Crunch Time: Planning Australia’s future defence forces
Release of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Strategic Insight No. 20/2005
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released a new ASPI Strategic Insight publication titled ‘Crunch Time: Planning Australia’s future defence forces’.
In the coming months the government will make some big decisions about how billions of dollars will be spent in the next stage of Australia’s largest military build up since Vietnam. The result will be two public documents: A revised Defence Capability Plan that sets out the acquisition program for the next decade, and a Strategic Update containing an explanation of why these new investments are needed.
Crunch Time examines the issues faced by the government in producing these two documents and explores the critical question of long-term Defence funding.
In releasing the document, Dr Thomson said:
‘On past experience, the Strategic Update will provide an overview of recent strategic developments and an assessment of the implications for Australia. Central to this, will be judgements by the government about how and where Australia’s military forces might be employed in the future.’
It is only by clarifying the future role of the defence force that the rationale behind the individual projects in the multi-billion dollar Defence Capability Plan can be made clear.
‘The government will also have to decide how much it is willing to spend on defence. Five years ago, they made a decade-long funding commitment of average 3% real growth, but that runs out in 2010.’
‘In the absence of increased spending past the end of the decade, either the planned level of capital investment must be cut, or the size of defence force reduced, or both. There are no easy solutions given the looming fiscal impact of Australia’s ageing population.’
‘We can only be sure that the government is developing a sustainable defence force with the right capabilities if we see:
A Strategic Update that clarifies the outstanding issues in Australia’s strategic policy, including a clear statement of the role of the Army and its amphibious component.
A Defence Capability Plan that sets out the military capabilities to be developed in the future, which is consistent with the top-down guidance in the Strategic Update.
A decade-long funding commitment out to 2015 that covers the cost of acquiring and operating existing and planned capabilities, balanced against what’s affordable for the nation in the long-term.’