Just for a change, we start with some positive developments, including a bilateral security treaty with PNG. Another positive item is a contract with Bisalloy to start qualifying steel for Australian built nuclear powered submarines. That looks to be 15 years earlier than necessary and might have more to do with US reporting requirements rather than Australian needs.
Speaking of which, one of the main AUKUS boosters in Congress is Joe Courtney. He seems like a very nice reasonable person – but his Congressional district includes the Electric Boat submarine yard in Groton. It is owned by General Dynamics, which also happens to be his largest single donor. There’s nothing improper in this – it’s just the way politics works in the US but Australians need to be aware of the connection.
Regarding Israel’s continuing pounding of Gaza with horrendous civilian casualties: please stop. You are damaging your own international reputation and it won’t wipe out Hamas, which is an idea, not a building or a person.
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Dear Kym
In your latest podcast you correctly state that “..misinformation keeps on being repeated over and over again ..after a while they acquire a veneer of truth”. It is with this context I challenge your analysis of the “touchy subject on Israel & Gaza”.
Any analysis of military operations must rely on accurate and reliable information.
You quote civilian casualty figures provided by HAMAS ministry of health – the same Ministry that declared, within minutes of a rocket strike on a hospital car park, that 500 civilians were killed – a strike that was proven to be by a Palestinian misfired rocket. The casualty figures were quoted by media but were subsequently disputed by international observers, US intelligence and actual footage.
HAMAS misinformation warfare is ongoing and highly effective. Civilian casualty numbers provided by HAMAS are quoted by media without any substantiation. HAMAS terrorists in civilian clothing are filmed operating from and retreating into civilian infrastructure (a concept referred to as “operating below the discrimination threshold” and within a militarily “Complex Physical and Human terrain” in the 2009 Australian Army – Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept) – yet once they are targeted and defeated they become “civilians”.
Your assessment that Israel needs to “ look at eliminating Hamas by other means” – fails to comprehend that Hamas is a structured armed force of over 30,000 regulars ( that’s the size of the Australian Army). HAMAS is armed with thousands of surface to surface rockets, latest RPGs, Russian Anti-Tank missiles, weaponised drones and loitering munitions (capabilities that the Australian Army doesn’t currently have). To defeat this terror infrastructure requires complex urban warfare operations by and extremely well trained and resourced forces – please avoid your comparison to “Fauda” (TV series) special operations tasked to typically eliminate two suicide bombers in waiting.
On 7OCT23, over 1500 terrorists under the direct instruction of HAMAS – the governing body of Gaza, carried out large scale systematic executions, raping of women, murder and mutilation of civilians and seizing of hostages – all under cover of a 3000-rocket barrage into civilian areas and simultaneous attacks on military units of the IDF. HAMAS does not operate by any Rules of Engagement (ROEs) and hence eliminating it involves extremely challenging operations. A relevant military comparison is the smaller scale US and allied operations in Fallujah, Iraq to eliminate HAMAS sister organisation Al-Qaeda, Islamic Army and Ansar al-Sunnah. You will note the extensive damage to mosques (used as weapons caches), school, civilian infrastructure – very similar to the vision coming from Gaza.
Coordinated, multi-domain operations conducted from within urbanised civilian terrain by fundamentalist, religiously or ideologically motivated terrorist groups operating with no ROEs and in possession of advanced weaponry is a topic that requires many lessons learnt studies by both Israel and Western armed forces. I look forward to a detailed act-based analysis by APDR of all associated aspects.
Thank you for that detailed response and you make a number of valid points. I tried to acknowledge the fact that this is an extremely difficult subject to raise. I think the figure of 17,000 civilian dead is widely accepted as it comes from multiple sources, including the UN (150 of whose members have also been killed in the fighting) and Red Crescent. I simply repeat my main point that I do not believe such a high number of civilian deaths is in the long term interests of Israel, or anyone else for that matter. Of the civilians it is also very credibly reported that around 5,000 of them are children and I cannot think of a good reason for why the IDF has killed them. The horror of the appalling Hamas attack on October 7 of course deserves a response but I also wonder if the present nonstop bombardment is actually the best way of securing the release of the remaining 120 hostages.
“A relevant military comparison is the smaller scale US and allied operations in Fallujah”…how apt, another genocidal warcrime that cornered, starved, butchered & incinerated the civilian population with chemical weapons like white phosphorous (a favourite of the IAFs), jointly led by none other than Australia’s own Jim Molan.
I admit to having had a similar thought.
While similar Australian & International publications ring bells whistles about Lockheed Martin (LM) delivering Belgium’s first F-35 this month, apparently 12 F-35s missing from Australia’s frontline of defence thanks to LM’s failure to honour its Avalon commitment to complete Australia’s order by the end of 2023, is not considered significant or newsworthy anywhere. Worth a mention in your final podcast for the year perhaps Kym ?
It’s quite complex. A number of jets are awaiting delivery – including the 12 for Australia – because the development of new flight mission computers (or strictly speaking, the flight testing of them) is running behind schedule. They are being developed by L3Harris and are essential for a major upgrade known as Block 4 that will have features such as a new radar and a new Distributed Aperture System. At this stage I’m reluctant to do too much finger pointing because the Joint Program Office is also involved and I’m in the process of doing more research.
Hmm, Block 4 development has been a snowballing sh*t fight for years, how does it justify failing to deliver ANY of the 12 Block 3 airframes LM promised Australia by years end ? are you aware of the Block 4 excuse ever being used for the delays of the current 60 Block 3 in RAAF service, or is it just LM’s latest ?
If the RAAF accepted the jets with older generation mission computers – which I suppose they could do if their only concern was sticking to schedule – then they would be un-upgradable to the Block 4 version. Or to put it another way, all of the jets have to be retrofitted with new mission computers to permit Block 4 upgrades. As mentioned, the holdup appears to be with L3Harris but I’m in the process of confirming that.
As it stands 83% of the RAAF’s fleet need the upgrade, how does that justify the indefinite delay of 12 more ? point being LM have failed to deliver the equivalent of an F-35 squadron, when, according to our AUKUS driven ‘Defence Strategic Review’, vastly increasing aircrew numbers must be the RAAF’s number 1 priority (an undertaking that demands more airframes). Bottom line, as per usual Australian taxpayers are being treated like mushrooms about national security by both government and media.