After some time in South Korea and then China it's time to focus on international and domestic events, leaving the 7th World Media Day in Beijing for a separate podcast in the near future. The US Congressional midterm elections saw numerous heavy losses for the Republicans, for which Donald Trump can be blamed. Of course he won't accept that and already firings have started. The implications for defence and AUKUS are unknown, though some vanity projects such as the Trump class battleships might get the chop.

In Australia, the Garrett-Barrie report into AUKUS has been released and it calls the undertaking a disaster that needs to be scrapped. A Royal Commission is needed to understand how we got into this mess in the first place - which sounds like a good idea to APDR. Of course the government has instantly dismissed the criticism - as they instantly dismiss anything that does not suit their preferred narrative. They didn't even bother putting in a submission, in the certain knowledge that if they did it would merely expose how weak the case for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines actually is.

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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.

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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.

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