Australia’s military is looking to recruit foreign troops, particularly those let go in Britain where the government has announced cutbacks on defense spending, according to a Dec. 27 report.

The Australian Defence Force has struggled to fill recruitment quotas and was seeking highly skilled specialists such as fighter pilots and submarine crews from overseas, The Australian newspaper said.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) recently sent a delegation to Britain to look into the possibility of recruiting recently retrenched sailors, it added.

The Australian Defence Force, which is facing competition for personnel – particularly engineers – due to the nation’s lucrative mining boom, confirmed that talks had taken place with British officials.

To read the whole article at the Defense News

(Reuters) – North Korea likely is closer to mounting nuclear warheads on its ballistic missiles than generally reported, possibly only one or two years away, the U.S. Congress’s former top expert on the issue has concluded.

Larry Niksch, who tracked North Korea for the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Research Service for 43 years, concludes in a new paper that the North probably would need as little as one to two years to miniaturize and mount a nuclear warhead atop its medium-range Nodong missile once it has produced enough highly enriched uranium as the warhead’s core fuel.

A North Korea armed with nuclear-tipped missiles would rattle East Asia and present new policy and military challenges to the United States and its allies.

Trying to determine when Pyongyang will reach that threshold has long been a challenge for the U.S. intelligence community. Niksch’s timeline, if correct, puts out a new marker for strategists.

To read the article at Reuters

The government has officially decided to drastically revise the nation’s so-called three principles on arms exports, which would make it possible for Japan to participate in the development and production of military equipment with other countries, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Tuesday.

The announcement by the chief government spokesman came after a meeting earlier in the day of the Security Council of japan, chaired by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

Fujimura read the statement on the decision to establish new rules that would relax the longstanding effective ban on arms exports. The new guidelines are called “criteria regarding overseas transfers of defense equipment.”

The new criteria comprise two key elements:

– japan may participate in joint projects to develop and produce military equipment and technology with other countries, such as the United States and European nations.

– japan may export defense-related equipment to support peace-building or humanitarian objectives.

To read the whole article at The Daily Yomiuri

The shadow of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death hangs over Northeast Asia as leaders work to reassure each other of cooperation to ensure stability in the uncertain transition ahead. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak spoke by telephone with Japan’s Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, whom just a day or two earlier he had been berating for failure to act on the “comfort women” issue. Lee also spoke with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose failure to criticize the North’s 2010 sinking of the Cheonan had left a bad aftertaste in South Korea. But these efforts at developing a coherent strategy were taking place against the backdrop of a China and United States that are still developing their own responses – responses that could lead to further polarization in the region.

And it’s this last reality that could cause increasing frustration among other states that also consider themselves great powers – Japan and Russia. Polarization has advanced relentlessly since the end of the Cold War, and in place of Japan’s cherished dream of “returning to Asia” as its leader, Tokyo now looks in the 2010s to have little choice but to become more deeply enmeshed in the U.S. alliance system.  Russia’s dashed expectations are even more strongly felt; Boris Yeltsin’s Atlanticism and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s newly declared “Eurasian Community” have proven to have little substance in the face of increasingly one-sided Russian dependence on China’s divisiveness.

To read the whole article the Diplomat

The new phase of Chinese naval development could include even more new weapons and sensors than the previous phase, if the recent launch of another specialized testing ship is any indication.

Last month, the PLA Navy launched“Ship 893,” its third new weapons trials vessel since 2005. Trials ships are equipped with systems to track and analyze new missiles and sensors during testing.

The People’s Liberation Army develops and builds weapons in five-year cycles, the most recent of which began in late 2010. The 2006-2010 cycle heavily emphasized new ships, including new frigates and destroyers and a refurbished Soviet-made aircraft carrier.

Exactly what kinds of subsystems the PLAN might develop in the coming years is a matter of speculation, but it’s possible to make educated guesses based on the Chinese navy’s major capability shortfalls. “China’s navy continues to exhibit limitations or weaknesses in several areas, including…C4ISR systems [and] anti-air warfare,” the Congressional Research Service reports.

To read the whole article at the  Diplomat

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea test-fired a short-range missile off its east coast on Dec. 19, the same day it announced the death of leader Kim Jong-Il, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

The agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying the missile launch was unrelated to the announcement that Kim had died Dec. 17 of a heart attack. “North Korea test-fired a short-range missile this morning … it has been [closely] monitored by our military authorities,” said the official, as quoted by Yonhap.

Seoul’s defense ministry declined to confirm the report. The missile is believed to have a range of about 72 miles (120 kilometers), he said, adding the North was apparently trying to improve the weapon. North Korea has been testing its new KN-06 missile, a modified version of the KN-01 and KN-02 ground-to-ground missiles, Yonhap said.

To read the whole article at Defense News

The death of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il over the weekend, and the uncertainty surrounding the transition of power to his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, has raised new questions about a project to pipe natural gas from Russia across the secretive state to its southern neighbor.

Since the Monday announcement of Kim’s death, South Korean officials and government agencies have been focused on what impact it will have on financial markets and political and commercial negotiations.

Officials at the South Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy, responsible for energy, industry and commerce, and state-owned Korea Gas, however, declined to comment on the pipeline project.

Russian gas giant Gazprom and South Korea’s Kogas first agreed to a 30-year supply of up to 10 billion cubic meters/year of Russian gas in 2008, with the startup of supplies marked for 2015.

Both Gazprom and Kogas saw a pipeline that runs across North Korea as the preferred delivery option. Talks, however, stalled over North Korea’s controversial nuclear program.

To read the whole article at  Platts

TOKYO, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Japan picked Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet as its next mainstay fighter on Tuesday, choosing the aircraft over combat-proven but less stealthy rivals, as concern simmers over North Korea and as China introduces its own stealth fighters.

The decision came as Japan and the United States stressed that their security alliance was tight in the face of worry about an unstable North Korea after the death of its leader, Kim Jong-il.

Defence Minister Yasuo Ichikawa said the decision to buy 42 of the stealth aircraft, valued by analysts at more than $7 billion, would help Japan adjust to a changing security environment after Monday’s announcement of the death of the 69-year-old North Korean leader.

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon hailed Japan’s selection of the F-35, saying it would help establish a strategic, conventional deterrent in the Asia-Pacific region, where concern simmers about instability under Kim’s successor, his untested youngest son, Kim Jong-un.

To read the whole article at  Reuters

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) — Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed Monday to keep in close contact with each other as well as with South Korea on how to deal with North Korea following the death of its leader Kim Jong Il over the weekend.

Stressing the need to work closely with other members of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Clinton said she plans to reach out to her counterparts in China and Russia to exchange information and discuss how to respond to the situation in North Korea.

Gemba, who is on a three-day visit to the United States through Tuesday at the invitation of Clinton, said they shared the view that Japan, the United States and South Korea should continue closely coordinating efforts to dissuade Pyongyang from pursuing its nuclear ambitions and ensure that North Korea takes concrete denuclearization actions.

To read the whole article at the  Mainishi Daily News

SEOUL — In the wake of leader Kim Jong Il’s death, North Korea is likely to shift for the first time to a collective leadership model, with a small circle of older caretakers advising — and sharing power with — untested heir apparent Kim Jong Eun, Seoul’s intelligence agency said this week.

The move, widely expected by analysts, provides a clue about how North Korea will adjust to perhaps its biggest test in six decades — the absence of an unquestioned authoritarian figure. A power-sharing model would allow Kim Jong Eun, who is in his late 20s, to grow into the job, provided none of the caretakers try to claim the job themselves.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Agency made its forecast Tuesday to parliament, and lawmakers later discussed the briefing with reporters, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Wednesday. Reuters, citing an unnamed source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing, reported Wednesday that Kim Jong Eun’s support team would include his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, and military leaders.

To read the whole article at  the Washington Post