Australia will seek to project military power further from its shores after a review warned the Australian defence force was structured for “a bygone era” and the security environment was “radically different”.
The defence strategic review, released on Monday, called for the ADF to develop the ability to precisely strike targets at longer range and develop a stronger network of bases, ports and barracks across northern Australia.
The Australian army will gain the ability to strike targets more than 500km away, up from the current 40km range. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Australia would become “more self reliant, more prepared and more secure in the years ahead”.
When asked about a possible future conflict over Taiwan, Albanese said there was no shift in Australia’s position opposing any unilateral changes to the status quo. “We call for peaceful resolution through dialogue,” he said.
The public version of the final report did not label China a direct military threat to Australia, but said China’s assertion of sovereignty over the contested South China Sea “threatens the global rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific in a way that adversely impacts Australia’s national interests”. It labelled the competition between China and the United States “the defining feature of our region and our time”.
The Albanese government has opened the door to potential changes to the number of Hunter class frigates and offshore patrol vessels to be bought by Australia, with a snap review of the navy’s surface fleet to report back later this year.
The government also said it would consider options to increase stocks of guided weapons and explosive ordnance, including the rapid establishment of domestic manufacturing.
The government estimated the cost of implementing the review would be about $19bn over the initial four-year budget period.
But it said this initial amount was fully funded, through a combination of existing budget allocations and $7.8bn in new savings within the defence portfolio.
In the longer term, the government is likely to have to find more funding to deliver its promise to increase defence spending.
The defence strategic review, billed by the Albanese government as the most significant update of defence planning in nearly 40 years, was carried out by former defence chief Angus Houston and former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith.
The review called for a renewed focus on “how we manage and seek to avoid the highest level of strategic risk we now face as a nation: the prospect of major conflict in the region that directly threatens our national interest”.
Announcing its response to the review, the government declared that the ADF must be equipped to “hold an adversary at risk further from our shores”.
Five-point mission for the ADF
The government has outlined a five-point mission for the ADF to suit the current times. In addition to defending Australia and the immediate region, the ADF will be required to “deter through denial any adversary’s attempt to project power against Australia through our northern approaches”.
The more expansive tasks for the ADF are: to protect Australia’s economic connections to the world, contribute with partners to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific, and contribute with partners to maintain the global rules-based order.
In a new “national defence statement”, the government said these aims were grounded in the view that the defence of Australia “lies in the collective security of the Indo-Pacific”.
“As most of these objectives lie well beyond our borders, the ADF must have the capacity to engage in impactful projection across the full spectrum of proportionate response,” the deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, said in the statement.
The government says it will prioritise developing the ADF’s ability to precisely strike targets at longer range and to manufacture munitions in Australia. The government said the ADF must also boost its capacity to “rapidly translate disruptive new technologies” into its own capabilities.
The government argues the decisions – together with the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus agreement – will ensure Australia can project power in an “impactful” way across the Indo-Pacific region.
The minister for defence industry, Pat Conroy, said: “At the end of this process, we’ll go from an Australian army where the maximum range of its weapons is 40km to being able to fire missiles initially over a range of 300km, and with the acquisition of the precision strike missile, ranges in excess of 500km.
“This is about giving the Australian army the firepower and mobility it needs into the future to face whatever it needs to face.”
China-US competition the ‘defining feature of our region’
Smith and Houston’s full report remains classified but the government prepared a public version of the report.
This report said that in the late stages of the cold war, Australia faced no direct military threat.
“Australia’s strategic circumstances and the risks we face are now radically different,” the report said.
“No longer is our alliance partner, the United States, the unipolar leader of the Indo-Pacific. Intense China-United States competition is the defining feature of our region and our time. Major power competition in our region has the potential to threaten our interests, including the potential for conflict.”
The report said the nature of conflict and threats had also changed.
“China’s military buildup is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of the second world war. This has occurred alongside significant economic development, benefiting many countries in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia. This buildup is occurring without transparency or reassurance to the Indo-Pacific region of China’s strategic intent.”
The report said in addition to developments in the South China Sea, China was also engaged in strategic competition in Australia’s near neighbourhood.
The report said there was currently “only a remote possibility of any power contemplating an invasion of our continent” but added “the threat of the use of military force or coercion against Australia does not require invasion”.
“The rise of the ‘missile age’ in modern warfare, crystallised by the proliferation of long-range precision strike weapons, has radically reduced Australia’s geographic benefits, the comfort of distance and our qualitative regional capability edge.”
Decision on submarine base location deferred
The government will hold off making a decision on the location of a new east coast base for nuclear-powered submarines, after the Morrison government shortlisted Brisbane, Port Kembla and Newcastle. While the Morrison government had planned to make a decision during this term of parliament, the Albanese government said it would make a decision on a location for the facility “late in this decade”.
It is understood the reason for the delay is to focus, in the first instance, on upgrading HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for the rotational visits of US and UK submarines from 2027 in the first stage of the Aukus plan.
The review also underlined the importance of diplomacy. It called for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to be given the resources it needs to “lead a whole-of-government statecraft effort in the Indo-Pacific”.
The report warns that climate change is increasing the demand on the ADF for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief talks at home and abroad.
The government will accelerate and expand numerous projects, including a land-based anti-ship missile system and new landing craft for the army.
But the government has slashed the army’s plan to acquire up to 450 infantry fighting vehicles, which had been expected to cost up to $27bn, as a replacement for Australia’s Vietnam war-era armoured personnel carriers.
The review recommended reducing this number to just 129 vehicles, enough for one mechanised battalion, in a move likely to cause consternation within the army.
