Australia and Canada: different boats for different folks (Andrew Davies, Christopher Cowan, The Strategist)

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-canada-different-boats-different-folks/

Graphs of the week: finally getting the Collins class we paid for (Andrew Davies, The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/graphs-week-finally-getting-collins-class-paid/

Interpreting the ASC split (Andrew Davies, Mark Thomson, The Strategist)

Yesterday the Australian government (with the PM and three cabinet ministers in attendance) announced that it’s going to split ASC into three separate but still government-owned companies, to ‘support the key capabilities of shipbuilding, submarine sustainment and infrastructure’. It was heartening to see some movement on the issue. It’s vitally important that government gives serious thought to the industrial arrangements for projects that will cost the taxpayer tens of billions of dollars—something we noted last year.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/interpreting-asc-split/

Reviewing intelligence: send in the red team (Andrew Davies, The Strategist)

By all accounts, there’s to be another review of Australia’s intelligence agencies in the near future. The ‘major independent review’ will be the third in 15 years and it’s variously reported that the focus will be on cyber threats or the balance between short-term operational counter-terrorism and long-term strategic intelligence or, well, pretty much everything.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/reviewing-intelligence-send-in-red/

Cyber wrap special: two heads are better than one (Andrew Davies, The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/cyber-wrap-special-two-heads-better-one/

The ephemeral offset strategy (Andrew Davies, The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ephemeral-offset-strategy/

Reverse engineering Australia’s FMS requests (Andrew Davies, James Mugg, The Strategist)

On 31 May, yet another Australian FMS purchase approval was listed on the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) website. This new sale is for ‘up to eighty (80) Standard Missiles, SM-2 Block IIIB’, as well as associated engineering and support equipment, at an estimated value of US$301 million. It comes hot on the heels of two recent Australian FMS approvals, for ‘up to 2,950’ GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb I (SDB-I – US$386m) and ‘up to 450’ AIM-120D air-to-air missiles (US$1.22b).

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/reverse-engineering-australias-fms-requests/

Unmanned air combat—how soon is too soon? (Andrew Davies, Malcolm Davis, The Strategist)

After the Abbott government approved the purchase of 72 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the RAAF, its fast jet capability was locked in for years to come. From around 2020, the F-35s will join 24 Super Hornets (delivered from 2010) and 12 Growler electronic attack aircraft (delivered from 2015). Project AIR 6000, under which the F-35s are being acquired, still has one squadron of aircraft to acquire in the future, but the RAAF will have one of the youngest fast jet fleets in the world from the early 2020s.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/unmanned-air-combat-soon-soon-2/

Geek of the week: conditional probabilities and MH370 (Andrew Davies, ASPI the Strategist)

Recent reporting that the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 might be soon called off got me thinking about the methodology of search. For my sins, I spent time in operations research in my early days in Defence. It was back in the ‘Defence of Australia’ doctrine days, and our group was working with what’s now the Defence Science and Technology Group (DST Group) on a ‘wide area surveillance study’. Surveillance isn’t the same as search but in a slowly evolving situation they’re described by similar mathematics.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/geek-week-conditional-probabilities-mh370/

Cyber(war) wrap (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/cyberwar-wrap/

The USAF’s new bomber: the mini-me B-2? (Andrew Davies, ASPI)

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/usafs-new-bomber-mini-b-2/

ADF capability snapshot 2016: C4ISR—winning in the networked battlespace (Andrew Davies, Malcolm Davis, ASPI)

https://www.aspi.org.au/publications/adf-capability-snapshot-2016-c4isrwinning-in-the-networked-battlespace

ANZUS in Trumpland (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

‘Alternative Futures’ is a methodology sometimes used in strategic planning, in which the robustness of current plans is tested against various hypothetical futures

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/anzus-in-trumpland/

Agenda for Change 2016: come on over, y’all (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

Australia’s defence strategy is a topic much loved by academics, and there’s a rich literature about its various evolutions. In the 1960s the posture du jour was ‘forward defence’. Australia was exercised about communist insurgencies throughout Southeast Asia and the ADF was deployed in Malaya, Indonesia and Vietnam. After Vietnam, we got ‘defence of Australia’—effectively a locally focussed strategy gifted to us by President Nixon’s Guam Doctrine. The last few defence white papers have been couched in terms of geographic ‘concentric circles’ with Australia’s security interests and defence posture being defined by distance from our shores

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/agenda-change-2016-come-yall/

Off-the-shelf opportunism (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

While researching a recent post, I went to the Pentagon’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) website, looking for notifications of sales to Australia on its Major Arms Sales page. I didn’t find what I was looking for (a story for another day), but I did find a couple of other interesting items that have been otherwise unremarked upon

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/off-shelf-opportunism/

Agenda for Change 2016: strategic choices for the next government (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

The defence of Australia’s interests is a core business of federal governments

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/agenda-change-2016-strategic-choices-next-government/

Continuous naval shipbuilding in the UK (Andrew Davies, James Mugg, ASPI The Strategist)

The first batch of three River-class OPVs (HMS Tyne, Severn and Mersey) were ordered for the Royal Navy in April of 2001, built in Southampton, and commissioned in the second half of 2003. A fourth, slightly larger vessel (HMS Clyde) was built in Portsmouth and commissioned in 2007 for patrol duties around the Falkland Islands. In October of 2014, barely eleven years after the HMS Tyne was delivered, steel was cut in Glasgow for the first of three new River-class vessels. Surprisingly, they’re expected to replace the first three by 2017–18

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/continuous-naval-shipbuilding-in-the-uk/

Graphs of the week: less haste, more speed and lower costs (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

Back in 2009, Sean Costello and I wrote an ASPI paper called How to buy a submarine (PDF). I’m still writing about submarines, while Sean now has the job of actually delivering a dozen of them. It’s a big job, and at times it’ll be a thankless one, but at least he’s been thinking about it for a while now.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/graphs-of-the-week-less-haste-more-speed-and-lower-costs/

La victoire DCNS: now the work begins (Andrew Davies, ASPI The Strategist)

We now have some answers about the project that will eventually deliver our next generation submarines. The French company DCNS will be our international design partner and the submarines will be built in South Australia. There are also many things we still don’t know, such as how the government-owned ASC company will be restructured as we move ahead with the concurrent design and build of the submarines and three different types of surface vessels.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/la-victoire-dcns-now-the-work-begins/

The ADF, the Australian public and The Australian (Andrew Davies, Mark Thomson, ASPI The Strategist)

The Australian newspaper has lately been running an editorial line (paywalled) about moves within the Department of Defence to increase diversity within the department, and especially within the ADF. Under the subtitle ‘Security must not play second fiddle to cultural change’, the paper essentially argues that political correctness is eroding the ability of the ADF to fulfill its core missions, with a swipe at the Collins-class submarine fleet along the way.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-adf-the-australian-public-and-the-australian/