As these words are written, 2021 is running down to the wire and once again it has been a challenging year for Defence and industry.

Defence is now undertaking the largest re-capitalisation of Australian military capabilities since the Second World War without accountability to the Australian taxpayers it is tasked to defend.

Welcome to the September 2021 edition of ADM: Katherine Ziesing’s final edition as Managing Editor. As Kath herself put it, the ship will sail under new leadership from the October 2021 edition onwards.

This is my last editorial for Yaffa Media’s Australian Defence Magazine (ADM). After 15 years with the title, I’m off to see what life in a Defence SME looks like firsthand.

Army and industry working together across multiple levels to explore the art of the possible is fantastic to see. What has been less fantastic to see is how Land 200 has abruptly ended.

A slew of maritime announcements hit the streets as this edition of ADM was going to press; where, what, who, how and why questions are beginning to be answered.

By the time this edition of ADM hits your desk, 2020 will officially be over (thank goodness). Yet its effects will linger well into 2021 and beyond.

2020. What a year.

When looking at a problem, part of the solution process is looking at what caused it in the first place. How did we get here? Why did we get here? How do we not get here again?

Since you last picked up an ADM, two major policy documents have been released by the government; the Defence Strategic Update (DSU) and the Force Structure Program (FSP).

As I write this month’s editorial, Australia seems to be coming out of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus is far from gone but is under control in most areas of the nation, a few hotspots notwithstanding.

As I write this editorial, there is some semblance of normalcy returning to parts of the community in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic.

At the time of writing, many parts of the nation are in lockdown or heading towards it in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world.

The term fifth gen has been around for about a decade now. But its meaning has shifted over that period.

Keen eyed ADM readers will notice a slight change in our look this month; welcome to the updated ADM look and feel.

Quite rightly, many programs that work across space belong under the joint domain in a Defence context. All services, and indeed Whole of Government, utilise space data.