PODCAST: Defence export ambitions, drone technology and defence manufacturing hubs

Joint-capabilities
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By: Noemie Veñegas

Questions remain around how Australia can grow sovereign capability while responding to evolving strategic challenges.

Questions remain around how Australia can grow sovereign capability while responding to evolving strategic challenges.

In this episode of the Defence Connect Podcast, Stephen Kuper, Robert Dougherty and Bethany Alvaro discuss a busy week across defence and industry, including Australia’s record $2.5 billion defence export deal with Canada and what it means for future international partnerships.

The discussion explores changing geopolitical dynamics, Arctic security and how middle powers are reshaping defence and economic relationships.

 
 

Attention then turns to emerging drone opportunities, including Ukrainian manufacturers expanding into Australia and DroneShield’s push into European counter-drone markets.

The team also examines Western Australia’s ambition to establish new defence manufacturing hubs and discusses Electro Optic Systems’ latest counter-drone export successes and the challenges of building sovereign industrial capability.

Rounding out the episode, the panel looks ahead to LAND Forces 2026 and the technologies expected to shape the future of Army modernisation.

Enjoy the podcast,
The Defence Connect team

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Listen to previous episodes of the Defence Connect podcast:

Episode 11: CONTESTED GROUND: Weak, vulnerable, backwater – Australia’s choice between strategic camps and managed decline
Episode 10: PODCAST: Undersea dominance – Australia charts the maritime future through autonomous systems and AUKUS innovation
Episode 9: PODCAST: Australian Army Cadets pathways, submarine industry growth and Australia’s fuel security
Episode 8: CONTESTED GROUND: The blind faith factor – why Australians trust an ADF they don’t understand
Episode 7: PODCAST: Defence preparedness, artificial intelligence productivity, and Australian industrial resilience
Episode 6: CONTESTED GROUND: Shots fired! Chinese missile test shatters Australia’s ‘fog of peace’, with Mike Pezzullo
Episode 5: SPOTLIGHT: Counter-drone innovation, directed energy and delivering operational outcomes, with EOS Defence Systems’ Lee Kormany
Episode 4: PODCAST: Strengthening security ties, Fiji defence pact and Australia’s counter-drone push
Episode 3: CONTESTED GROUND: Lessons from the UK in political polarisation, generational dislocation and intergenerational warfare, with Ben Dullroy, Bravo Delta Advisory
Episode 2: PODCAST: Defence Industry Development Strategy, Defence reform and Australians fighting in Ukraine