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© Strategic Analysis Australia 2023
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The Grumpy Strategists chat about defence and security issues, from an Australian perspective. We say simple things about complicated issues that help cut through the politics and careful bureaucratic talking points. Critical but constructive conversations about the big security and technology issues affecting our world. RSSVERIFY
68 Episodes
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Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko speaks with a grumpy strategist about his path from business to diplomacy, & the surreal experience of families - including his - like fighting in the Russian military during WW2 & now fighting against Russian invaders in their homeland. They cover connections between the war & our part of the world - North Korea and China's direct support to Russia & also Russia's efforts to grow its military relationship with Indonesia. The episode sets out the value of a new partnership on military and industrial cooperation between Australia and Ukraine. Ukraine needs support but is also now a source of military technical advantage.
Episode 1 of the Great Debates -on topics in Australia that need discussion but are reduced to shouting matches from inside closed bubbles. Green shirted Marcus is Mr Renewables and black suited Michael is the pro-nuclear Darth Vader of the episode. Listen to hear if a civil chat about radioactive waste, windfarms and Australia's energy mix is possible.
One Grumpy Strategist talks with Beaten Zone Ventures boss Steve Baxter. They set out Steve's journey from the Army to business success in the tech world, to now running an outfit all about investing in smart Australian companies making the best defence tech on the planet - for everyone but Australia....Changing that could be as simple - but big - as adopting the Ukrainian military's almost gamified 'Brave1' model - a market-based program that has soldiers using an online shop and tokens earned by destroying particular Russian systems. Delegation, empowerment and speed brings results.
SAA's Marcus Hellyer talks with Rob Kremer, Kinexus' Director and Defence Sector lead about defence industry prospects and pressures. Rob puts the workforce demands by Defence into a wider economic and societal perspective to set out effective strategies for government and companies. Australian cities have quite different skills concentrations and demographics that flavour the necessary approaches.
Michael Shoebridge talks with Paddy Gregg, CEO of Austal, about the company's history as a builder of commercial and military vessels for decades now. We discuss its stocked up order book both here & in the US, and the future, including Australia's general purpose frigates. Austal USA is making command modules for US Virginia Class submarines and is the biggest revenue earner for Austal, while at Henderson, Austal is ramping up fast with landing craft orders. Hanwha's bid is covered, with Paddy giving his perspective as the CEO of a publicly-listed company.
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.
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.
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.
The Grumpy Strategists boggle at the sheer chutzpah of PM Albanese and State Premier Malinauskas announcing as a triumph spending $30 billion & taking until 2040 to build submarine construction sheds (not actual submarines). At least the premier had the honesty to say the biggest beneficiaries weren't Australians worried about security, they were the South Australians who are to receive this firehose of taxpayer cash. He's right to be boggled. Meanwhile, Australia's leaders across the spectrum from Labor, through the Coalition into One Nation land are outdoing each other in expressing their fear about the potential return of 34 women and children from camps in Syria, while clamping down on the evil of immigration. It's bad form to notice that our health system - and many other industries - depend on migrants....
The Grumpy Strategists pan for gold in 234 pages of dense, incoherent Government paperwork setting out the Albanese Government's revised plans for our nation's defence, and find some rather smelly nuggets. About $3.2 billion dollars is being brought forward to be spent earlier than planned - with a $1.2 billion chunk on more bills for those still distant AUKUS subs. But the overall Defence budget for this next 4 years is being cut by $2.6 billion. Mr Albanese may have smiled at US President Donald Trump, but he's stood strong against pressure to grow defence spending and got Treasury's razor gang in. Canadian PM Carney might make rousing speeches at Davos opposing the Trump Administration, but Mr Albanese acts. It's a great day for independent middle powers! Oh, and the Defence bureaucracy finds a way to insult King Charles.
The Grumpy Strategists look at the recent 'historic" plan for Australia's Defence real estate (okay, a shameless Government asset sale of historic sites to perhaps produce a one-off cash dribble that will be sucked into the AUKUS sub & Hunter frigate budgetary black holes.....). Metrics show the value of this deceased estate approach to Defence properties: flogging off most of the places Defence actually makes contact with Australians in urban areas may provide enough cash for two "Hegseths" - those $1 billion AUKUS suitcases Richard Marles travels with - or pay for 1/5 of a Hunter frigate. Hmmm. The upside is a joint venture for a tasteful new 112 storey bunker. Then it's a dive into the implications for Australia from the marked strategy shift the US has taken between the Oct 2022 & Jan 2026 National Defense Strategies, & a look at the Pentagon's disgraceful disregard of Mr Trump's recent complete and total obliteration of Iran's nuclear program: by gathering forces to....obliterate Iran's nuclear program. It's so hard to get good help.
Marcus & Michael pull together a deal Australian PM Albanese can offer to his great & powerful pal, US President Trump, at his first meeting of the Board of Peace, with lessons in Trump-management even for Vladimir Putin. They review the Australian Government's cunning formula on US actions in the world - 'I don't intend to provide a running commentary on American policy' - and assess how well this text will work as the basis for Australian strategy in the new National Defence Strategy. Then it's a look at US Navy plans to double down on the failed concepts behind both the Zumwalt class warships and the Littoral Combat Ship, before the episode ends with some good news about Australia & renewable power.
What's in a name? The Trumpy Strategists Bunker showcases the direction of Australian policy in 2025, while the Grumpies ponder MAGA tensions from Turning Point USA to Susie Wiles' cry for help in Vanity Fair. On bigger issues, Marcus & Michael look at the responses so far to the murderous Bondi attack, search for highlights in Australian military capability programs and look over the big policy takeaways from 2025. US self harm & a Beijing happy not to interrupt are prominent. Despite impending Christmas feasts and further Aussie cricketing glory, 2025 is ending with disturbing directions.
Well, well, well. the Pentagon's AUKUS review is out - well, actually under lock and key, but apparently its' great news that is about "strengthening" AUKUS. Hard to know how something that was flawlessly on track could need or be strengthened....Australian & US defence and foreign policy heads met in a steamy AUSMIN meeting leaving the rest of us in the dark while they got close. Meanwhile, the jarringly self-congratulatory grievance filled US National Security Strategy is out, bringing back the 19th Century idea of spheres of influence, this time for America, Russia and China. The fragments of remaining commitment to allies & any sense of collective security will be seized on by governments pretending everything is still good, but any engagement with the changed America the NSS describes will look very different. Foreign interference is out unless it's done to US friends & allies, or makes a buck.
Marcus & his fellow SES emergency volunteers hunt for the "Biggest Defence Overhaul in 50 years" somewhere deep in the Brindabellas (WARNING: parts of this episode contain disturbing elements of earlier reforms who appear to have been victims of foul play). Good news - those blockers stopping delivery of stuff for Australia's military - the Secretary and the Chief of the Defence Force - won't be able to get away with this for much longer. Details are scarce but the hunt is relentless. Then it's time to chew over awkward facts about declining rates of flying by our Air Force and falling numbers of days at sea from our Navy's shrinking fleet. Far from protecting Australia's sea lanes, our Navy seems mainly designed to protect itself. The Flower Class corvettes of WW2 show an alternative way that works.
Marcus and Michael pursue littoral dominance in Canberra's Lake Burley-Griffin while pondering the Australian Government's new definition of Australian industry, and PM Albanese's defence agreement with former military strongman turned Indonesian President Prabowo. They send Treasurer Chalmers best wishes wrestling with Korea's Hanhwa Ocean's bid to buy more of Aussie shipbuilder Austal in the face of Japanese industrial concerns around the Mogami frigates given Austal's role. They end with the fantastic news that the US military cutting its Army helicopter forces will release 6,500 trained recruits for Australia's new purchase of (oops) US helicopters, for our leading edge Army......Great to see the 5 Eyes people pipeline opening wide.
The Grumpies consider the net effect of US President Trump's Asia tour, and are outraged he was gifted a REPLICA crown. They examine the idea of South Korea building nuclear submarines, potentially in Philadelphia to give Americans jobs,,,,,,(the idea AUKUS set such a high threshold for nuclear sub tech sharing it would not result in proliferation now looks quaint). They end by going over a new report putting a $2.4 trillion potential price tag on the US Golden Dome missile and space defence system, and taking a tour themselves through the splendours of the Indo Pac arms show at the Sydney convention centre to see Australians' tax dollars at work.
The Grump Strategists move back into their renovated bunker deep in the Brindabellas to assess the finely-managed Albanese-Trump meeting. Full marks to PM Albanese & Ambassador Rudd for stage managing & delivering the meeting. The critical minerals deal has been celebrated as historic. It was a delightfully cheap distraction from tricky questions about Australian defence spending. But the bigger issues the meeting surfaced cut to the core of Indo Pacific security and Australian assumptions about a joint allied strategy focused on China. Meanwhile, back in sunny Canberra, Estimates hearings in the Parliament give some pearls about SSN-AUKUS design maturity, defence recruiting and the Aust-PNG Defence Treaty.
Marcus is back from Australia's croc-filled Outback. He catches up with Michael on global events: America's end to a Baltic states security initiative and the Trump Administrations' prep work for a Xi-Trump meeting - a Tik Tok half deal & pauses to a $400m US military aid package for Taiwan. They go Premier Allan's extraordinary connection of Victoria to Beijing's education system, and look into recent Australian Defence announcements on Anduril's Ghost Shark & the even more elusive Henderson Maritime Precinct. King Charles' odd early commissioning of the UK's 6th Astute class sub after 12 years of construction rounds out this 50th Anniversary Episode.
In Episode 49, Marcus and Michael go over the lessons for Australia from Europe's approach to dealing with an unreliable US over the war in Ukraine. They discuss the now disturbing centralisation of authority in the single person of the President in the US, and fly a new policy kite for growing the alliance in a time of Trump - reinventing US extended deterrence by requesting deployment of the US National Guard & Marines onto Australian streets. You heard it here first. The episode ends with the tragic tale of Richard Marles' empty-handed visit to Washington.
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