Stagione 1
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.
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.
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.
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.
In Episode 10, SAA's Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge discuss the indicators and warnings about the state of Australia's military coming out of the decision to not provide a warship to the multinational mission to the Red Sea, and the shortfalls in the Australian Army's ability to deploy shown by the assistance to the North Queensland floods. The extraordinary growth in staffing and spending in the AUKUS subs project team in Australia that's already happening provides a further warning of the growing pressures on Australia's military budget and force.
SAA's Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge look at the implications of elections from Taiwan, to India, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Poland and across the EU for collective action on everything ranging from climate change to China policy and the war in Ukraine. They show why Australia's Future Fund has invested $600m into defence industry everywhere but the autocracies and here at home, and end with a dive into the practical impacts of Australia's proposed new export controls.
"It looks like Australia just gave up its sovereignty and got nothing for it': This episode focuses on the proposed new Australia law that's meant to make innovation happen under the AUKUS partnership, but instead seems guaranteed to kill innovation and ensure even higher barriers to doing business with Defence. Forget working with anyone but the Anglosphere - so the hugely powerful creativity of Japan and South Korea isn't part of this disastrous - proposed - plan. It's permits for everyone.