Shark Tank's Steve Baxter: “A soldier with a glue gun can build a drone in 45 minutes.” (Karl Stefanovic)

Australia is facing a defence reality few are talking about.
Former soldier and investor Steve Baxter joins Karl to break down what modern warfare actually looks like — and why Australia isn’t ready for it.
From drone warfare and battlefield “marketplaces” to space technology and defence innovation, this episode goes inside the systems changing war in real time.
Why are we falling behind?
Why aren’t we investing in our own capabilities?
And what happens if we don’t catch up?
This is the conversation Australia needs to have.



Mr Baxter makes some good points about increased defence spending and increased drone capability, but some of this comments about sending Australian military assets to the Strait of Hormuz, and thinking that the US policy of using Marines to choke off sea lanes, with Island based missile units, is misguided. He also seems to think that Russia simply rolled in the tanks when it came to the war in Ukraine, when it was actually provoked by the West with the Ukrainian military shelling the Donbass region of the country. Baxter seems to have the mentality of a positive thinking action man, but not that of a genuine strategic thinker (such as Douglas Macgregor). He seems cemented to the idea of  "team Australia/team USA" which makes sense when it comes to defence investment (his line of work), but it does not serve one very well when it comes to objectively assessing what's going on in the world 4.

[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, May 18, 2026.]