The Grumpy Strategists

Marcus and Michael each pick their three stand out takeaways from Australian Defence officials testimony about delivery and performance to the Parliament. It's hard to pick winners in a field like this, but there's some overlap in the Grumpy choices. Taxpayers and the Parliament are not amongst them, unfortunately.
Looking at the performance of senior Defence officials, 'Condescending emptiness' and 'falling upward' are terms that come to mind. None of this is building public trust in our Defence organisation or its leadership.
Beyond the nasty realisation that senior Australian Defence officials are no longer servants of the public or the Parliament, but simply creatures of the Government of the day, it's good to have individual officials on the public record making claims that can be compared to evidence. Past statements (even carefully crafted avoiding manoeuvres) didn't stack up well for several - including incoming Chief of Australia's military, Mark Hammond. New Secretary Quinn displayed novel contortions to the English language and made a new 'AUKUS truth' that others then embraced.
Then the Grumpies helicopter away from events in the Parliament and look at UK defence trouble, and the sobering realisation that AUKUS has turned into a rationing exercise: sharing out submarine numbers that would have existed without the whole AUKUS hoopla between the three Navies.
Meanwhile, while AUKUS nations plan to get beyond rationing and increase submarine numbers sometime in the 2040s, China is shifting the AUKUS goalposts: out-producing the three nations on increasingly capable nuclear submarines, and building an extensive set of complementary undersea capabilities.
Expectations that AUKUS might shift the military balance in the Pacific away from China look doomed to disappointment.

Marcus talks to SAA's man in Singapore, Graeme Dobell, about the dynamics and developments on show at the annual Defence ministers' gathering in Singapore's Shangri-La hotel. This year, its America talking up the China-US relationship as a source of stability & concert of two, while Japan rises to fill some of the void created by American unreliability, & South Korea builds sovereign power. Australia makes the lonely choice to just double down on its dependence on the USA.
Marcus & Graeme explore the sartorial parallels between Pete Hegseth and the Nixon-era Alexander Haig, while remembering Australia's PM Curtin, and the imprint General Douglas MacArthur's approach to war and the region left, just as it disappears. China's defence minister was a 'no show' again - partly because speaking risks being purged by Chairman Xi and partly because China isn't bothering to tell its story anymore.

In history, a retreat from Singapore can have hairs all over it, but Richard Marles has turned that around, as the Grumpy Strategists unpack the events. At Singapore's Shangri-La dialogue, Mr Marles faced down an America First Pete Hegseth, meeting the Pentagon chief's fiery lethality towards allies with his own Aussie cold steel.
The result is Australia's AUKUS deliverables are now 3 used US Virginia class subs sometime in the 2030s instead of the earlier stupid idea of getting a new sub as part of the deal.
There's celebration in the streets here in Canberra now that our fears that we might get a new submarine of any kind sometime in the next 20 years have been laid to rest. Australia is moving towards global best practice in aged care for submarines with our Collins class fleet....now that we've cancelled their life extension program (??).....We must not let this national skill wither, but apply it instead to subs with nuclear reactors on board. Mr Marles and his colleague Pat Conroy seem to understand this intuitively in a way others don't.
Marcus channels his inner Marles to show us the benefits of this 'chase for simplicity' and 'cost savings' through a standalone fleet of 3 used subs. It's a tweak to what we had previously understood was a uniquely complex and costly but deeply integrated 3 nation AUKUS program.
The episode deals with Minister Marles' greatest fears. And with clown spiders, one of Michael's. It also shows the difference between an AUKUS Pillar 2 "Signature" project and the highly anticipated "Marquee" project many had expected. Hint: you can fit many signatures onto one marquee.

Marcus and Michael go through the scandalous revelations about 10 years of failed planning on extending the operational life of the only submarines Australia has - the 6 Collins class - while AUKUS subs slowly appear. Disturbingly, the most senior Defence leadership - including the Secretary and the Chief of Navy (just promoted to be the chief of the entire military) were advised numerous times of insurmountable technical and engineering issues with the planned life extension. The main motors and diesel generators took up more room and would require a major redesign of the entire submarine, and the result would be a sub that had to "snort" for longer and so be more vulnerable. The whole project collapsed under the weight of its flaws because an external Audit got the story out.
But for years, the leadership failed to advise Government ministers. A report by a former US Defense official belled the cat in 2024 to ministers, but neither ministers nor the Defence senior leadership revealed the scandals to the public or the Parliament. Instead they kept spending $100s of millions on failure. The result is Australia's only submarines are now in aged care, limping along until the AUKUS cavalry turns up. Meanwhile, the leadership has had promotions all round.
This is an insight into how AUKUS is being managed by our Defence leaders and ministers.
The episode ends with a dose of truth from the UK's First Sea Lord that the Royal Navy's pursuit of ever bigger, ever more expensive platforms is a mistake - as the huge Dreadnought subs, the Type 26 and SSN-AUKUS projects sail on eating the UK military's future.

Michael and Marcus argue furiously over the merits and messages in the Albanese Govt budget versus Opposition leader Angus Taylor's response. Only one of them is right....Then Marcus burrows deep into Parliament House to find a phone to talk numbers with the Defence Chief Finance Officer. Result: a $14 billion cash bump for Defence spending over the next 4 years turns into a $1.2 billion reduction, like magic. Michael recovers from the shock of being kicked off Air Force One on its way to Beijing to listen in as a returning Donald Trump finds two buses to throw Taiwan under in his quest for a growing market for American beans. The episode ends with a trot through global demographics and the disturbing raw numbers on naval shipbuilding out of China and America. One nation is building a big new blue water fleet. The other is holding its breath saying it wants to. Premium Economy back to the SAA bunker can't land fast enough in this unravelling world.