This week Defence Minister Richard Marles was forced to confirm in parliament the extraordinary revelations by The Australian Financial Review defence correspondent Andrew Tillett of tension between himself and the Department of Defence. Senior people have been dressed down, accused of persisting with old projects as if the new defence thinking in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review hadn’t happened. The department complains that the minister doesn’t turn around its reports, and has found no new money. This is happening as great power tensions everywhere have been pushing a comfortable post-war world into an urgent new pre-war era, as Britain’s defence minister ominously puts it.