The Grumpy Strategists Episode 47 Ground truthing Australia's drone journey & the UK's military & industrial base
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Aug 2, 2025 The hosts dive deep into Australia’s drone capabilities, revealing a stark contrast to the claims made by officials. They critique the disconnect between AUKUS announcements and the UK's actual production capacity for subs. The discussion highlights the challenges in military innovation, particularly around outdated technology and funding issues. Moreover, they emphasize the need for a proactive military strategy as they explore tensions in defense collaborations and the economic implications of military spending. A sobering look at military realities unfolds!
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Limited Australian Drone Capacity
- Australia's drone capabilities mostly consist of small, unarmed surveillance drones with limited scale.
- The current government investments are too small to build a significant production capacity or a serious drone ecosystem.
Delegation Drives Ukrainian Drone Success
- Ukraine's success with drones stems from delegating innovation and procurement down to lower military units.
- Australia needs to adopt similar downward delegation to break defense procurement bottlenecks.
Drip Feeding Drone Investments
- Buying small quantities of diverse drone systems without production scale hampers development.
- Celebrating small-scale drone purchases while ignoring bigger strategic spendings is misleading.