Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith spoke yesterday at the Lowy Institute. While he may have left a lot unsaid about how Canberra can reconcile defence budget cuts with unchanged core strategic assessments and capability needs, at least he recognised the Indo-Pacific nature of Australia's strategic environment, something I will blog further about shortly.
Mr Smith also publicly promised to read Hugh White's stark and provocative new book The China Choice, which is making a big splash this week.
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