About this episode
The episode discusses the challenges of building Mogami frigates in Australia, historical military insights, and current geopolitical tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.
To follow on from last week, we start with some thoughts about Mogami frigates and why none of them will ever be built in Australia. The simple fact is that WA companies do not have the necessary experience - and building some landing craft for the Army will not get them there. Secondly, in an outrageous oversight during the bidding process, no one was asked by Defence to provide a single line of costings on how the ships will be constructed in Australia. Then some history of the Crimean War and the inability of British commander Lord Raglan to understand that the world had changed and that the enemy was different from what he was used to. This is appropriate remembering that just a fortnight ago, the retiring head of INDOPACOM USN Admiral Sam Paparo told Congress that the industrial base was not producing SSNs fast enough. All sorts of fissures are occurring in the Middle East with formerly close ally Saudi Arabia denying the US access to military bases for the short lived Project Freedom. One wonders if at some point the US and Israel might also experience a rupture. In our region, North Asia is nervously waiting for the Trump-Xi summit next week. No one knows…
Topics covered
- defense industry
- military history
- US foreign policy
- Asia-Pacific relations
- naval construction
- geopolitical tensions
Keywords
- Mogami frigates
- Admiral Sam Paparo
- Crimean War
- US military bases
- Trump-Xi summit
- naval construction
- geopolitical tensions
- Asia-Pacific
- defense industry
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: INDOPACOM
Products: Mogami frigates, SSNs, Project Freedom
Places: Australia, Saudi Arabia, US, Israel, North Asia
More episodes of Asia Pacific Defence Reporter
- Episode 142 · June 10, 2026 · 20 min
- Episode 141 · June 2, 2026 · 20 min
- Episode 140 · May 26, 2026 · 21 min
- Episode 139 · May 19, 2026 · 20 min
- Episode 137 · May 5, 2026 · 20 min
- Episode 136 · April 28, 2026 · 21 min
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