Latest news with #USDefenceDepartment
Sydney Morning Herald
15 hours ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
AUKUS critic from US has tangled Aussie connection
We are sure that there is nothing personal behind the intense scrutiny that US defence official Elbridge Colby is applying to the $368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement Australia has with the US and UK. Colby is under-secretary of defence for policy, the third-most senior official in the US Defence Department, responsible for briefing US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. But Colby has family ties to Australia, and none of them are pleasant. As has been reported, Colby's grandfather was William Colby, a CIA director in the 1970s. But what has escaped attention so far is how the former CIA director later became an adviser to the Nugan Hand investment bank. It is difficult to find a more infamous name in recent Australian history. The investment bank collapsed in 1980 after one of its partners, Frank Nugan, was found dead from gunshot wounds in Lithgow. Another partner, Michael Hand, went on the run for decades. Loading As this paper reported in 2015: 'The bank collapsed with debts in excess of $50 million, and a subsequent royal commission found evidence of money-laundering, illegal tax avoidance schemes and widespread violations of banking laws. 'Over the years, the two words 'Nugan Hand' became shorthand for drug-dealing, gun-running, organised crime and clandestine intelligence activities. 'But nobody has been convicted. Governments, security and espionage agencies ran dead or appeared to look the other way. Many men associated with the bank's affairs in Australia, the US and Asia have died early or in mysterious circumstances.'
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Mirror
Two men who never met changed WW2 with genius cracking of Japanese 'super-code'
Joseph Rochfort, a maverick US naval officer with a talent for crosswords, and John Tiltman, a British Army Brigadier, never met - yet their genius minds helped unravel a deadly mystery To the ordinary eye they were simply random numbers, groups of figures with little pattern or form. But they held secret information on which the outcome of World War II depended. Now, ahead of the 80th anniversary of VJ Day next month, the remarkable story of how codebreakers cracked the 'impossible' Japanese 'super code' - and the British officer who paved the way for the breakthrough - has been revealed. 'The Japanese were totally confident in the security of the JN-25 code; confident that it couldn't be broken,' explains Robert Hanyok, a retired US Defence Department historian, who has taken part in a new Sky History documentary Cracking The Code - The Japanese Super Code. But the Japanese military had reckoned without Joseph Rochfort, a maverick US naval officer with a talent for crosswords, and John Tiltman, a British Army Brigadier whose 'teddy bear' demeanour masked a razor-sharp mind. Although the pair apparently never met, their skills - and those of the American codebreaking team assembled by Rochfort - changed the course of the war. The pivotal moment came in December 1941 with the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. Around 2,400 US troops died. Four days later, America entered the war. 'It was absolutely devastating and completely changed the American mindset on the war,' says historian and author Clare Mulley, who has also contributed to the documentary. The man behind the surprise attack was Japan's formidable Admiral Yamamoto. His aim was to destroy the US Navy so Japan could access the rich resources of the South Pacific. As a keen poker player, he also knew the value of keeping his cards close to his chest. All military communications were therefore heavily encoded. This system, known as JN-25, carried details of Japanese naval planning and movements. For the Allies it was a goldmine of information, but deciphering it was proving impossible. Enter Joseph Rochfort. 'Rochfort had been recommended for the code section early in his career because of his ability to solve puzzles. He was such a whizz he could almost see them intuitively,' explains US naval historian Craig L. Symonds in the programme. He was also a gifted linguist, had a passion for Japan and little regard for the protocols around chains of command. After hand-picking a codebreaking team, they set to work in a dusty, windowless basement at the Pearl Harbor naval base - the nerve centre for the US Navy's signals monitoring and cryptographic intelligence unit called Station Hypo. 'The cryptologists who worked in those basement rooms were driven,' says Craig. 'They knew that if they had done so prior to December 7, it might have been possible for them to give warning of the Japanese attack. 'They were literally around the clock trying to find pieces of information that would allow them to warn their bosses of the next Japanese initiative.' And they already had a head start. Allied intelligence had been intercepting JN-25 messages for some time, but it was Brigadier John Tiltman who had realised that the codes contained a second layer of encryption. Working at Bletchley Park, the Allied code-breaking centre, he was convinced each five-digit number stood for a different word with no message ever containing the same sequence of numbers twice. That meant the cypher had been scrambled a second time with groups of extra numbers inserted to confuse codebreaking attempts. Harold Liberty is the author of a book about John Tiltman called The Forgotten Giant of Bletchley Park. The former teacher argues the man known to his colleagues as 'The Brig' should stand alongside Alan Turing in terms of reputation given his work on JN-25 and contribution towards breaking both the Nazi Enigma and Lorenz coding systems. 'His mind had an amazing ability to see patterns far faster than anyone else; his understanding of JN-25 was crucial,' says Harold of the man famed for mixing and matching his Army uniform with tartan 'trews'. 'He had fought and been decorated in the First World so didn't suffer fools gladly but he had something of a soft centre; a 'cuddly teddy bear'. 'Why isn't he better known or recognised? Because he never talked about what he'd done; I think that's why his role has been downplayed. 'But he was an extraordinary man with extraordinary abilities.' It was those abilities which opened the door for Joseph Rochfort. But the clock was ticking. Hong Kong and the American-controlled Philippines had been invaded and Singapore had fallen. With Japanese encrypted messages pouring into Hypo, sometimes at the rate of 1,000 a day, there was a real fear a new attack was imminent. By early 1942 Rochfort's team knew how JN-25 worked but without the Japanese Navy cypher book to unlock the super code, all they had were strings of numbers. A breakthrough came when they employed sorting machines which began to spot sequences of numbers appearing time and again. It was an indicator for the potential start of the column of numbers in the cypher book used at the second encryption level. But without a codebook to convert numbers into words, the team could only guess at the content. However, Rochfort also knew the Japanese had a formal and respectful approach to everything - even war. That meant the same words and phrases might be being used time and again. If context could be established then the content could be guessed. Using a mixture of information and instinct, the team partially decoded a message indicating a Japanese carrier group had been dispatched to the South Pacific with a possible target of Port Moresby, an Allied-controlled base north of Australia. In May 1942, Yamamoto ordered the start of the operation to take Port Moresby but, thanks to the codebreakers, US troops were lying in wait. Neither side could claim victory in what became known as The Battle of the Coral Sea. 'But this is the first moment that the Japanese were prevented from doing something that they wanted to do,' explains Craig. Buoyed by success, the team pressed on and soon uncovered coded messages suggesting a major offensive was in the offing with Rochfort convinced the next target would be Midway Atoll - two tiny but strategically important islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Senior US military figures were unconvinced, arguing the information - a combination of decrypts, ship movements and Rochfort's hunch - was were also unimpressed by the team leader's maverick approach - he'd frequently bypass his immediate boss and go straight to the top of US Naval Command. More decrypted messages revealed Admiral Yamamoto had an even bigger plan - the destruction of the US fleet by enticing troops to send carriers to Midway where they would be ambushed. Working 12 hours a day, the codebreakers knew that all the inroads they had made could be wiped out if the enemy introduced a new codebook; they would have to start the decryption process all over again. In the end their fears were unfounded - the Japanese military machine was too stretched to do it - and thanks to the decoding skills of the Hypo team US troops remained one step ahead of the enemy. Rochfort's intelligence allowed the US forces to be at Midway before the planned Japanese attack. By midday on June 4, 1942, three of the four Japanese carriers were on fire and sinking; it was a disaster for the Imperial Navy and a turning point for the war in the Pacific. 'Midway is without a doubt one of the most significant naval engagements in the history of modern warfare and probably the single most important naval battle of the Second World War,' says Sky History contributor Sascha Auerbach, historian at the University of Nottingham. In a terrible twist, Admiral Yamamoto himself fell victim to the codebreakers' skill. Still convinced JN-25 was impenetrable, in April1943 he boarded a flight only to be shot down by the Allies, the encoded details of his travel itinerary having been cracked. After the war Rochfort was honoured with the Legion of Merit for his work on JN-25. Decades later a film starring Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda and detailing the Battle of Medway was made. Rochefort died a month after the movie premiered in 1976. John Tiltman continued to serve his country long after the war ended, finally retiring in 1980. He died two years later. Two men separated by thousands of miles but whose love of problem-solving changed the course of World War II. The 80th anniversary of VJ Day will be marked on Sky HISTORY with a day of dedicated programming on August 15. Also available to watch now on Sky HISTORY catch up and VOD services.
Sky News AU
5 days ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Ex-top security official Mike Pezzullo warns Australia must brace for potential conflict with China within two years as AUKUS planning intensifies
Australia must prepare for the real possibility of war with China within the next two years, former Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo has warned, calling the chances of conflict in the Indo-Pacific region a '10 to 20 per cent' risk. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Sky News Australia, Pezzullo laid out a sobering assessment of Australia's strategic position, saying the country's current three-pronged approach to foreign policy - balancing trade with China, security ties with the US, and regional independence - is a 'calculated risk' that may not hold. 'I think the government's approach is to take a calculated risk that two of those tracks won't collide,' he told Sky News. 'So, you can keep trading with China, you can gain prosperity, and you can keep your security relationship with the Americans going. As long as those two tracks don't collide, I think there is balance in our policy approach. 'But the problem is, as we've often talked about, it's fine until it's not.' According to Pezzullo, the so-called 'collision' between trade and security policy could unfold in two main ways. 'I think they collide in one of two ways,' he said. 'One way is if that planning and that preparation for collective defence irritates China or draws a negative response. 'And the other way, obviously, is if there's a preparatory phase in a crisis leading to a potential conflict, which is, I think, in the realm of a 10 to 20 per cent chance over the next few years.' This comes following the news that over 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations are participating in Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025, the largest-ever joint military drills held across Australia, focusing on multi-domain operations including land, sea, air, space, and cyber warfare. Exercise Talisman Sabre is conducted across a number of locations across Australia and offshore, using both Defence and non-Defence training areas. These locations provide a realistic rehearsal of how a large military force would flow into a broad area of operations. Pezzullo's comments come amid an ongoing AUKUS review and rising scrutiny of Australia's submarine programme and broader defence planning. He pointed to the US Defence Department's increasing focus on contingency planning and strategic alignment as a sign that Washington is preparing for a scenario where diplomacy fails. 'If that doesn't work and it comes to a clash, we need to have done the preparatory work, the collective security work, the contingency planning to get ready for. If you like - Plan B,' he said. 'The main way in which you deter conflict is to convince the other party that if it comes to a fight, you will prevail.' Pezzullo argued the current US-led AUKUS review is 'very targeted, very deliberate' and not the routine policy reassessment that some in government have claimed. In his most direct remarks, Pezzullo warned that President Xi Jinping's long-stated goal of 'reunifying' Taiwan with mainland China remains the central driver of potential conflict. 'I think we just have to take President Xi at his word. He's determined. The reunification of Taiwan back into China is his number one strategic priority,' he said. 'It is a hangover from what he considers to be the century of humiliation, when China was humiliated by imperial powers, and Taiwan, one way or another, is coming back.' Pezzullo outlined scenarios that could escalate into open conflict, ranging from political coercion to a blockade or even a full-scale invasion. But the true test, he said, will be how the United States responds. 'Will America fight?' he asked. 'Now, if America doesn't fight and Taiwan is reclaimed through an invasion, a broader Pacific war is then avoided.' But that uncertainty, particularly under the second Trump administration, leaves Australia in a precarious position. 'That's actually the most important question in Australian foreign and strategic policy at the moment; what would the Americans do?' Pezzullo said. 'Not because we're going to follow them blindly, we'll make our own choices, but that is the big variable. We know what President Xi is likely to do. What we need to know is what is President Trump and his administration likely to do.'
Saudi Gazette
18-07-2025
- Business
- Saudi Gazette
Ukraine to boost domestic arms production to counter Russian forces, says Zelensky
KYIV — Ukraine's new government has approved plans to expand domestic arms production to meet half the country's weapons needs within six months as it tries to push back Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday. "We are transforming the management of the defence sector and weapons production so that within six months, the share of Ukrainian-made weapons available to our warriors will noticeably increase," Zelensky said in a speech to parliament in Kyiv. "Currently, about 40% of the weapons in the hands of our warriors are made in Ukraine. In six months, it should be no less than 50%." Ukraine has developed its own long-range drones which it uses to strike deep inside Russia with the country keen to increase its domestic production as uncertainty grows about how many more weapons shipments Western countries can provide. Meanwhile, Switzerland said on Thursday that the US Defence Department had informed it that Washington is diverting a Swiss order for Patriot air defence systems to help Ukraine, which it badly needs to improve its response to increasingly heavy Russian aerial attacks. It was not immediately clear whether the Swiss-ordered Patriots would go directly to Ukraine or would replace units in other European countries that may be donated to Kyiv. Delivery to Switzerland of the systems, worth billions of dollars, was scheduled to begin in 2027 and be completed in 2028. But the Swiss government said Washington informed it of the delay on Wednesday, adding that it was unclear how many systems would be affected. The need to adequately arm Ukraine's military is pressing as Russia looks to drive forward its summer offensive and pounds Ukrainian cities with hundreds of drones and ballistic and cruise missiles. The US Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said he couldn't give a timeframe for when Ukraine might get extra foreign weapons. "We are all moving with haste to facilitate this and get this done. Things are actually moving very quickly, but I can't verify a date that this will all be completed. I think it's going to be an ongoing movement," he told reporters in Brussels. "The plan is that there will be American-made defence equipment, capabilities, that will be sold to our European allies, that they will provide to Ukraine." British Defence Secretary John Healey said on Thursday that he and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius will chair a meeting of Ukraine's allies on Monday to discuss US President Donald Trump's weapons plans. Healey said US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and NATO leader Mark Rutte will attend the meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, told the AP on Thursday that "preparations are underway" for weapons transfers to Ukraine and that NATO is working "very closely" with Germany to transfer Patriot systems. Grynkewich said at a military event in Wiesbaden that he had been ordered to "move (the weapons) out as quickly as possible." German Defence Ministry spokesperson Mitko Müller said Wednesday he couldn't confirm that anything is currently on its way to Ukraine. NATO chief Mark Rutte said in Washington on Monday that the alliance is coordinating the military support with funding from allies in Europe and Canada. He said there were commitments from Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada, "with more expected to follow." Trump said on 11 July that Washington will send weapons, including Patriot air defence systems, to Ukraine via NATO. Speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome a day earlier, Zelenskyy said that Germany would pay for two of the systems, while Norway has agreed to supply one. — Euronews
Sydney Morning Herald
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
He's a sceptic. So what might Colby recommend to Trump on AUKUS?
Former Reagan administration official Hugh Hewitt didn't mince his words on the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact last week after it emerged Pentagon leaders wanted a guarantee from Australia that the vessels would be used to back the US in the event of conflict with China. 'Why, for example, would we help country A arm itself if country A would not render assistance in a fight?' Hewitt wrote on X. 'If we don't know what our closest allies are genuinely committed to do in the event of a crisis of the first magnitude, can we call them 'close allies'?' His words received backing from the US Defence Department's chief spokesman, Sean Parnell. One of Parnell's bosses, undersecretary of defence for policy Elbridge Colby, is leading the Pentagon's review of AUKUS to see if it fits President Donald Trump's 'America first' agenda. This masthead has reported Colby intends to urge major changes to the program, though the broader Trump administration is split on the best way forward. Those changes could include calls for Australia to lease the submarines rather than buy them; have US crews on board the nuclear boats; or give some form of guarantee to deploy them in conflicts involving the US. So how would those work? And what would that mean for Australia? Commitment to join a conflict US officials say Chinese President Xi Jinping wants the ability to invade the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan by 2027, and defence experts say a conflict over the disputed territory is increasingly likely as China expands its military capabilities. China views the island as a wayward province and an internal issue for the country. Colby believes Australia should provide some form of guarantee that US-made nuclear submarines will be used in a possible conflict with China, this masthead has reported. Australia already has a mechanism to join the US in conflict under the ANZUS treaty. The pact was signed by Australia, New Zealand and the US in 1951 in response to the spread of communism in the Pacific and the rearmament of Japan after World War II.
