Geopolitical Risk

[Davexl]

Editors' picks for 2024: 'The long arc of Australian defence strategy'

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/editors-picks-for-2024-the-long-arc-of-australian-defence-strategy/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20The%20Strategist&utm_content=Weekly%20The%20Strategist+CID_fbdc5c40afc67b0f27078b465c50f77a&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Editors%20picks%20for%202024%20The%20long%20arc%20of%20Australian%20defence%20strategy

Excerpt:

Australia's security dilemma is now acute. Force expansion should have occurred over the past 15 years, as warning time counted down. Instead, the force remains configured for what was termed 40 years ago 'escalated low level conflict'—when defence spending as a fraction of GDP was 2.5 percent, as compared with 2 percent, a difference of around $13 billion, in 2024-25. While the defence-GDP ratio is not in itself a planning tool, it is a valuable aid for analysis—a shorthand for the structural funding of defence, which can be tracked across time. In order to have built the force that we would now need for 'more substantial conflict', defence spending over the past 15 years should have been lifted steadily to at least 3% of GDP. We spent more at times during the Cold War, without being seriously threatened by major conventional attack.

There are, of course, competing demands on the budget which have to be balanced responsibly. The difference with other areas of spending is that structural underfunding in defence could one day lead to military defeat, and national peril as a result. Defence spending as a proportion of GDP should be increased quickly to at least 3%. This is a broad estimate of what it would take to address capability deficiencies that would be exposed in high-end combat with a major adversary. This increase in funding would be fiscally daunting, and would challenge Defence and industry, both of whose capacity to deliver would have to be dramatically enhanced in very short order.

[Davexl]

Applies to urgent NZ leadership needs...

John Curtin's legacy

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/john-curtins-legacy/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20The%20Strategist&utm_content=Weekly%20The%20Strategist+CID_0db46f791aa8738cfb9b82cfcb857b0e&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=John%20Curtins%20legacy

Excerpt:

Those who would seek to appropriate Curtin's legacy in a performative display to demonstrate their credibility on defence issues cannot limit their appreciation to admiring only what he did as wartime leader, once the existential danger to Australia and its political independence was apparent. To do so would be to ignore the inconvenient truth of his legacy. To honour Curtin, we have widen the lens and examine the totality of his thought and policies, and then ask ourselves what a modern-day Curtin would make of our precarious strategic environment (said to be the worst in 80 years), and what he would do about it.

Here is an attempt to properly honour Curtin in this way. A modern-day Curtin would be vocal about the threat posed by China. He would argue for greater defence self-reliance, and for at least 3 per cent of GDP to be spent on defence. He would be concerned about the threat of long-range missile and air attack, offensive cyber strikes, raids in remote areas, attacks on undersea infrastructure and so on. He would insist on the development of effective military solutions to these and other, similar problems. While a champion of defence self-reliance, he would recognise that a new 'look to America' would be necessary. He would argue for ANZUS to be put on to an operational footing, with a standing headquarters (this time headed by an Australian), to command a combined Australia-US force. He would be a supporter of AUKUS, but would be focused on realising rapid benefits, arguing that any capability pay-offs in the 2030s and beyond would not matter much if we lose a war in the meantime. He would give priority to home defence, mobilisation planning, and boosting local defence production. He would support universal national service for the defence of Australia.

On Curtin's gravestone is carved the following:

'His country was his pride/His brother man his cause'.

This epitaph captures his patriotism and his socialism. Curtin recognised that being prepared to fight a war is the price that has to be paid for preserving freedom, democracy, and sovereignty, and protecting the nation, which is the best vehicle that exists for social improvement. We do not need the Curtin myths. The hard truths of his legacy serve us better.

[Davexl]

Ok Ok - Drool, drool! (Hint: I like submarines...)

Editors' picks for 2024: 'Submarine agency chief: Australia's SSNs will be bigger, better, faster'

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/editors-picks-for-2024-submarine-agency-chief-australias-ssns-will-be-bigger-better-faster/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20The%20Strategist&utm_content=Weekly%20The%20Strategist+CID_0db46f791aa8738cfb9b82cfcb857b0e&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Editors%20picks%20for%202024%20Submarine%20agency%20chief%20Australias%20SSNs%20will%20be%20bigger%20better%20faster

[Waltzing]

yes agree to all of the above.. Ukraine just developing Drone aircraft carriers... the surround TWA's must be considering a stealth sea weapon of some kind...Ukraine just took out helicopter and land based radars with tiny drone boats... its being talked about as ground break world firsts...

[Waltzing]

This should have been posted in the other section under world politics but are we at an inflection point where the fire is on the wind and it isnt going to be easy to put it out..

Garry Kasparov was predicting the future... oh 2001... gosh how bright the future looked when we made it past 2000. 

and are we all sleep walking into the future we simply cant control..

one PHD recently said she just lives with her head in the sand at the beaches of New Zealand ....

they keep putting the 300 on TV(2-3) for the locals .. its back to the good old days then and its only just started...

https://kyivindependent.com/garry-kasparov-without-decisive-military-defeat-there-wont-be-change-in-russia/

[Waltzing]

USA to invade greenland...

AUSSI Land to invade New Zealand....

not sure why as NZ doesnt have anything AUSSI could want except if global warning makes KANGA LAND a dsert waste land...

oh thats why!!! The south island has ICE water!!!!

for those of you who follow geo tiddle winks... this site  has forewarned what the KANGA's are thinking when it comes to Kiwi land...

https://www.youtube.com/@PerunAU

[Waltzing]

How are they going to explain this ... they werent russian after all...

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/09/style/royal-crowns-vilnius-scli-intl/index.html

[Davexl]

Commentary on the disastrous state of our military with spending going backwards!

Defence Capability Plan: Kicking the can down the road yet again

https://defsec.net.nz/2025/01/08/defence-capability-plan-kicking-the-can/

Excerpt:

Dr Jim Rolfe, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, responded on LinkedIn saying "It's just nonsense to assert that China's 2024 military activity in the region is such a surprise that long-term plans need to be rethought. China has been militarily active for years. We just haven't cared."

Dr Reuben Steff, Senior Lecturer at the University of Waikato, agreed. "This makes little to no sense. We are kicking the can down the road again (and by again, I mean again, again, again) because of China's escalatory actions in our region? So, are we thinking by delaying the DCP that things will get better for us? Given the speed of China's military build-up and naval projection, isn't it the case that time is of the essence and we need to start rejuvenating the NZDF now?"

[Waltzing]

tak for posting those..

big warning starting to emerge from institutions that formally just attended the opening of its local on site arts and crafts buildings.. nice new building.. bit of dance about with some ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81tea_M%C4%81ori_Club

sing alongs  ect...

those were the days ...

[Davexl]

From export controls to hacks, China signals it's ready to take on Trump - WP

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360547115/export-controls-hacks-china-signals-its-ready-take-trump

[Davexl]

Hint: The true target is supposedly around 3.5%

Germany: Trump's 5% NATO demand too costly, Scholz says

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-trumps-5-nato-demand-too-costly-scholz-says/a-71289250

[Davexl]

Aussi capability / readiness not looking so flash either...

The next Australian government needs a bolder plan for the navy

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-next-australian-government-needs-a-bolder-plan-for-the-navy/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20The%20Strategist&utm_content=Weekly%20The%20Strategist+CID_d3a97fc5f2b8b4c747ced7a4a2be7431&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=The%20next%20Australian%20government%20needs%20a%20bolder%20plan%20for%20the%20navy

[Davexl]

Then there is the Pacific Response Group...

Pacific security in 2025

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/pacific-security-in-2025/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20The%20Strategist&utm_content=Weekly%20The%20Strategist+CID_d3a97fc5f2b8b4c747ced7a4a2be7431&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Pacific%20security%20in%202025

[Waltzing]

Invasion Kiwi land breaking news update..

it appears that the landing at waikato heads by Kangaroo kick boxing storm troopers has been largely defeated ....

this was due in part to the newly supplied Ukraine Modified waka drone boats operated by local IWI that blunted the successful landing craft from the mother ship off shore...

some other poor Kanga storm troopers drowned due to heavy surf on the bar and apparently the quality of the life jackets that failed to properly inflate ...

the remaining survivors who washed over the bar and who were rounded up by local IWI warriors confessed they though they were on a friendly training exercise that went badly wrong...

Kanga land has protested that the landing was a training project and had been planned to mimic an attack on Norfolk island but the GPS on the landing ships had malfunctioned ....

Kiwiland says it is upping its defence budget ASAP...

[Shareguy]

Hint: The true target is supposedly around 3.5%

Germany: Trump's 5% NATO demand too costly, Scholz says

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-trumps-5-nato-demand-too-costly-scholz-says/a-71289250

At least they are finally at the agreed 2 percent. Good on Trump for pressuring NATO partners to meet agreed levels.