In this episode, Grant McHerron, Ewen Levick, Nigel Pittaway and Ben Felton join with Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge (aka The Grumpy Strategists) to discuss recent developments, both local and global, and the need for Australia to quickly adapt to the new geopolitical environment.

We start with Sea 3000 and the statements at Senate Estimates, the unknowns about pricing a build at Henderson Precinct and who the local build partner is, and the price of the Hunter project. This leads into a discussion on the issues with military spending as a percentage of GDP versus inflation and the view that AUKUS is a drain on opportunity cost and military focus let alone on the Defence budget.

The discussion moves on to the Chinese warships that recently circumnavigated Australia and our ability to monitor them, our ability to defend against missiles launched towards Australia, and how we appear to be crawling while the rest of the world is running. We also discuss the impact of Trump's changes, the future for Europe and what this implies for the IndoPacific region.

The episode wraps up by acknowledging that events previously considered unthinkable are happening now, Defence needs to respond, and that Australia may need to be ready to fight alone and without the USA assisting.

Links:

Strategic Analysis Australia:

strategicanalysis.org

The Grumpy Strategists:

strategicanalysis.org/category/strategic-analysis-australia-podcasts

No Higher Priority - A Blueprint for Immediate Action on Australia's Defence 2025-2028:

ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/books/no-higher-priority-a-blueprint-for-immediate-action-on-australias-defence-2025-2028

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