The Torch
Illuminating Security and Defence Issues
5 Eyes Partners
A top secret US spacecraft takes flight tonight – and it could rewrite the rules of future warfare
13 October 2025
The X-37B returned to Earth this month, but details of its time in space remain hazy, to say the least....
First Sea Lord Sets Very Ambitious Targets For Royal Navy Transformation
13 October 2025
We face a world that is increasingly contested and unpredictable, with rapid technological advancements reshaping warfare. My mission is to move the Royal Navy to warfighting readiness over the next four years....
Good enough to win: rethinking risk in innovation
13 October 2025
Innovation policy is often built around optimism. But in a world of live contest across the economy, the environment and the broader geostrategic landscape, progress cannot afford to wait for perfection....
U.S. Navy Sets Sights on Fleet-Wide Family of Unmanned Ships
5 September 2025
Requirements for the Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) USV program were announced by the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406) this week. The program is looking to deliver up to three different USVs for wide scale operational use in the U.S. Navy as a culmination of the U.S. Navy’s extensive prototype and development of Medium and Large USVs.
Land forces tool up for potential Pacific conflict
5 September 2025
Army, Marines pursue transformation, while exercises with partner nations grow more sophisticated.
Not just a bigger budget. Here’s how to reform Defence procurement
5 September 2025
Oft-repeated, because it is true, Australia faces the most complex strategic circumstances since World War II. Instability and near-term risk of major armed conflict in our region are real.
Australia urgently needs a national security strategy
27 July 2025 -
Unlike our closest allies—including Japan, Britain and the United States—Australia lacks a unified, public-facing national security strategy to guide coordinated action across defence, diplomacy, intelligence, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, and national resilience.
The battle for Pentagon acquisition policy: tradition versus new-and-cheaper
27 July 2025 -
An upcoming battle over defence acquisition will have repercussions for US military posture, particularly in the Pacific.
Army prepping for Pacific conflict with prepositioned equipment, logistics hubs
27 July 2025 -
Moving weapons, ammunition, fuel, and even water around the vast theater will be a huge challenge.
Britain’s biggest companies are preparing for a third world war
27 July 2025 -
As various conflicts threaten to erupt, bosses are taking steps to ensure their businesses survive
Cost of Defence’s roadmap for spending 3 percent of GDP on defence
27 July 2025 -
The current debate on Defence funding, sparked by our 29 May report The Cost of Defence: ASPI Defence budget brief 2025–2026, and a subsequent US request for Australia to spend more, has swung between a call for increasing funding as a percentage of GDP and a call for making individual funding decisions on specific capabilities that the nation needs.
Navigating a Changing Military Recruitment Environment
10 June 2025 -
While there is no question the American military faces persistent challenges in attracting qualified recruits, the much-discussed recruiting crisis that has dogged most service branches in recent years appears to be easing.
Not enough money, skills or organisation: Australia’s defence build-up is too slow
10 June 2025 -
Australia’s strategic environment is more threatening than it has been since World War II. Despite public recognition of heightened threats and a declaration of ambitious strategic goals, the government’s defence funding and preparedness efforts fall short of what is urgently needed.
Five important ideas from Britain’s defence review
10 June 2025 -
It’s ‘a truly transformational and genuinely strategic review,’ according to the three external reviewers who headed its production. Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the document, Britain’s Strategic Defence Review 2025, is a ‘landmark shift in our deterrence and defence.’ In essence, the review says Britain’s armed forces, as well as industry, civil society and others, must prepare again for the possibility of a high-intensity, peer-on-peer conflict.
Bollinger Approved to Start Full Construction of First Polar Security Cutter
20 May 2025
The Coast Guard has given a Mississippi shipyard the green light to start full production of the first heavy U.S. icebreaker in almost 50 years, the service announced on Thursday.
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Challenge of Military Surprise in an Open World
20 May 2025
Surprising a military opponent—whether through deception, misdirection, or unexpected maneuvers—has often yielded significant strategic advantages. However, in a globalized world shaped by advanced technology, satellite surveillance, instant communication, and widespread information access, achieving military surprise has become increasingly complex. This analysis explores the continued relevance and growing challenges of military surprise in light of international transparency, technological advancement, and the evolving nature of warfare.
Less bang for our defence bucks
20 May 2025
Australia is spending more and more taxpayers’ dollars equipping our Defence Force, but it is buying less and less. We’re in a spiralling affordability crisis leading to a shrinking Australian military and a bankrupt Defence organisation. The problem comes from the increasing costs of the extraordinarily complicated ships, submarines, planes, tanks and missiles that our Defence organisation likes to buy. This is now reaching the point where equipping our military at any scale that makes sense is unaffordable, unless we start learning and applying the lessons from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
How Trump uses disinformation in his trade war with Canada
26 March 2025
Falsehoods about the terms of U.S.-Canada trade aim to shift American public opinion.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Australia needs greater defence self-reliance, and extra funding
26 March 2025
Two recent foreign challenges suggest that Australia needs urgently to increase its level of defence self-reliance and to ensure that the increased funding that this would require is available.
The UK’s nuclear deterrent relies on US support – but there are no other easy alternatives
26 March 2025
Now that Washington is potentially an unreliable ally, the UK needs to revisit its nuclear strategy. But going alone is costly, and partnering with France poses its own risks.