As Australia deepens its alignment with Washington through AUKUS and expanded military integration, it risks compromising the regional trust and autonomy that underpin its long-term prosperity and security. (more…)
Category: Defence
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How consultocracy became a national security blind spot
Espionage today is less about weapons than insider access to economic policy. Australia’s muted response to the PwC scandal reveals a serious failure to treat economic intelligence as a core national security asset.
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How the United States built the world’s biggest military machine
Since 1945, one country has carried out a conventional military buildup unmatched in scale, cost and global reach. Claims about recent rivals distract from the historical record of how modern military dominance was built.
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The world is drifting back towards unconstrained nuclear danger
With the expiration of the New START treaty and the erosion of arms control agreements, the safeguards that once limited nuclear danger are rapidly disappearing – despite decades of evidence that restraint reduces catastrophic risk. (more…)
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Will Japan’s remilitarisation drag us into a war?
Japan’s rapid rearmament marks a decisive break with its post-war pacifist stance. As regional tensions sharpen, Australia and New Zealand must decide whether alignment offers security or invites new risks.
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Handshake diplomacy with Prabowo won’t secure shared values
Australia’s new security treaty with Indonesia is heavy on symbolism but light on substance. As President Prabowo Subianto tightens his grip on power, warm rhetoric from Canberra risks obscuring growing democratic regression and human rights abuses. (more…)
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India’s submarine deal shows what due diligence looks like
India’s decision to buy conventionally powered submarines from Germany highlights a sharp contrast with Australia’s AUKUS pathway on cost, capability and planning. (more…)
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Australia unlikely to follow US downgrade on China threat
The US National Defense Strategy signals a softer, more pragmatic approach to China. Australia’s silence on the shift exposes how detached its defence posture has become from both reality and its own national interests. (more…)
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AUKUS from where we are – and why that’s the problem
Australia’s AUKUS submarine program is tied to struggling US and UK shipbuilding systems, escalating costs and political whim, raising questions about whether the right defence choices were ever properly debated.
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Plan B: towards an Australian model of military self-reliance
Australia’s defence posture remains shaped by expeditionary assumptions at a time when alliance guarantees are less certain. Building a credible Plan B requires a renewed focus on territorial defence, resilience and self-reliance. (more…)
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Australia’s Trump reprieve masks a deeper strategic dilemma
Australia may have escaped the worst of Donald Trump’s return to power so far. But beneath the surface, Washington’s shift towards spheres of influence is exposing serious weaknesses in Australia’s strategic posture.
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NATO is failing – and ANZUS is next
NATO is unravelling as shared interests and trust with the United States collapse. For Australia, this raises urgent questions about the future value of ANZUS and related security arrangements. (more…)
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The end of the lucky country’s security fantasy
As the post-war global order unravels, Australia’s long-standing reliance on great and powerful friends is proving dangerously hollow – and the country is unprepared for what comes next. (more…)
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Trump’s Greenland grab is part of a new space race – and the stakes are getting higher
Trump’s shifting rhetoric on Greenland masks a consistent strategic goal – control of a key Arctic location that underpins US space surveillance and military reach.
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Trump, Greenland and Australia’s alliance reality check
Trump’s behaviour towards Greenland is a warning sign for alliances, values and Western credibility. Australia may need to weigh ANZUS more hard-headedly and build greater strategic autonomy.
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Beyond the ruptured alliance: an outline for Plan B
Australia’s alliance with the United States is no longer reliable, and clinging to it now risks Australia’s interests and values. The case for a deliberate, staged Plan B begins with strategic autonomy – and an overdue reckoning with extended nuclear deterrence.
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AUKUS: a continuing expensive delusion
Australia is pouring billions into AUKUS submarines without clear delivery capacity from the UK or the US. The result could be a costly strategic and fiscal mistake – with little to show for it.
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Trump and Putin can still save the last nuclear arms limit
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expires in weeks. A simple extension could preserve limits on US and Russian nuclear arsenals and buy time for deeper cuts.
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Best of 2025 – Another RSL dope wants to draw us into a major war
It beggars belief that the outgoing head of the RSL, Greg Melick, has abused the quiet solemnity of Remembrance Day to lecture and berate the Albanese government on its defence policy. (more…)
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Why Australia should walk away from AUKUS
Trump’s actions in Venezuela and rhetoric elsewhere confirm that the United States no longer respects international law or allied interests. Australia should rethink its strategic dependence accordingly.
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Best of 2025 – Ignorance is complicity: Australia must end its arms trade with those committing crimes
Rayana Ajam is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
When, in the course of close — some would say politically intimate — relations between allies, the dominant partner demands that the subordinate partner betray its democratic principles as a cost of receiving favourable treatment, the time has come to terminate the relationship. Such is now the state of the Australia-US alliance. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – What game is he playing? The PM and AUKUS
As the Australian prime minister prepares for his visit to the UN in New York next week, Robert Macklin looks into what Anthony Albanese might be hoping for on the trilateral security deal. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Brave new world
As Australia’s newly elected government seeks to navigate the shoals of President Donald Trump’s new world after the election on 3 May, it will behove us to think beyond our tariff concerns and AUKUS and focus on Southeast Asia. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Sustaining hope when war is normalised
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Best of 2025 – Chasing a chimera: The political dream of AUKUS that consumes reality
For the sake of taxpayers, let’s hope that the Audit Office is inspecting the AUKUS books closely. (more…)
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2025 in Review: The fading West, a cautious Labor win and an uncertain world
From the erosion of Western authority to Australia’s election result, 2025 exposed deep shifts in global power, alliance politics and the limits of domestic reform.
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AUKUS meets reality – UK ‘all in’ a mess (Part 2)
Australia is betting on a British program plagued by delays, underinvestment and workforce shortages – a gamble that risks leaving the country without any sovereign submarine capability. (more…)
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AUKUS meets reality – what’s not in the AUSMIN Media Release (Part 1)
Despite official assurances, the US submarine program is falling well short of its own targets, raising serious doubts about whether Australia will ever receive the Virginia class submarines promised under AUKUS. (more…)
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A Boyer Lecture that misunderstands Australia’s defence history
The latest Boyer Lecture portrays Australia as trapped by anxiety about the United States. In fact, for decades the country pursued a deliberate, bipartisan strategy of defence self-reliance – abandoned only in recent years.
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