By Robbin Laird Enhancing C2 capabilities for the ADF in the near to midterm is a critical part of being able to deliver the kind of defense capabilities which Australia needs for its renewed focus on direct defense of Australia. During my current visit to Australia, I had a chance…

A great place to go to approach ways to answer that question is to visit The Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center or NAWDC which is best known to the public as “Top Gun.” When I last visited NAWDC in 2020 which I did twice in that year, it was very…

By Robbin Laird Recently, the U.S. navy's CNO Gilday underscored that fleet numbers are limited by the relatively limited defense industrial capacity in the United States. A clear challenge is to rebuild and enhance the "arsenal of democracy." “We have an industrial capacity that’s limited. In other words, we can…

By Robbin Laird A key difference between legacy 20th century military platforms and 21st century platforms revolve around software upgradeability. With the legacy platforms, integration on the platform has been done by additive change, with then having to modify the platform in various ways to incorporate the additive change. With…

By Robbin Laird When I worked for Secretary Wynne when he was head of defense acquisition and then Secretary of the USAF, I had a chance to focus on the coming of the F-35 global enterprise. What I argued at the time was that a global force of F-35s would…

By Robbin Laird In my previous article highlighting the coming of autonomous unmanned surface vessels to the fleet, I underscored: “Autonomous USVs can provide wolfpack deployed ISR or relay systems to enhance the reach and survivability of the fleet in its distributed operational role. They can also provide an ability…

By Robbin Laird In this first article in my series highlighting my recent discussion with BG (Retired) Preziosa. we discussed the importance of enhanced cooperation among European states in delivering integrated combat power in times of crisis. In that initial piece Preziosa warned that both the new NATO and EU…

By Robbin Laird HMAS Canberra was born in a strategic context for Australia considerably different from today. When the Australian government was considering adding an LHA to the force, the main focus was upon supporting HADR operations along with an ability to transport the Australian Army to regional areas of…