Person
Desmond Ball
Report
Expanded communications satellite surveillance and intelligence activities utilising multi-beam antenna systems
The recent expansion of FORNSAT/COMSAT (foreign satellite/communications satellite) interception by the UKUSA or Five Eyes (FVEY) partners has involved the installation over the past eight years of multiple advanced quasi-parabolic multi-beam antennas, known as Torus, each of which can intercept up to 35 satellite communications beams. Material released by Edward Snowden identifies a ‘New Collection...
Book
The tools of Owatatsumi: Japan’s ocean surveillance and coastal defence capabilities
Overview: Japan is quintessentially by geography a maritime country. Maritime surveillance capabilities – underwater, shore-based and airborne – are critical to its national defence posture. This book describes and assesses these capabilities, with particular respect to the underwater segment, about which there is little strategic analysis in publicly available literature.
Book
Power and international relations: essays in honour of Coral Bell
Overview: Coral Mary Bell AO, who died in 2012, was one of the world’s foremost academic experts on international relations, crisis management and alliance diplomacy. This collection of essays by more than a dozen of her friends and colleagues is intended to honour her life and examine her ideas and, through them, her legacy. Part...
Report
Escalation in Northeast Asia: a strategic challenge for Australia
This paper examines the possible escalation of conflict between China and Japan and the implications for Australia and the US. Executive summary: Political competition and a lack of crisis management mechanisms could make it very hard for China and Japan to resist escalatory pressures in the very plausible event of a minor armed clash in...
Book
Breaking Japanese diplomatic codes: David Sissons and D Special Section during the Second World War
During the Second World War, Australia maintained a super-secret organisation, the Diplomatic (or `D’) Special Section, dedicated to breaking Japanese diplomatic codes. The Section has remained officially secret as successive Australian Governments have consistently refused to admit that Australia ever intercepted diplomatic communications, even in war-time. This book recounts the history of the Special Section...