Ben Roberts-Smith talks Australian Army directives, the soldier’s code and that ‘farcical’ airport arrest
Victoria Cross recipient and former Australian Army soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, accused of committing alleged war crimes, has share...
Australia to provide maritime patrol vessels, strengthen cyber security under new Timor-Leste agreement
Australia will provide new Timor-Leste National Police maritime patrol vessels and strengthen Timor-Leste’s cyber security capab...
Goldsworthy Veterans and Families Centre supports Perth’s veteran community
Opinion: The first time Leon Goldsworthy tried to enlist in the Navy in Perth, he was rejected for being too short. ...
National Reconstruction Fund invests $245m into Austal’s Landing Craft Heavy production
National Reconstruction Fund invests $245 million into Australian shipbuilder Austal Limited to help strengthen the country’s mi...

Feature Insights

Budgeting for an enhanced ready force
Opinion: If the strategic environment is driving an enhanced need to bulk up the capabilities of the ready force, where will the money come from to...
June 03 2025
Shirking our responsibility? PM pushes back against US request to increase defence spending
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has resisted the Trump administration’s pressure to rapidly lift Australia’s defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP amid rising...
June 02 2025
Report: Australia can learn a lot from Finland about national preparedness
It may seem a long bow to pull that a smaller nation like Finland can teach Australia about national self-defence, but nothing could be further from the truth.
May 30 2025
Saving the Titanic: Ministerial defence priorities in the government’s new term
Opinion: If you choose a metaphor for Defence in the Labor government’s second term, it might be the Titanic, warns Griffith Asia Institute’s Dr Peter Layton.
May 29 2025
Australia’s nuclear moment: Time to break the taboo
Opinion: Anthony Albanese’s victory on 3 May 2025 marked a crossroads for Australian national security. With a secured majority, Albanese can reshape Australia’s...
May 28 2025
Rethinking the choice: Why Australia needs both a balanced and a focused force
Opinion: The rapidly deteriorating geopolitical and strategic environment has been used to legitimise the dramatic shift in Australia’s defence policy and posture...
May 27 2025
5 elections in 2 months reveal startlingly familiar electoral interference playbooks
Vote early, vote often? Elections in Portugal, the Philippines, Romania, Canada, and Australia have revealed a common thread of tactics to influence elections around the...
May 26 2025
Shortsighted decision making must end or risk it all
Opinion: In the face of escalating global threats and strategic uncertainty, Andrew Wallace MP argues that Australia must abandon short-term political thinking and urgently...
May 22 2025
National Audit Office says Defence falls short on Australian industry participation, contract requirements
The Australian National Audit Office has recently found that “Defence has not maximised Australian industry participation through the administration of its...
May 22 2025
Let him cook: Maybe Trump is on to something with his ‘Raptor Super’ idea
No stranger to controversy, US President Donald Trump set a cat among the pigeons with statements about the development of an upgraded F-35, a dual-engine variant, the F-55...
May 21 2025
Serious comorbidity: Chinese ‘spy tech’ in solar systems should raise Australia’s alarms
Recent revelations that Chinese-made solar inverters and other technologies were compromised by “rogue” communication devices underscore the People’s...
May 20 2025
‘Complex interdependence’ as the central pillar of Australia’s grand strategy
Australia’s security and economic ties have been shaped by global interactions, with conflict and geopolitical rivalry often redefining its role in the world. Today,...
May 19 2025
Divine mandate: Chinese-linked cyber activity is the most common form of hybrid threat facing Australia
Cyber attacks were the most common form of hybrid threat faced by Australia in the last decade, but economic coercion and foreign interference are not far behind.
May 16 2025
Future of fighting predictions: What to expect at Talisman Sabre 2025
Australia is set to host more than 30,000 military personnel during its largest-ever Exercise Talisman Sabre from July this year. But what strategy can we expect, and which...
May 15 2025
Australia needs to prepare to confront a ‘deglobalising’ world
With the future of the neoliberal “globalised” world order in doubt, contrasted by the rise of multiple, competing centres of economic, political and strategic...
May 14 2025
Unaligned continental defence v aligned forward defence debate heats up once again
It is a debate older than our Collins Class submarines, continental defence versus forward defence. Now the debate has been resurfaced and raises significant questions about...
May 13 2025
Hey, big spender! Balancing higher defence spending and the impending national fiscal cliff
During the (thankfully) now-concluded federal election campaign, the government faced mounting fiscal pressures, with commentators and economists questioning how increased...
May 12 2025
Drop that shovel: How Australia can use surplus military equipment rather than burying it
Australians love to dig holes. It’s in our blood to carve out the earth in search of iron ore, to take the hard yakka road of transforming our natural environment or to...
May 08 2025
Lessons from the front: The intersection of Australian and Ukrainian politics
Nearly three and a half years since Russian forces rolled into Ukraine, the staying power of the much smaller nation has served as a powerful inspiration, but there are...
May 07 2025
From Lightning to Super Lightning: Lockheed Martin chief hints at evolution pathways
Boeing’s evolution of the venerable F/A-18 Hornet into the Super Hornet sought to breathe fresh life into a legacy platform. Now it appears that the fifth-generation...
May 06 2025