Australia should spend more money on Defence, manufacture its own munitions and develop capabilities to hit long-range targets in the face of China’s “military build-up”, a review commissioned by Canberra highlighted today.
The Strategic Defence Review also supports the ‘AUKUS’ partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, which last March announced an agreement to create an Australian fleet of eight submarines powered by US nuclear technology.
The Australian Prime Minister said the government commissioned the review to assess whether Australia has the necessary defence capabilities, posture and preparedness to defend itself in the current geostrategic landscape.
“We support the strategic direction and key findings set out in the review, which will strengthen our national security and ensure our readiness for future challenges,” Anthony Albanese said.
This is the most significant review of Australia’s Defence strategy since the Second World War, the Prime Minister pointed out, highlighting the scope of the project.
“It demonstrates that in a world where the challenges to our national security are ever-evolving, we cannot fall back on old assumptions,” he added.
The public version of the review, the full contents of which are classified, recommended that the Australian government spend more on Defence, improve the Australian Defence Force’s capabilities to accurately strike targets at longer distances and develop domestic munitions production.
Australia’s current spending on the military amounts to 2% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Other recommendations include strengthening the Defence Force’s ability to operate from bases in northern Australia and deepening Defence partnerships with key partners in the Indo-Pacific region, including India and Japan.
“China’s military build-up is currently the largest and most ambitious of any country” since the end of World War II, the review read.
The military modernisation undertaken by Beijing “is occurring without transparency or assurances to the Indo-Pacific region of China’s strategic intentions,” the document warned.
The strategic circumstances are “radically different” from those of the past, clarified the review, authored by former Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston and former defence minister Stephen Smith.
The United States, Australia’s most important defence treaty partner, “is no longer the unipolar leader in the Indo-Pacific”, a region where strategic competition between great powers has returned, it said.
“As a consequence, for the first time in 80 years, we must review the fundamentals … to avoid the highest level of strategic risk we now face as a nation: the prospect of a major conflict in the region that directly threatens our national interest,” the review read.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said that as part of the new priorities, an order for infantry fighting vehicles has been reduced from 450 to 129. The savings from spending on these vehicles and the cancellation of a second self-propelled artillery regiment would fund the reinforcement of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems), which has proved effective in the war in Ukraine.
The maximum range of the Army’s weapons will thus be extended from 40 kilometres to more than 300 kilometres and, with the acquisition of precision strike missiles, to more than 500 kilometres, Conroy said.
“This is about giving the Australian Army the firepower and mobility it needs in the future to take on whatever is required,” he stressed.
For the past five decades, Australia’s Defence policy has aimed to deter and respond to possible low-level threats from neighbouring small or medium-power countries.
“This approach is no longer fit for purpose,” the document highlighted.
