The Grumpy Strategists

In Episode 18, the Grumpy Strategists look at the challenges, contradictions and half truths the numbers in the 2024 Defence Budget reveal. The headline early $5.7 billion turns out not to turn up until mid-2027. Plans for acquisition are likely to fail because of unachievable targets, and the workforce crisis is worsening - meaning Australia's military just won't have the people it needs to operate what it buys. The episode ends with analysis of AUKUS sub crewing plans revealed by a US official. Spoiler alert: the Collins subs look like having an early end & Australian submariners are being 'utterly and completely' integrated into 25 US subs well before 2032.

In Episode 17, Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge assess the foundations of defence minister Richard Marles' new National Defence Strategy, looking for clarity and focus that the welter of priorities, tasks and categories doesn't provide. Instead of Australia's military having 'impactful projection', the cuts to missile defence make Australia a likely victim of 'impactful reception'. It turns out the strategy's accompanying $330bn investment program is budget, not strategy, driven.

The Grumpy Strategists assess the state of public decision and policy making in Australia: the damaging path of 'profound' and "transformative' policies that aren't; the distracting symbolic political value of AUKUS, with numbers so large - $368 billion - they make other large decisions look trivial - and the now alarming gap between rhetoric and reality.

From a small sporting shooting goods supplier in 1973, NIOA Group has grown to be a major munitions and weapons supplier to Australia's military and law enforcement organisations. Robert Nioa talks with SAA's Michael Shoebridge about the last 28 years building an Australian prime with industrial heft. They discuss how Australia's strategic environment and new partnerships like AUKUS provide the direction to NIOA's business, along with its deepening commercial connections into the US and with capable Australian and international partners.

The Grumpy Strategists cover US budget cuts from 2 to 1 sub in its 2025 budget, the UK Parliament's report on the UK's failing nuclear reactor program, with Australia choosing this moment to give the UK $4.6bn for AUKUS sub design & nuclear reactors, the US delay into the 2040s to its SSN(X) sub - and the black comedy (for Australians) from the French sub Australia paid $4bn to develop but then cancelled winning the Dutch submarine competition.

In 12 years, Adam Gilmour has grown Gilmour Space to be able to design and build its own space launch rockets, satellite buses to carry users' payloads & now is running his own space launch facility in Queensland. He talks about the business principles that let Gilmour Space thrive & move fast, and why sovereign launch and space capacity matters to Australia's security.

Grumpy Strategists Marcus Hellyer & Michael Shoebridge have waded through the Australian Government's new Defence Industrial Development Strategy's 114 pages so you don't have to. The news is bad - the strategy will undermine Australian companies essential to our military power and to operating our military during a time of conflict, while increasing Australia's dependence on big foreign firms who will struggle to meet their home governments' needs.

This new Grumpy Strategists series talks with makers & leaders in Australian industry who are key to our security. Tom Loveard, the Chief Technology Officer and one of the founders of C2 Robotics is our guest. He tells us how 25 years of hard work & research has given us the 'overnight breakthrough' that is the Speartooth long range undersea unmanned vehicle. It can be made in thousands & available well before 2030 - which would start to give the Australian military mass relevant to the huge Indo Pacific.

SAA's Grumpy Strategists review the Australian Government's "Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant" Plan, which resurrects the 1990s habit of getting stuff 'fitted for but not with' key elements. It means new ships for a navy in desperate need of them, but creates more budget and personnel pressures for a defence organisation already dealing with unaffordable existing plans.

The Grumpy Strategists look at the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the expectations the Albanese Government's reviews and delay have built up for the May Defence budget, and what could replace Defence's broken 'disposal strategy' in an era of wars of necessity.