Best Selling Books by Peter Jennings

China’s ongoing military modernization program—and particularly efforts to develop coercive and deterrent capabilities across multiple domains, such as in advanced aerospace (missilery), cyberspace, outer space, autonomous systems, and weapons of mass destruction—clearly presents a formidable challenge to the United States and its armed forces, especially in the Indo-Pacific. In addition, regional countries, including key U.S. allies and security partners, face similar, often more intense, concerns about China’s military capabilities. China poses an increasing threat to the sovereign, territorial, and security interests of many U.S. allies and security partners in the Indo- Pacific, including Australia, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Vietnam.

Nothing fans the flames of a debate on The Strategist quite like a post that makes assertions about Australia''s place in the world and the role it should have on the international stage. In the ''top 20'' debate, the contributors emerged as regionalists or globalists, with different perceptions of the balance between Australia''s global and regional imperatives, its strategic interests and its international responsibilities. There was a broad acceptance that Australia has global interests, but a divergence on how much and what sort of effort it should devote to protecting them. Unsurprisingly, there was also a debate over what it meant to be a ''top 20'' power, how readily power could be translated into positive outcomes, and where and when we could spend our power to best effect. In the ''middle power'' debate, the discussion revolved around the meaning and utility of the term itself, and whether Australia should embrace or reject it as a label. Much like the ''top 20'' debate however, the argument came down to Australia''s strategic interests, its influence, and its international role and responsibilities. We present both debates here together in the hope that they''ll provoke further discussion in the defence, national security and foreign policy community about Australia''s place and role in the world and how that informs its strategic policy.

The 2016 Defence White Paper (DWP 2016), released in February this year, was the third such document in a little under seven years, a notably shorter interval than has been the case since the release of the first back in 1976. In truth, the new White Paper followed two that, for quite different reasons, failed to be as influential in defence planning as might reasonably be expected. DWP 2009 promised big and delivered little, while DWP 2013 was more an exercise in treading water for political purposes than a serious attempt at matching defence resources to the strategic challenges of the day. In this volume we''ve assembled a selection of articles written in the weeks after the release of DWP 2016. The paper''s policy settings were formulated at a time of significant strategic challenge. The rise of China, which was a significant element in 2009 but downplayed in 2013, simply can''t be ignored in 2016. And global events over the past few years have shown that Australia''s defence planning can''t take the geographically proximate approach that characterised planning in the 1980s and 90s.

This is a study of the coalition campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The recently released report of the First Principles Review of Defence, Creating One Defence, is set to reshape the Defence enterprise over the next few years. This ASPI special report explains the review''s recommendations and analyses the consequences for Defence.

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. David Peever''s team recommended a radical streamlining of decision-making in the Defence Department cutting senior management roles, slashing the number of committees, and abolishing the Defence Materiel Organisation. 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 include former senior defence bureaucrats and military officers as well as ASPI''s own team of analysts led by Peter Jennings, Andrew Davies and Mark Thomson. 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.