Australia defence - strategy next 10-20 years

[tartare]

I thought some of you may find this interesting.
A paper from ASPI looking at how Australian defence may evolve over the next 10-20 years:
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/taking-australias-defence-strategy-forward/
In short - we can't rely on the air-sea gap because of emerging threats.
Have to move the defence forward.
Strategy is to use Lombrum as a key staging base - along with alliances to project power into the South China Sea.
Interesting details around the Orca class large UUAV (24 of em as opposed to 12 Collins replacements) and the tests Airbus is doing with Zephyr up at Wyndham.

[Asturias56]

Interesting but flawed.

Reading this type of analysis always reminds me of the course I did in Uni on" Political Geography - boundaries & frontiers" where the Prof, wryly used to point out that no country ever decided their best boundary was closer rather than further away and it should always be on someone else's (current) territory.

The "strategy " laid out here is totally Australian -centric and has several elephant traps buried in the basic assumptions:-

The goals of forward defence in depth are to prevent a major-power adversary from threatening Australian and allied forces and facilities across northern Australia unmolested; to deny them access to our air and maritime approaches by controlling maritime straits across Southeast Asia; and to ensure the ADF can respond rapidly to coercive threats to our energy and maritime trade on the high seas.

Sounds very much motherhood & apple pie until you start to think....... point one - fair enough, point two "controlling maritime straits across Southeast Asia" ignores the fact that these straights are both in other people's countries AND are vitally important to many countries - especially China. ASPI see this as "defence" - China would see it a " trying to strangle our maritime trade" - similarly with point 3 - it's clearly aimed at operations well away from Continental Australia. The defence chain advocated runs Okinawa - Guam - Lombrun - that's 5000 km and it runs NW-Se - it protects the C Pacific & Hawaii but doesn't cover Australia - Lombrun is EAST of Melbourne for example. A far better line would be Bali - Timor - Moresby - Honiara

There seems to be no recognition that any serious "attack" on Australia proper would have to come via SE Asia, Philippines, Indonesia and/or PNG - whilst none of these has a serious military force I can't see the Chinese trying to fight their way through 250 million Indonesians to get to Broome (especially given the warm feelings most Indonesians have to people of Chinese origin....) and imagine trying to cross PNG......

The dangers of a forward policy are that you get into the trap like the British in India - always pushing forward, always having to meddle - and finishing up in Kabul without a way out.....

Australia would be better to think of the Russian model - trade space for time - and Vietnam/ Afghanistan - get the buggers trapped fighting in SE Asia - so training for other countries forces, development of shared values, and maybe some suitable low(-er) tech kit

[A_Van]

Looking at the numbers it becomes clear that playing muscles trying to scare China makes no sense.

https://armedforces.eu/compare/country_China_vs_Australia

Smart politics to avoid confrontation seems to be a better way to go....

[NumptyAussie]

The author of the report seems unaware of Weipa, or that Tindal is around 150 nautical miles inland.

[West Coast]

Looking at the numbers it becomes clear that playing muscles trying to scare China makes no sense.

https://armedforces.eu/compare/country_China_vs_Australia

Smart politics to avoid confrontation seems to be a better way to go....

Maybe the politics is, but the muscle needs to be prepared.

[tartare]

Oh well - Hey ho.
I thought it was interesting.
Was up at Lombrum a few years ago. Place was still covered in Quonset Huts, WW2 oil pipelines, and MacArthur's house still on the hill.
We flew into and out of the Momote airstrip at Los Negros.
Clearly the whole thing was a massive base at the time - and may become so again.

[bloodaxe]

When I was serving on 11 Sqn RAAF on exchange in the late 1980s there didn’t seem to be a threat to Oz, we were engaged in fishing rights protection, oil rig patrols on the 6 rigs in the South East and budgie smuggling patrols! Yes really. Perhaps they are worried about losing more parrots to SEAsia?

[etudiant]

China has spent its efforts to build up a formidable manufacturing infrastructure. Steel production for instance is 10x that of the US and they are now driving their electronics industry forward to surpass Taiwan and South Korea, who each have about a quarter of global capacity.
Australia is not a player at those levels, so it seems implausible that a forward defense strategy is rational given the disproportionate resources involved.

[SASless]

Australia standing up militarily to China....really?

Only if you lot wish to be the trip wire for a bigger confrontation perhaps.

[Asturias56]

Well I think Australia needs to play to it's strengths

Soft power is really important here - I can't think of a single Country in the area (other than maybe New Zealand :E) that doesn't prefer Oz to China - culture, lifestyle, people so the Chinese are always trying to roll a big ball uphill and only have $$$ to offer - and when they arrive it all goes badly wrong.

Secondly spend money training the Philippines and Indonesia military - forget air power - you want a lot of infantry and maybe a lot of small warships - enough to bog any Chinese move south down.

Invest in ultra long range recce - drones and more 737's

Mines - in WW2 mining the S China sea and coastal Japan was probably more effective than anything else that was done up until the A bomb

[SASless]

During WWII the Japanese very quickly decided NOT to invade Australia but did come very close to interdicting the supply routes that helped keep the country going.

Allied Code Breakers, American and British, were the primary means to winning the war by facilitating the application of the industrial production and manpower for tactical and strategic benefit.

Forging good alliances with its neighbors is where Australia can gain excellent benefit for sure.

[rjtjrt]

Australia standing up militarily to China....really?

Only if you lot wish to be the trip wire for a bigger confrontation perhaps.

I don’t think it is so black and white.
I douby anyone thinks we can defeat China. More a case of making us as hard a nut to crack as possible, so as to make it not worth the effort by China. This combined with diplomacy to avoid or reduce confrontation in first place.