– Second Line of Defense – Rear Admiral Mead is the Navy’s joint capability manager and is clearly focused on the cross-cutting dynamics of maritime modernization within the context of the overall evolution of the ADF.

– Breaking Defense – The Australian military is shaping a transformed military force, one built around new platforms but ones that operate in a joint manner in an extended battlespace. The goal is to extend the defense perimeter of Australia and create, in effect, their own version of an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy.

– USNI News – Australia has placed significant emphasis on enhancing its maritime capabilities in its long-delayed 2016 Defence White Paper amidst an overall surge in the country’s defense spending, while warning that China’s policies and actions will have a major impact on the stability of the Indo-Pacific in the coming decades.

– Aviation Week – With troops deployed in the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, the JSF program ramping up, and a heavy involvement in the two-year search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370, Australia’s defense priorities appear self-evident. Yet 2016 looks set to be dominated by another defense procurement program, the largest in Australian history. The replacement of Australia’s Collins-class submarine fleet is turning into a political story almost as big as its anticipated budget.

– USNI News – The consortium building three air warfare destroyers (AWDs) for the Royal Australian Navy has provided an update on the construction of the ships, as well as an overview on the lessons learned from the delays and cost overruns that have plagued the program.

– USNI News – Japan’s submarine bid team has outlined the details of its proposal for Australia’s SEA1000 Future Submarine program to replace the Royal Australian Navy’s existing Collins-class boats.

– USNI News – The Royal Australian Navy has begun sea trials for its second big deck Canberra-class amphibious warship.

– USNI News – Australia’s state owned shipbuilder ASC launched the first of a new class of guided missile destroyer for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) last week a day after after a new government statement outlined additional delays and cost overruns in the three ship program.

– National Interest – The case for building the next generation of Royal Australian Navy (RAN) submarines in Australia begins with the stand-out attributes that make submarines so important for Australia as a whole: they must be able to operate in areas a long way from home, without air or sea control, to watch, listen, evaluate and act when necessary. Australia’s future submarine will be a unique platform, giving early warning of an adversary’s intentions and providing an excellent antisubmarine and anti-surface ship capability.

– Aviation Week – It seems as though every day brings a different “definitive” story about the Australian submarine requirement to replace its troubled Collins-class submarines.

– BBC – Sailors from the Royal Australian Navy say they have suffered trauma after having to pull dead asylum seekers from the ocean while on border patrol.

– USNI News – The first of two 27,000-ton amphibious warships was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on Friday

– USNI News – Australian Defense Minister David Johnston blasted state-owned shipbuilder ASC (formerly known as Australian Submarine Corporation) following reported cost overruns of the Royal Australian Navy’s new class of guided missile destroyers.

– USNI News – The Australian government has confirmed its tracking a flotilla of Russian Navy warships operating in international waters near Australia’s northern coast.

– National Interest – Australia, which has been saddled for nearly two decades with the advanced—yet unreliable—Collins class attack submarines will buy Japanese Soryu class diesel submarines to replace them. The decision will send shock waves through both countries. For Australia, it will mean giving up—at least temporarily—on an indigenous submarine industry and thousands of jobs in return for a modern, reliable submarine force. For Japan it will be even more of a landmark event: the sale of Japanese-built submarines abroad will be the largest export of arms abroad in seventy years and symbolic of the new direction Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is taking Japan.