All Episodes

Unaccountable rises: A Defence leadership Trifecta performs at Parliament, while China shifts the ground on AUKUS

America in Asia: a very different Hegesth to 2025 & regional ordering amongst disorder

Retreat from Singapore: Richard Marles succeeds in getting all used subs from America. The new ones are rubbish.

Australia's Collins subs life extension scandal: 10 years of failure covered up until the Auditors came - & the UK's 1st Sea Lord takes truth serum

Oz Budgets: the Unhappy meet the Disappointed. Big Defence numbers get small. & the cage fight in Beijing

Zen and the Art of Defence investment: big numbers for everyone - Episode 70

The Grumpy Strategists cover Australia's new defence plan: a strategy of denial that the world has changed

America's wartime defense budget: $1.5 trillion to deliver a military able to fight everyone - except China.....

The Gulf collective defence exercise: a war no one admits to fighting

Our Kentucky Colonel masters deflection, the War & AUKUS sub outcomes - magical thinking meets US & UK partner realities

Victory in the War for Influence & Invoicing: Australia's Mandarin Advisory Complex at work in two reports

The Iran war: Australia joins the "Coalescing of the Partly Willing"

Iran War: bad guys, rose petals and donuts - Trump tries for the Big Maduro

Plumbing new depths in politics. And Chinese sub numbers & PLA purges - actually mindboggling

Mindboggling! celebrating $30 billion on sub sheds (not actual subs), while leaders outdo One Nation's darker instincts

Australia's defence budget update: a sugar hit followed by a $2.6bn cut. Take that, Mr Trump, sir!

Deceased estate: Oz Defence sells the silver to fund poor lifestyle choices, & US obliterating Iranian nukes (again).

Penguins, not principles, key to Australia's Trump management - & Ozzie maritime strategy tied to a collapsing US Navy

Trump's edifice complex gets Grumpy, & 2025 strategic & Aussie military takeaways

AUKUS gets steamy, & cherrypicking can't make the US National Security Strategy good news

The hunt for Defence reform downunder: Mr Conroy & the Yeti. And the mystery of sea control with a tiny fleet

A democratic lockdown fit for an authoritarian & marking Defence's Annual Report homework Part 1

Australian industry gets more Aussie, while Australia writes defence cheques it can't cash

Trump's Asia Tour: replica-crowned with success, and stalemated. And 'Nuclear Submarines For EVERYONE!!!!'

Albanese meets Trump: champagne all round - but a harder meeting would've been better for Australian security & the alliance

Episode 50: With friends like this...& Why spend real money on defence when you can just seem to?

Europe's lessons in dealing with unreliability, extended deterrence for Aussie streets & lost luggage

The Ambassadors Series - a Grumpy Strategist meets a high energy Ukrainian Ambassador

Episode 48: Grumpy But Grand Strategy - Australia's Two Pillars are both in trouble

Episode 47 Ground truthing Australia's drone journey & the UK's military & industrial base

Grumpy Strategist Makers Series - with Beaten Zone's Steve Baxter

Oh dear, what have you done to my fleet!? & Is Australia now bandwagoning AND free-riding??

The AUKUS emergency episode: What-the-Hell-Just Happpppppened? The Trump Review'n'stuff

Common defence Myth Takes, North Korean real estate, & UK defence review echoes Oz

A Grumpy Strategist meets Taiwan's Australian rep: world health, regional security, economics & trade - Episode 43

Episode 42 - the Meaning of Life, drones, world's 'biggliest' airstrike & self destructing Democrats

Attention Deficit Disorder debuts as global foreign policy, while muddy siloes contrast with Golden Domes.

Grumpy Strategists Popes and Prime Ministers edition - Episode 40

Grumpy Strategists Episode 39: Elections, defence, cash, chainsaws and long bonnet syndrome.

Grumpy Strategists' Defence Dollars and Decisions edition

The Grumpies' Heard Island Edition: a risky America, determined penguins - & Australians see nothing happening.

Episode 36: A Grumpy Strategist meets a Wise Owl: caught between China & the US, Australia fixates on a 2040 Fantasy Force

Episode 35: Australian 'wombat resistance' to Trump begins, the masterplan for zero tariffs and debates swirl on "Plan B' for security

Walk This Way: Grumpies & ADM cover Defence hit 'Slowrollin' & try the new Coke Zero flavour of US alliances

Episode 33 - Grumpy Strategists live at the Australian Defence Magazine 2025 Congress

When Karens take power; building a hedge of frigates, & missile maths - Episode 32

Episiode 31- Biden valedictory, Trump 2.0 prelude & Bad Santa's little Canberra helpers release more reviews

Defence's disappointing Annual Report & Hypersonic Hyperbole meets Houthi hard work

Episode 29: Washington cyber hygiene. Military shrinks while plans proliferate, Marles keeps balls in the air

Episode 28: Sub schedules on fire, Deterrence by Documentation & a guided weapons go slow

Episode 27 - Gullible Goldfish, Ghost Fleets & a nasty bout of 'enshittification'

Episode 26: Acceleration - that word doesn't mean what you think it means

Episode 25 -the Army gets wet. An empty AUKUS sub plan damages trust

Makin' missiles, a business insurgency & schedule as comedy - Episode 24

Disappearing tanks, million dollar missiles, SNAUKUS and the bear that's driving the US election - Episode 23

The Great Debates: a civil nuclear debate

Post-shot US election update, Ukrainian & Ozzie drones, spies and public money

Grumpy Strategist Makers' Series - the workforce edition with KINEXUS

Consequences, consequences: budget settings starve the Air Force & a bureaucracy avoids scrutiny

Episode 20: Cringers, crawlers, walkers & runners with a dash of AI, cults, conspiracies, pyramids & portals.

Episode 19 - Collins subs life extension realities & Permits for Everyone: the lazy new SAMS law

The Grumpy Strategist Makers' Series Episode - Austal

The post-Budget blues edition: Backloaded cash, unachievable plans and Collins dies young

The numerology of Australia's new National Defence Strategy & investment plan

Devalued words and dollars damage Australia's security

Grumpy Strategist Makers Series Episode 3 - NIOA Group

Subs, Subs, subs - 5 big events in the undersea world of AUKUS submarines

Grumpy Strategists Makers Series Episode 2 - Gilmour Space

The dangerous new Defence Industrial Development Strategy - jarringly out of step with our world

Grumpy Strategists - The Makers' Series Episode 1

A new plan for Australia's Navy - money, frigates & floating missile trucks, but no lessons from the Black or Red Seas

2024 with a bang: Escalating war with de-escalating words, May budget expectations & broken disposals

The Christmas-New Year Edition - indicators and warnings for the Defence Force - and a Christmas gift to a troubled department

Episode 9 - 2024: global elections bring a fragmenting world, investing everywhere but into Australian industry, and those pesky proposed export controls

AUKUS own goals - Australia's new draft export controls

The Travel and Accountability Edition: Tuvalu, leadership failure & the Hunter frigates, and the B-21

The Estimates Edition: a recruitment crisis, fragile fleets & lessons from America

The Israel-Hamas war, deterrence failures & hostage diplomacy Beijing style

Army shape shifting, helicopter troubles & Mr Albanese goes to Washington & Beijing

Sevastopol, $200 million Triton drones and Australian industry

Naval Shipbuilding without ships & a Navy review about what?

Health check on Australia's Defence Strategic Review