The 2016 Defence White Paper (DWP 2016), released in February this year, was the third such document in a little under seven years—a notably shorter interval than has been the case since the release of the first back in 1976.

In this volume, we’ve assembled a selection of articles written in the weeks after the release of the DWP 2016. The paper’s policy settings were formulated at a time of significant strategic challenge. The rise of China, which was a significant element in 2009, but downplayed in 2013, simply can’t be ignored in 2016. Global events over the past few years have shown that Australia’s defence planning can’t take the geographically proximate approach that characterised planning in the 1980s and 1990s.