Beyond 2017: the Australian Defence Force and amphibious warfare

Overview: The delivery of Australia’s new amphibious warships, HMAS Canberra and Adelaide, is an important milestone in the ADF’s quest to develop a strategically relevant amphibious warfare capability. Australia’s position in the world makes the effort a strategic imperative, but the ADF still has a long way to go and many critical decisions ahead if it’s to develop an amphibious warfare capability that’s ready for future challenges. The resources committed to the effort and the associated opportunity costs have been and will be substantial, and the overall need for the capability must be weighed against other priorities, but if Australia’s going to do it, we should do it properly. The aim of the paper was to identify some of the key decisions to be made by ADF leaders over the next two years to ensure that Australia has an amphibious warfare capability that’s effective and relevant to future challenges and provide specific recommendations on the

Reviews and contestability: new directions for Defence

Overview: The First Principles Review of Defence is arguably the most significant review of the defence establishment since the 1973 re-organisation led by Sir Arthur Tange. This Strategic Insights brings together a series of contributions to ASPI’s blog The Strategist written by ten experts with long experience and broad knowledge of Australia’s defence bureaucracy. They bring a wealth of different perspectives and point to significant challenges ahead for Defence if the reforms proposed by the First Principles Review are to succeed