The National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Plan have been released, but in the short term this does nothing for Australia’s military capabilities – the serious funding increase is later in the decade. It also ignores the effect of inflation. The accompanying speech of Defence Minister Richard Marles at the National Press Club revealed a hilarious level of stupidity within the Defence establishment. The apparent logic of reducing the number of planned Infantry Fighting Vehicles from 450 to 129 is that our two Canberra class LHDs can only carry about 50 IFVs at a time – so why do we need more than that? Amazingly, this completely ignores the fact that ships can return to port and load more IFVs. It also ignores the fact that they can be transported by RAAF’s highly capable C-17 fleet. Then we have a look at nuclear-powered submarine funding – and of the approved $13 billion, one third of that is handed out to highly profitable US companies and the rest goes on digging holes and pouring concrete. There’s zero added value. Finally, some good news for Ukraine – but not from Australia.

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