BIG SCIENCE, SMALL COUNTRY AND THE CHALLENGES OF DEFENCE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE STUDY

This paper explores how a small economy, Australia, has sought to balance domestic military technologies with leveraging developments in the same area of research undertaken by the USA. Like many other small nations, Australia aspires to retain enough military sovereignty to pursue key national security interests independently of the superpower, if necessary. We have used Australia's R&D support for the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar network to show how one small nation has attempted to strike a desired balance in its technological development with a view to maintaining the sovereign capacity to monitor its maritime approaches.