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All Episodes

The Grumpy Strategists — 77 episodes

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1

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

2

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

3

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

4

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

5

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

6

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

7

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

8

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

9

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

10

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

11

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

12

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

13

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

14

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

15

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

16

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

17

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

18

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

19

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

20

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

21

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

22

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

23

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

24

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

25

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

26

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

27

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

28

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

29

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

30

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

31

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

32

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

33

Grumpy Strategists Popes and Prime Ministers edition - Episode 40

34

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

35

Grumpy Strategists' Defence Dollars and Decisions edition

36

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

37

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

38

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

39

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

40

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

41

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

42

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

43

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

44

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

45

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

46

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

47

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

48

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

49

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

50

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

51

The Great Debates: a civil nuclear debate

52

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

53

Grumpy Strategist Makers' Series - the workforce edition with KINEXUS

54

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

55

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

56

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

57

The Grumpy Strategist Makers' Series Episode - Austal

58

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

59

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

60

Devalued words and dollars damage Australia's security

61

Grumpy Strategist Makers Series Episode 3 - NIOA Group

62

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

63

Grumpy Strategists Makers Series Episode 2 - Gilmour Space

64

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

65

Grumpy Strategists - The Makers' Series Episode 1

66

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

67

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

68

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

69

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

70

AUKUS own goals - Australia's new draft export controls

71

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

72

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

73

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

74

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

75

Sevastopol, $200 million Triton drones and Australian industry

76

Naval Shipbuilding without ships & a Navy review about what?

77

Health check on Australia's Defence Strategic Review