The scale of the corrupt deal between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is even greater than we thought with Europe coming under pressure to transfer $200 billion worth of frozen Russian assets to Washington, to be administered by we don't know who. On a bright note it looks like Starlink / Starshield services have been fully restored, but the point remains that the US can - and will - pull the plug on customers and allies, no matter who they are.

Ukraine continues to demonstrate that drones are the way of the future, and Russian casualties for September reached an all time high - 50,000 killed, wounded and missing. Ukraine is launching an average of 6,600 drone strikes per day - and that number will certainly increase as they build and buy even more of them.

The Starlink debacle is evidence of the importance of military communications satellites - and Australia needs a network of our own. Recent information is that an offer from the government of South Korea to Australia to co-develop a military communications satellite system was completely ignored - something that in other times would have led to Ministers being fired.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Australian politicians and Defence planners - please note that the US betrayal of Ukraine is worsening. On top of an illegal decision to purchase Russian diesel fuel, other sanctions have been lifted and the absolutely vital Star Shield military grade internet service to Ukraine was curtailed. During that time, launches of Russian ballistic missiles went undetected, resulting in civilian deaths - and the outrage in the US has been so strong that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now blaming each other.

As well as proving its treachery by openly siding with the Kremlin, the utterly corrupt Trump administration may do permanent damage to the quality of US military equipment - and all Australian politicians and bureaucrats need to be aware of this new reality. If contracts are being awarded as a result of bribes and family connections, how can other countries be sure that it is fit for purpose? This is not a joke - contracts are now openly being awarded to companies in which the Trump family has shares.

Finally our Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters are being retired. Ukraine is no longer interested in them because they have discovered that numerous cheap drones can perform almost all of the missions of vastly expensive crewed platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We start with the latest ongoing US betrayal of Ukraine - and it's a shocker. Following a 90 minute phone call with his best friend Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump has announced that the US will now buy diesel fuel from Russia. This is a total breach of western sanctions and not only stabs Ukraine in the back but also undercuts support for Ukraine. The consequences could be profound and demonstrate again that the Trump administration will break any alliance agreements whenever it suits them.

A few words about the Land Forces conference in Perth last week and the huge amount of work companies are putting into drone technologies and also various countermeasures. Surely this is the future of combat operations but the ADF and Defence still seem to be adopting a business as usual approach rather than embracing the technological revolution that is clearly underway. Also there was an industry briefing for LAND 6504, the search for a medium range ground based air defence missile with the aim of selecting a winner at the end of next year.

We conclude with some questions about military cultures and whether Australians like the idea of live streaming someone being executed by firing squad.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.