This paper highlights that the national security risks faced now are in Australia's region. It proposes a clear focus on the defence of Australia and its northern approaches. The paper also addresses the critical nature of Australia's relationship with the USA. It provides six recommendations.

As part of a series looking at what needs to be done to strengthen Australia’s defence, this paper notes the vulnerabilities of Australia's military that will affect its ability to sustain operations during a conflict involving major powers in the region. It makes six recommendations.

This report argues that the Indian Ocean is poised to become a significant area of cooperation between France and Australia in light of the 2018 French Indo-Pacific strategy to enhance France’s military, economic, diplomatic and political assets in the region.

This report argues that ‘there is a need to reconceptualize northern Australia, as a single scalable defence and national security ecosystem.’ This ecosystem should be developed to ‘deliver integrated support to current and future ADF and national security operations.’

Antennas are the most readily available and visible evidence of the existence, character, and size of signals intelligence facilities that operate or monitor space systems. Coupled with data on the timing of developments in US geosynchronous satellite programs, the timing of antenna installation now permits, for the first time, identification of the role and function...

The management of operations at the Pine Gap facility has become increasingly complex as the functions of the station have expanded, the number of agencies involved has grown, and the demands of a wider range of ‘users’ or ‘customers’ for the provision of ‘actionable intelligence’ in near real-time have increased markedly. Operations at Pine Gap...

The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, located just outside the town of Alice Springs in Central Australia and managed by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), is one of the largest U.S. technical intelligence collection facilities in the world. The corporate presence at Pine Gap has expanded substantially in terms of both the number of...

In 1980 ANU security expert Des Ball published, A Suitable Piece of Real Estate, about American installations in Australia. These military and intelligence bases are the cornerstone of the Australian/US defence relationship. Over 30 years later, there are calls for a renewed debate on the role of these 'joint installations' and their contribution to Australia's...