Or at least it seems that way: There is an emerging consensus among policymakers ... more ...

CIMSEC. David Scott. 14 April 2022. Currently, much of the attention given to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is focused on the land and air domains; but the Russian Federation Navy has also played a role in the Black Sea, where there has been some ... more ...

_“GPS is an enormous bargaining chip for Vladimir Putin” – George Beebe, former Chief Russia Analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency _ C4ISRNET. Dana A. Goward and Rep. John Garamendi. 13 April 2022. On November 15, 2021 a missile streaked into space from Russia, ... more ...

Center for International Maritime Security. Michael B. Petersen. 11 April 2022. How might Russian maritime forces be brought to bear against the United States and its allies? This question is particularly critical as fears of inadvertent escalation in Ukraine increase. Understanding the answer requires ... more ...

It depends whom you ask. Task & Purpose. Jeff Schogol. 8 April, 2022 While ... more ...

British Foreign Policy Group. Sophie Gaston & Rana Mitter. 7 April 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the military and humanitarian crisis it has precipitated in our European neighbourhood has compelled a range of questions about another security theatre – the Indo-Pacific – and ... more ...

Port City Colombo catches eyes in Hong Kong and beyond, but turmoil poses risks Nikkei Asia. Marwaan Macan-Markar. 5 April, 2022. ... more ...

The Strategist. John Coyne. 6 Apr 2022 If you’re confused about what’s happening with the Port of Darwin after last week’s federal budget and the media coverage that followed, you’re not the only one. It’s always a challenge to penetrate the veil of Canberra’s ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Sam Goldsmith. 5 Apr 2022. ‘Vampire! Vampire! Vampire!’—three words that would send shivers down the spine of any ship’s captain. This is because ‘vampire’ is the US military’s brevity code for a hostile anti-ship missile. Typically, advanced anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer. 7 Apr 2022. The government delivered a barrage of missile announcements over the past couple of days. It’s not easy to distinguish what’s new from a semi-announcement of something that’s already been announced or is an existing part of ... more ...

The Australian. Greg Sheridan. 5 April 2022. If Australia could guarantee its ­security through announcements, we would be the most secure nation in the world. The government has finally decided ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Jennings. 4 Apr 2022. In the new cold war, Southeast Asia is becoming a contested zone where China, the US and its allies are fighting to sustain their access and influence. This matters deeply to Australia because the superpower that ... more ...

The Australian. Greg Sheridan. 2 April 2022. We should not take peace in the Indo-Pacific for granted.” – Defence Minister Peter Dutton “It does change the calculus if Chinese Navy vessels ... more ...

Spectator. Gabriel Gavin. 31 March 2022. Russian forces have reportedly been ordered to watch last year’s state-funded propaganda film Sky. The Kremlin-funded drama follows the lives of Russian airmen in Syria, where an estimated 18,000 people are believed to have died in Moscow’s bombings. ... more ...

Russia’s Setbacks in Eastern Ukraine Show Why It Can’t Win the Wider War Foreign Affairs. Brian Milakovsky. 31 March 2022. On March 25, the deputy chief of the Russian military declared that the main emphasis of Russia’s brutal one-month-old Ukraine invasion ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. David Feeney. 31 Mar 2022. The war in Ukraine has several features with which we in Australia are already familiar. The Ukrainian state has dominated the information war in our news cycles and social media. We have seen images of smashed ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Malcolm Davis. 31 Mar 2022. News that a draft security agreement between Solomon Islands and China may soon be formalised has raised concerns in Canberra that Beijing could use it to establish a military base on Australia’s northern doorstep. If the ... more ...

Center for International Maritime Security. Michael Knickerbocker. 29 March, 2022. The People’s Liberation Army – Navy, PLA(N), has rapidly modernized and grown their fleet with advanced warships and weapons. China’s fleet expansion and widening air defense system reach threaten the United States’ power projection ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Michael Shoebridge. 23 Mar 2022. It’s disturbing to see $18–27 billion of Australian government money about to be spent on more than 400 heavily armoured ‘infantry fighting vehicles’ when we’re busily watching yet another conflict in which military vehicles like these ... more ...

Strategy relies on a steady progression of actions to outmanoeuvre rival states Nikkei Asia. Brahma Chellaney. 29 March, 2022. ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Briggs. 22 Mar 2022. I should start by affirming my support for Australia’s transition to nuclear-propelled attack submarines, or SSNs, as my detailed study, delivered to the Department of Defence in 2013, and my public advocacy implies. I think it ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Ulas Yildirim. 23 Mar 2022. During the 2020 Nagarno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijani forces used expendable drones to target Armenia’s conventional forces and destroy their tanks, artillery and air-defence systems. The conflict provides a broad example of how a competent irregular or asymmetric ... more ...

How to End a War That No One Is Likely to Win Foreign Affairs. Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage. 23 March, 2022 The twentieth century’s two world wars are an endless source of precedents and analogies. The lead-up to World War II produced the ... more ...

CIMSEC. Ryan Martinson. 21 March 2022. Today, Chinese underwater gliders operate throughout the Indo-Pacific, from the Bay of Bengal to the Bering Sea, from high seas to sovereign waters. These winged, torpedo-like submersibles are being deployed in droves to collect information about the marine ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer. 17 March 2022. Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an increase of 18,500 to the Department of Defence’s full-time workforce by 2040. I’ll spare you the (semi-)snarky commentary about (semi-)announcements this time and get straight to unpacking what ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Jelena Vićić and Rupal N. Mehta. 14 March 2022. Nearly three weeks ago, U.S. President Joe Biden was purportedly presented with a range of cyber options to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So far, not much is known about ... more ...

At a small lunchtime ceremony on Friday 11 March, at the Bodalla Hotel, Bodalla, on the south coast of NSW, Vice Admiral Robert Andrew Kevin Walls, AO, RAN (Rtd) was made a Life Member of the Association. The award recognised VADM Walls’ long-standing commitment to the Association, and his leadership, ... more ...

In Ukraine, Good Intentions Can’t Redeem a Bad Idea Foreign Affairs. Richard K. Betts. 10 March, 2022. Faced with a brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, many Americans and Europeans are pushing for their governments to provide as much military support as possible ... more ...

Spectator Australia. Mary Dejevsky. 8 March 2022. Russia is now as closed off to the world as the Soviet Union was before Mikhail Gorbachev made his first tentative steps towards glasnost more than 40 years ago. Pretty much all the progress that post-Soviet Russia ... more ...

Moscow aims to use Arctic waters as strategic link between Asia and Europe Nikkei Asia. Ko Sakai. 13 March, 2022 ... more ...

War On The Rocks. John D. Maurer. 10 March 2022. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s recent nuclear threats against his neighbors are drawing renewed attention to the critical importance of nuclear weapons. Putin’s recent threats, while outrageous, are only the ... more ...

Robert Service, a leading historian of Russia, says Moscow will win the war but will lose the peace and fail to subjugate Ukraine. How Putin could be deposed. Wall Street Journal. Tunku Varadarajan. 4 March 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from two immense ... more ...

Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives are keen in engage and will help plug a gap in Australia’s Indo Pacific strategy. The Lowy Institute. David Brewster. 2 March 2022. Australia’s ... more ...

Joe Biden is poised to follow Jimmy Carter’s fate unless he applies history from 50 years ago to rescue his presidency from terminal malaise. The Australian. Niall Ferguson. 3 March 2022. It is just over a year ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Calder Walton. 28 February 2022. In a press conference at the end of last week, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “convinced” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to invade Ukraine. Asked why, he said simply: “We have ... more ...

The New Yok Times. Thomas L. Friedman. 25 February 2022. The seven most dangerous words in journalism are: “The world will never be the same.” In ... more ...

Russia’s Invasion Could Unleash Forces the Kremlin Can’t Control Foreign Affairs. Douglas London. 26 February, 2022 Russian forces have struck targets across Ukraine and seized ... more ...

To appreciate Putin’s intent, you only have to look at Russian history The Spectator. Niall Ferguson. 25 February 2022. ‘War’, in Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s most famous dictum, ‘is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.’ A ... more ...

WOTR. Chris Dougherty. 23 February, 2022 Far from being a deterrent to aggression, American military bases in Asia are a tempting target. U.S. Indo-Pacific bases are vulnerable to myriad Chinese attacks. Threats to airbases are especially worrying since they host so much concentrated U.S. ... more ...

Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Benjamin Jensen, Bonnie Lin & Carolina Ramos. 16 February, 2022 The Issue This brief explores escalation dynamics in China’s grey zone campaign targeting Taiwan based on the results of 20 crisis simulations. CSIS finds that U.S. policymakers face shadow risk in grey zone confrontations: ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Zack Cooper. 21 February, 2022 For those watching for signs of the Biden administration adopting a more deliberate and strategic approach to Asia, last week delivered fodder for both optimists and pessimists, as the administration released its Indo-Pacific Strategy. This ... more ...

Canberra should look beyond the Quad and to its own backyard for an all-weather strategic friend. The Interpreter. Sam Roggeveen. 15 February 2022. he fuss made ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Brendan Nicholson. 18 Feb 2022 Despite a strong focus on air and naval power, the commander of the United States Army in the Pacific says land forces will play a crucial role in any future ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Marcus Hellyer. 15 Feb 2022. 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 tabled on Friday, yet with the 2022–23 budget brought forward to late ... more ...

Center for International Maritime Security. Adam Greco. 17 February 2022. For centuries, merchant vessels have passed from the Indian Ocean to Eastern Asia through a small waterway nestled inside Southeast Asia. The Strait of Malacca (SoM) is the Strait south of the Malay Peninsula ... more ...

How Fear of China Is Forging a New World Order Foreign Affairs. Michael Beckley. March/April 2022 The international order is falling apart, and everyone seems to know how to fix it. According to some, the United States ... more ...

Cyberattacks are analogous to physical warfare; the success of an offensive will determine its detrimental effect. Naval Technology. Norbert Neumann. 7 February 2022. The increased digitalisation of navies has led to an increased interest in implementing cybersecurity solutions. Cyberattacks are analogous to physical warfare; ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Peter Jennings. 10 Feb 2022 For the moment, Defence Minister Peter Dutton has decided to stick with the troubled Hunter-class frigate program. With his usual candour, he told The Australian last week: ‘We looked very carefully at this project and we’ve ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Paul Dibb. 10 February 2022. Why has Russia’s President Vladimir Putin become so aggressive in his attitude to the US, NATO and Ukraine? In this article, I begin by examining the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and how it is ... more ...

U.S. Navy Proceedings. Captain Doug Stephens. February 2022 ... more ...

The role of commercial fishing vessels in disrupting military activities is not new. However, the democratisation of military technology has enabled civilians and clandestine military operators to play an expanding role in the modern hybrid maritime battlespace. Defence Connect. 7 February 2022. Last week ... more ...

A new US report casts doubt on the legality of Chinese maritime claims by also critically examining Australian practice. Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. David Letts & Donald Rothwell. 3 February 2022 Barely noticed, but nevertheless of some international legal consequence, is the latest effort ... more ...

Trap atop the hill: omens of China’s decline drive Xi Jinping to aggressiveness Nikkei Asia. 1 February, 2022 BEIJING/TAIPEI/TOKYO – Seemingly stronger than ever before, China has ... more ...

What America Must Do To Prevent a Successful Chinese Invasion Foreign Affairs. Mike Gallagher. 1 February, 2022 In March 2021, Admiral Philip S. Davidson, then the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, informed Congress that China could invade Taiwan within ... more ...

The Australian. Tony Abbott. 31 January 2022. What do Australians think about a more powerful country invading and subjugating a nation of 44 million people; how ready are we for the global ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Kharis Templeman. 27 January 2021 Russia’s military buildup around Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. Over 100,000 Russian troops are deployed near the border with ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Joshua Rovner. 26 January 2022. President Joe Biden doesn’t have a plan for China. Or, more precisely, the Biden administration has failed to articulate its approach to grand strategy in East Asia. Before taking office, Biden emphasized the centrality of ... more ...

Russia’s leadership is alert to the changed military circumstances even while it clings to historic ambitions. The Interpreter. Alexey Muraviev. 21 January 2022. The first round of Russia-United States-Europe strategic consultations, held between 10 and 13 ... more ...

Jakarta’s ambitions for a maritime alliance with its ASEAN neighbours is the right response to intimidation from China. Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. Huynh Tam Sang. 24 January 2022. Tensions with China over the South ... more ...

Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. Peter Layton. 21 January 2022. Over the last several years, the relationship with China has become increasingly awkward for both Australia and ... more ...

The Alliance Is Too Big—and Too Provocative—for Its Own Good Foreign Affairs. Michael Kimmage. 17 January, 2022 The NATO alliance is ill suited to twenty-first-century Europe. This is not because Russian President Vladimir Putin says it ... more ...

The Australian. Peter Jennings. 21 January 2022. As Defence’s deputy secretary for strategy between 2009 and 2012, I asked US counterparts on three occasions about the likelihood they would share submarine ... more ...

Does America Have More Rivals Than It Can Handle? Foreign Affairs. Hal Brands. 18 January, 2022 The first year of Joe Biden’s presidency ended as it began, with the United States facing crises on multiple ... more ...

A Honolulu couple and their family provided the admiral with a peaceful respite as he wrestled with the stress of war and command. Proceedings. Captain Michael A. Lilly, U.S. Navy (Retired). January 2022 ... more ...

Ukraine and Kazakhstan become test cases for an old idea as a new reality Nikkei Asia. EIJI Furukawa Contributing writer. 19 January, 2022 KYIV – On Ukraine’s eastern ... more ...

The Strategist. Charles Edel.13 Jan 2022. September was a dizzying month in Australian foreign policy, especially in the Australian–American relationship. In quick succession were the 70th anniversary of ANZUS, the announcement of the new AUKUS defence partnership, the annual AUSMIN consultations and the Quad’s ... more ...

Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. David Brewster. 10 January 2022. Like Australia in the Pacific, India has been pursuing its own Indian Ocean island step-up, largely driven by concerns about China’s ... more ...

Wang Yi’s visits to the Maldives and Sri Lanka signal Beijing’s priorities fairly clearly: it’s focusing on South Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Diplomat. Mohamed Zeeshan. 10 January, 2022 ... more ...

Dive beneath the surface of our seas and it’s as though the Cold War never really ended The Telegraph. Dominic Nicholls. 8 January 2022\ ... more ...

The Ukraine situation reminds this Cold War historian of the Berlin crisis of 1958-61. Wall Street Journal. Adam O’Neal. 7 January, 2022 This year dawned, 30 years after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, amid shades of the Cold War. Russian paratroopers deployed to Kazakhstan this ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Jeffrey W. Hornung, 5 January 2022 The message from U.S. senior military leaders has been very clear recently: They are very, very worried about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. For example, retired U.S. Indo-Pacific Command commander Adm. Phil Davidson, his ... more ...

War On The Rocks. Pierre Morcos. 4 January, 2022 The September announcement of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership (commonly known as AUKUS) shined a multi-billion dollar, nuclear-powered spotlight on the divergence between French and American approaches to China. The French government saw AUKUS ... more ...

The Australian. Peter Jennings. 5 January 2022. 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 ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 4 Jan 2022. Peter Jennings. As 2021 dragged to an exhausting end, the international strategic outlook remained bleak. Authoritarian regimes are threatening conflict in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The key democracies look distracted, internally riven and unwilling to defend ... more ...

The Australian. Nina L. Khrushcheva. 4 January 2022. With thousands of Russian troops massed near Ukraine’s border, the announcement that Russia and the US soon will hold security talks is undoubtedly welcome. While a de-escalation of tensions is hardly guaranteed, it is a lot ... more ...

Joint military exercises and technology sharing are seen as tools in to limit U.S. might abroad Wall Street Journal. Brett Forrest (Washington), Ann M. Simmons (Moscow) and Chao Deng (Taipei) Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping oversaw an ambitious joint military exercise in China this summer, which ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 24 Dec 2021 Brendan Nicholson. 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 ... more ...

War on the Rocks. Jonathan Panter and Johnathan Falcone. 28 December 2021. Two subjects are nearly inescapable in commentary about the U.S. Navy today. The first is the much-maligned, 15-year saga of the littoral combat ship (LCS), which has provided an unfortunate case study ... more ...

Things will begin to heat up in two key dimensions Nikkei Asia. James Stavridis. 26 December, 2021 ... more ...

Something about the new Australia, UK and US deal suggests it could detract from the value and usefulness of the Quad. The Interpreter. Abhijit Singh. 22 December 2021. ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 22 Dec 2021 Michael Shoebridge. Australia is ending the year in much better shape than we ended 2020. That’s so even though our region is still a dangerous place, and an aggressive China under Xi ... more ...

But Beijing expected to choose cautiously to avoid political risks Nikkei Asia. Ryo Nakamura, Ken Moriyasu and Tsukasa Hadano. 22 December, 2021 WASHINGTON/NEW YORK/ BEIJING – China is reportedly looking to build ... more ...

A Conflict Would Be Long and Messy Foreign Affairs. Hal Brands and Michael Beckley. 16 December, 2021 he United States is getting serious about the threat of war with China. The U.S. ... more ...

Recent military exercises with ASEAN a Russian foreign policy milestone Nikkei Asia. Danil Bochkov. 20 December, 2021 ... more ...

What I said then, and what I think now, about the nuclear- powered subs announcement that caught everyone by surprise. The Interpreter. Sam Roggeveen. 13 December 2021. ... more ...

But U.S. Power Faces Threats at Home. The Lowy Institute. Michael Fullilove, Hervé Lemahieu. 7 December 2021. Time and momentum are on our side,” declared Chinese President Xi Jinping in January. But developments this year have not borne out Xi’s confidence about China’s inexorable ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 14 Dec 2021 Sam Goldsmith. The threat spectrum for surface combatants—ships that can engage air, surface, subsurface and shore targets—is rapidly expanding and increasingly lethal. Threats include mines, torpedoes, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and swarms ... more ...

The dangers of NATO’s Ukrainian policy Spectator. Owen Matthews. 11 December 2021. Over the last nine weeks Vladimir Putin has moved more than 90,000 troops to the borders of Ukraine and, according to US intelligence, ordered his military planners to draw up detailed blueprints ... more ...

Biden Must Make America’s Commitment Clear to China—and the World Foreign Affairs. Richard Haass and David Sacks. 13 December, 2021. Over the past year, the questions of whether China will forcibly move against Taiwan and how ... more ...

Nikkei Asia. Hiroyuki Akita. 10 December, 2021. TOKYO – MI6, the U.K.’s foreign intelligence service that cinema ... more ...

The Australian, Editorial. 12 December 2021. Defence Minister Peter Dutton is correct when he says China’s angry reaction to the AUKUS security alliance between Australia, the US and Britain, including threats of retribution, is “irrational” in view of Beijing’s own military expansion. In September, China claimed AUKUS would trigger a ... more ...

Most indigenous Kanaks favour a split, but European residents tend to favour status quo Nikkei Asia. Michael Field. 7 December 2021. ... more ...

China strategy dominated New Zealand’s foreign policy year, but the government has yet to find a consistent position. The Diplomat. Geoffrey Miller. 11 December, 2021. Ambiguity and contradiction over China have been hallmarks of New Zealand’s foreign policy throughout 2021. In this respect, the ... more ...

How does it connect to the Quad, the Sydney Dialogue, ASEAN and Indo-Pacific security? ASPI Strategic Insights. Michael Shoebridge. 8 December 2021. Why did AUKUS happen? Because the world changed. The Australia–UK–US partnership announced by US President ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 9 Dec 2021. Paul Dibb. 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 divisions ... more ...

The forward presence mission is taking a toll on the fleet and the force. USN Proceedings. The Honorable Robert O. Work. December 2021. ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 2 Dec 2021 Anastasia Kapetas. In the debate about what AUKUS is and what it might become, much has been made of the idea that in an era of heightened geopolitical competition, Australia possesses some ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 29 Nov 2021.Richard Herr and Aziz Mohammed. Karl Marx claimed, ‘History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce’, suggesting that failing to learn from experience tells something about those in power. At the first repeat, all the ensuing misfortunes are ... more ...

Japan and U.S. struggle to put fraught history to rest Nikkei Asia. Naoya Yoshino. 1 December 2021. TOKYO – Dec. 7 marks the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The surprise attack, which came on ... more ...

The Australian. Greg Sheridan. 2 December 2021. Two announcements illustrate, and exacerbate, the extreme contradiction at the heart of all Australian defence policy. The US will increase the troop numbers it rotates through northern Australia, as well as ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 25 Nov 2021. Sam Goldsmith. Picking the right design for the Royal Australian Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines is extraordinarily complex and difficult choices will need to be made. There are two contenders, the Royal Navy’s Astute-class submarine and the US Navy’s Virginia-class ... more ...

USNI Proceedings. Norman Friedman. November 2021 In September, the Australian government announced ... more ...

Learning the Right Lessons of the Past Foreign Affairs. Li Chen and Odd Arne Westad. 29 November, 2021 In February 1961, at the outset of his presidency, John F. Kennedy wrote a personal letter to the Soviet ... more ...

“The future is extremely bright for this line of research.” Task&Purpose. David Roza. 24 November, 2021. ... more ...

Resentment against Chinese business people is longstanding and has fuelled violence in Honiara’s Chinatown. The Diplomat. Rod McGuirk. 26 November 2021. The Solomon Islands’ decision to switch its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing has been blamed for arson ... more ...

Deep sea drones are revolutionising marine science. But the military potential makes transparency essential. Lowy Institute. The Interpreter. 23 November 2021. According to the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative, between 2018 and January ... more ...

Can an American-Led Coalition Prevent the Next War? Foreign Affairs. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. 17 November, 2021 For many of the last 30 years, the notion that the United States was locked in direct contest with other great powers seemed as outdated as the Cold War itself. Instead, successive U.S. ... more ...

The Australian. Hugh White. 22 November 2021. The question no longer seems hypothetical. Last year the Prime Minister compared the dangers today to those of the late ... more ...

Brussels Should Borrow and Spend More on Security Foreign Affairs. Max Bergmann and Benjamin Haddad. 18 November 2021. Security and defense are suddenly back on Europe’s agenda. The United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan—which ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. John Garrick. 12 Nov 2021. The Antarctic Treaty System, which has governed affairs in Antarctica since 1961, is struggling under the weight of great-power competition. Through gaps in governance frameworks, states are exploiting the treaty and its subordinate protocols to pursue ... more ...

How Beijing’s Nuclear Buildup Threatens Stability Foreign Affairs. Abraham Denmark and Caitlin Talmadge. 19 November, 2021. Recent weeks have seen an explosion of worry in the United States about China’s nuclear program. A Pentagon report released in early November ... more ...

Is Beijing Building a Rival Alliance System? Foreign Affairs. Patricia M. Kim. 15 November, 2021 The United States’ network of alliances has long been a central pillar of its foreign policy—and, as competition with ... more ...

Quadrant. John O’Sullivan (Editor, International). 11 November 2021. When I first heard the announcement of AUKUS, I wondered idly if this apparently bold initiative was a rapidly-put-together response to the shambles of America’s Afghan withdrawal to demonstrate that the US retained its capacity for ... more ...

Navy Lookout. 11 November 2021. The political and strategic ramifications of the AUKUS pact announced in September continue to reverberate but the details of how Australia will actually acquire nuclear-powered submarines have been rather overlooked. Here we focus on the daunting technical, industrial and ... more ...

A Pentagon report projects a 460-ship Chinese fleet by the 2030s. The Diplomat. Steven Stashwick. 09 November, 2021. U.S. ... more ...

THE LOWY INSTITUTE. Gatra Priyandita & Ben Herscovitch. 8 Nov 2021. Amid Jakarta’s diplomatic shots across Canberra’s bow over AUKUS, ... more ...

Adani’s multimillion-dollar investment in Colombo not only makes commercial sense, it’s a strategic game-changer, too. The Lowy Institute. Chulanee Attanayake. 9 November 2021. On 30 September, Adani Group, India’s largest private port operator, signed what has been reported as a US$700 million agreement to build ... more ...

Australian Institute of International Affairs. Shaun Cameron. 3 November 2021. Climate change has allowed for new energy resources and trade routes to be exploited in the Arctic. This has resulted in growing great power competition between the US, Russia, and China in the region. ... more ...

USNI Proceedings. Trent Hone. November 2021 To execute flexible deterrence and limited war, options must range from diplomacy to military power—necessitating command of the seas. ... more ...

Defense News. Lyle Goldstein. 30 October 2021 ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. 2 Nov 2021. Marcus Hellyer. Serious risks are being realised in the Royal Australian Navy’s twin transitions in its surface combatant and submarine fleets. As Australia’s strategic circumstances become more dangerous, Defence needs to adopt hedging measures to actively address the ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Simon Cotton. 4 Nov 2021. As tensions across the Taiwan Strait rise, pressure is growing on the US administration to deter China more effectively by giving up on strategic ambiguity and moving towards a policy of strategic clarity. Indeed, last month ... more ...

USNI. John Grady. 29 October, 2021 Australia needs “bigger, better submarines now, not two decades from now” to counter China’s “extreme bullying” of nations across the Indo-Pacific, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday. ... more ...

USNI. John Grady. 3 November, 2021 ... more ...

USNI Proceedings. Commander Rob Brodie, U.S. Navy, and Rear Admiral T. Q. Donaldson V, U.S. Navy (Retired). October 2021 In 1942, a German captain warned his fellow U-boat commanders: “The most dangerous feature of American waters ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Michael Shoebridge. 28 Oct 2021. Most of Defence’s grilling in Senate estimates yesterday was about plans and issues around getting eight nuclear submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. There was forensic questioning about who said what to whom about the cancellation ... more ...

What the Election Will Mean for the Country’s Defense Policy Foreign Affairs. Sheila A. Smith. 28 October, 2021 Japan has a new prime minister, and in the year ahead, Fumio Kishida will likely chart ... more ...

Nikkei Asia. Kentaro Amoto. 27 October, 2021 SINGAPORE – An undercurrent of unease over the intensifying superpower rivalry and the new AUKUS ... more ...

The Diplomat. Mercy A. Kuo. 27 October, 2021 The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and ... more ...

ASPI. The Strategist. Baani Grewal and Nathan Ruser. 21 Oct 2021 India–China border tensions have become one of the Indo-Pacific’s defining territorial disputes. The ongoing Ladakh crisis ended more than three decades of confidence-building measures and border agreements in June 2020 with the deaths ... more ...

America, China, and the Echoes of History Foreign Affairs. Hal Brands and John Lewis Gaddis. November/December 2021. Is the world entering a new cold war? Our answer is yes and no. Yes if we mean a protracted international rivalry, for cold wars in this ... more ...

War’s Sci-Fi Future Foreign Affairs. Christian Brose. In 1898, a Polish banker and self-taught military expert named Jan Bloch published The Future of War, the culmination of his long obsession with the impact of modern technology ... more ...

The new Great Game: Central Asia struggles to balance three powers Nikkei Asia. Yohei Ishikawa. 20 October, 2021 ... more ...

A Force for Good in the Changing International Order Foreign Affairs. Tsai Ing-wen (President of Taiwan). November/December 2021 The story of Taiwan is one of resilience—of a country upholding democratic, progressive values while facing ... more ...

Indo-Pacific Security Depends on Reviving Bilateral Defense Dialogue Foreign Affairs. Chris Li and Eric Rosenbach. 15 October, 2021 Nearly nine months into the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, Washington’s relationship with Beijing has sunk to a historic ... more ...

The Australian. Paul Kelly. 16 October 2021 Given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s intimidation of Taiwan to affirm reunification with its alleged breakaway province, Taiwan now ... more ...

All wars are forever when you don’t know what you’re fighting for. Front Page. 17Aug 2021. Daniel Greenfield. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. “Afghanistan’s collapse: ... more ...

The U.S. Navy was key to victory in the Persian Gulf War—which set the fleet on a new course for a new strategic era. US Naval Institute January 2021 - By Edward J. Marolda Operation Desert Storm (17 January–28 February 1991) witnessed the U.S. Navy’s evolution from a force zeroed ... more ...