Defence & Foreign Affairs

Defence’s biggest capability worry? Building its workforce

Defence’s biggest capability worry? Building its workforce

The defence strategic review brings into sharp focus the challenges faced by Australia with respect to strategic policy, defence planning and resourcing over the coming decades. Its discussion of recruitment and retention of personnel for the Defence...

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Opinion: Due process needs to be followed for justice

Opinion: Due process needs to be followed for justice

There are none so blind as those who would not see If CDF-for-life Angus Campbell has his way, seven senior special forces, some of whom served operationally under his command, will be stripped of their distinguished service awards. None has been tried or convicted of...

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Opinion: Planning for Australia to win ‘must win’ wars

Opinion: Planning for Australia to win ‘must win’ wars

The world is back to being a dangerous place. In Europe, Russia is fighting a major war as it tries to capture Ukraine. In the Indo-Pacific, China is building a very large, high-technology, all-domain military force, some say to use very soon,...

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Opinion: Due process needs to be followed for justice

Opinion: Simply no place for unfounded alarmism

AUSTRALIA is not now at war at home or abroad.  Greens senator Lydia Thorpe insists Australia has been at war for 200 years, but she talks big and waves a small stick.  Community division as Thorpe imagines is alien to the overwhelming majority of...

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Opinion: Due process needs to be followed for justice

Opinion: Responsibility for failure rests at the top

The obscene business which is war has many rules. Command responsibility, also now called the Yamashita Principle, is that obligation of all commanders to ensure their troops fight within those rules.  Failure to do so is considered an omission mode of individual...

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Opinion: Missile strike a stark strategic reminder

Opinion: Missile strike a stark strategic reminder

RUSSIA’S Kerch bridge linking it with what most regard as unlawfully occupied Crimea was allegorical of the strengths and weaknesses of Australia’s strategic defences. The air-sea gap providing physical separation for continental Australia from southeast Asia and the...

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Commentary: Assessing the future of land combat capability

Commentary: Assessing the future of land combat capability

Should Defence press ahead with its investments in next-generation land combat capability or is it time to reallocate resources elsewhere to reflect changes in modern warfighting? Last month, the Albanese government  launched the Defence Strategic Review, touted...

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