Author: David Wilson

The Hoover Dam and its Bypass Bridge Taken from the Arizona Side Spillway In June last year a call from a friend I had not heard from since he left Jakarta around Y2k precipitated an unexpected journey. He had retired, was living in Las Vegas, and...

16 March, 2026 /

A few days ago, I met a recently retired senior officer of the Australian Defence Force to discuss my Remembrance Day project. This new book will examine Australia’s defence posture in view of our deteriorating strategic environment and argue for the implementation of grand strategy...

17 February, 2026 /

Northeastward to the African Heartland From the terrace of Rhodes Memorial, the eye is drawn northeastward across Cape Town and the rolling interior beyond toward the distant mountain horizons of the African heartland. The view is as vast as Africa - not seaward toward Europe, but...

04 February, 2026 /

Australia’s Mainland Coastline is Twenty Six Thousand Kilometres LongThe past few months have produced two significant warnings about Australia’s strategic position. One came from Major General Greg Melick on Remembrance Day. The other came from Greg Sheridan’s analysis of the new United States National Security...

15 December, 2025 /

Simone Young conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in their February performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony at the Sydney Opera House earlier this year. The fourth movement alto soloist was Israeli Noa Beinart. She was sublime. One of the notables in the audience that night was...

28 November, 2025 /

Kalgoorlie’s Lynas’s Rare Earths Processing Plant and the Kilns that Crack when the Power Fails Kalgoorlie is the kind of place Australia forgets until something goes wrong. Then suddenly the country remembers that real industry still happens there - that metals are processed there, ore is...

26 November, 2025 /

Workers before going on shift outside the Tooma-Tumut tunnel, 1960 – National Museum Australia When a wind turbine at Victoria’s Berrybank Wind Farm collapsed earlier this year, it was easy to dismiss the scene - twisted steel and shattered blades - as a freak event. But...

11 November, 2025 /