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Australia Needs a Defence Spokesperson
Jennifer Parker | 31 August 2026 *Originally published in the Australian on 29 August 2026 Image: JS Hamara prepares to replenish HMAS Toowoomba is in the East China Sea. Defence images. It is a bipartisan position that the country faces its most significant strategic circumstances since World War II. But the phrase rolls of the tongue so easily it risks losing the gravity those words should carry. Those words compare our present circumstances with a period when Australia’s m
While the world is distracted, China is making its move
Jennifer Parker | 7 August 2026 *Originally published in The Australian on 7 August 2026 Image: Chinese Coast Guard Vessel provided by Philippine's Coast Guard (https://x.com/jaytaryela/status/2000797031938580553?s=20) The global pressures of 2026 have created no shortage of distractions. An increasingly interventionist US administration has added to flashpoints from the Middle East to Venezuela and Greenland, consuming the attention of the media, the public and Australia’s s
Uncrewed and untested: The wrong lessons for a hybrid navy
24 July 2026 | Jennifer Parker *Originally published in The Lowy Institute's The Interpreter on 24 July 2026 Ukraine’s drones achieved sea denial – but that’s not what a blue-water navy needs to maintain. Image: The Rattler, foreground, Unmanned Surface Vehicle escorts HMS Tyne off the coast of Scotland (Daniel Bladen/UK MoD) When the UK launched its Defence Investment Plan on 30 June, the government promised a “generational transformation” of the military that would apply th
Hormuz is no longer one front in US-Iran war - it is becoming a test
19 July 2026 | Jennifer Parker *Originally published with Channel News Asia on 19 July 2026. Access original publication here Image: USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) transits the Arabian Sea while an MH-60S Sea Hawk flies nearby. @CENTCOM page on X. The strategic waterway is becoming the clearest test of whether any state can use force to rewrite the rules governing freedom of navigation United States President Donald Trump’s proposal to charge a 20 per cent fee on cargo moving throu
Despite its best efforts, Iran won’t be able to toll the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s why
29 June 2026 | Jennifer Parker *Originally published in The Conversation on Monday 29 January 2026 Tensions have again escalated in the Middle East, with the United States and Iran trading strikes around the Strait of Hormuz. It follows reports of an Iranian drone attack on a cargo ship trying to transit through the strait. Both the US and Iran have accused each other of breaking the agreed 60-day interim peace deal. Since Iran was attacked by the US and Israel it has increas