In this episode of the Contested Ground podcast, hosts Major General (Ret'd) Dr Marcus Thompson, Phil Tarrant and Liam Garman unpack the risk of alliance abandonment in the face of moves from the White House and their implications for a changing Asia-Pacific region.

• The podcast begins with an analysis into how fears of alliance abandonment have led to renewed commitments to national security collaboration between European powers.
• They then unpack whether "deal making" is a strong enough consideration to overcome ideological and philosophical partnerships in the competition for global power.
• Dr Thompson, Tarrant and Garman wrap up the podcast looking at hedging and balancing strategies in the Indo-Pacific, and whether realpolitik will take centre stage as nations continuously manoeuvre their alliance structures.

Enjoy the podcast,
The Contested Ground team

In this episode of the Defence Connect Podcast, host Steve Kuper is joined by former secretary of home affairs, Mike Pezzullo, to unpack the precedent established by Beijing’s naval taskforce circumnavigating Australia and how to deal with more in the future.

The pair discuss a range of issues, including:

• The government’s response to, and the timeline behind the notice of the Chinese naval taskforce’s live-fire training exercises in the Tasman Sea.
• The tactical and strategic ramifications and shortfalls on display in the Australian Defence Force and government’s response to the taskforce.
• A suggested crash course program to rapidly accelerate Australia’s level of tactical and strategic preparedness within the next term of Parliament.

Enjoy the podcast,
The Defence Connect team

In this episode of the Defence Connect Spotlight podcast, host Steve Kuper is joined by Graeme Bick and Ray Bright of QinetiQ Australia and Chris White of Australian Maritime College to discuss the importance of test and evaluation in the era of autonomous systems.

The group discuss a range of timely matters, including:

• The experience and lessons gathered by QinetiQ and AMC in developing the policies, procedures and knowledge base through T&E across traditional defence platforms through to the advent and proliferation of autonomous systems.
• The history of the collaboration between QinetiQ and AMC and their history of advancing state-of-the-art T&E over a long period of time.
• The accelerating pace of technology, which has heightened Defence's emphasis on rapidly introducing new capabilities.
• The emergence of challenges and opportunities as a result of the integration of various military systems with increasingly complex AI-enabled autonomous systems.
• Balancing the need for faster testing while maintaining the same level of assurance remains a critical challenge.

Enjoy the podcast,
The Defence Connect team