Tag Archive for: Australian Army

Australia’s army is suffering from a crisis of identity and confidence

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The Australian Army does not have a social licence problem, it has self-confidence issue.

On balance, the community from which the Australian Army is drawn, and that it serves, values and implicitly permits the army’s existence. While we can argue the toss in terms of whether the army should be the first port of call for national disaster relief, it remains the fact Australian society looks to our army in times of peril.

But the army has not pushed back, and the list of society’s requirements continues to grow. We ask more and more of our army and, rightly or not, lash it when it stumbles. Truth is, the army has ceded too much territory in our national debate to woke politics. Our army has overcorrected on its course correction following the Brereton inquiry.

The army’s fundamental role is the application of lethal force in our name—to kill. The army does not go out of its way to remind Australians that this task is one we consciously place on its shoulders. So, we tend to forget about it.

Perhaps the army has an identity problem. Australian Bureau of Statistics data indicates the proportion of Australian citizens who were born overseas (first-generation Australians) or have a parent born overseas (second generation) has surpassed 50 per cent of our population. This has direct implications for the story our army tells. Anzac Day commemorations strike a chord with an ever-narrowing group. Society is shifting and our shared stories are no longer simply grandfather stories of World War II.

The new histories and composition of our community make it slightly more difficult to pinpoint an Australian brand of duty. The army must think differently about the society it serves and from which it draws.

The recruitment focus on school-leavers is too late. Given our cultural diversity, it is important to capture the interest of much younger children. The army might consider a primary school focus akin to the Constable Kenny Koala program, whereby Annie Army visits schools to spark early interest in a life of service.

Recent census data shows that in five years from 2016 the largest source of community growth was Nepal. Australia’s Nepalese community grew by 124 per cent. There is an opportunity for a real marriage of service, identity and cultural affinity here: a targeted recruitment effort to establish an Australian Army Gurkha Brigade.

The army continues to operate with a sense of restriction. Its recruitment efforts are tailored at fiscal benefits, social opportunities and travel. While these are commendable draw cards, the army is about so much more.

Our army needs to rediscover confidence before society to follow suit. It has owned mistakes made and committed to do better. Instead of cracking on, our army seems to find itself in a constant state of flight or fight, anxious to not make headlines. This reinforces challenges in recruitment and retention, too.

It is time for the army to reintroduce itself to Australia. We can easily capture army composition from headcounts or gender statistics, and from doctrine understand its mission, purpose and ethos. This tells us what the army is but not who. I think this is a significant distinction to overlook.

The Australian Army is a living, breathing entity. This is something Winston Churchill captured: ‘The army is not like a limited liability company, to be reconstructed, remodelled, liquidated, refloated from week to week as the money market fluctuates. It is not an inanimate thing, like a house, to be pulled down or enlarged or structurally altered at the caprice of the tenant or the owner; it is a living thing.’

It must act like one.

Of course, our army is both a profession and a bureaucracy. But in recent times the bureaucracy has outweighed profession. While both must feature, ideally in equilibrium, for a righteous and efficient Australian Army to exist we must rebalance the scales. The army should cultivate a sense of calling, of pride, of duty, among those who serve as well as the community served.

Instead, our army appears unconfident in its purpose—seeking too much direction from the society it serves, allowing its bureaucratic nature to take hold and frame service as a job. How odd it is to have such a stellar international reputation as a reliable and skilled boutique force respected by allies and enemies, only to be consumed by a crisis of confidence at home.

To return to Churchill, it is true that if an army ‘is bullied, it sulks; if it is unhappy, it pines; if it is harried, it gets feverish; if it is sufficiently disturbed, it will wither and dwindle and almost die; and when it comes to this last serious condition, it is only revived by lots of time and lots of money’.

Our army is sufficiently disturbed—disconnected—and lacks adequate self-confidence. Australia lacks time and money to throw at the problem but this does not excuse us from an honest discussion about our army. The army must be ready to respond with unashamed confidence in its vital purpose. A life of service and duty is to be celebrated, aspired to and revered for its contribution to the prosperity and security of our country.

Adapting all-domain forces to changes in land warfare

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Many elements of 21st-century warfare echo those of the 20th century. The nature of war as a brutal and fundamentally human endeavour has endured despite the introduction of stealth aircraft, precision missiles, drones, satellites and cyber capabilities to contemporary battlefields. Making sense of this context is just one of many challenges confronting the Australian Army and how it best contributes to the joint force.

Transitioning to an Australian Defence Force that can generate decisive battlefield effects in all domains in Australia’s immediate region is no trivial task. The role of land forces in deterrence and war is being reshaped by emerging technologies and social circumstances for warfare, the growing connection between forces on the land and at sea, the tendency for wars to be prolonged and the relative merits of heavy ground units in the Indo-Pacific.

These are among the developments I explore in a new ASPI report, The implications of emerging changes in land warfare for the focused all-domain defence force.

The report is presented in good faith for the sake of further discussion and the contest of ideas. It derives from a strong personal sense of obligation for senior leaders of the profession of arms to lead and encourage professional discourse on the ever-changing features of warfare.

Current strategic guidance makes clear that strike capability is viewed as an essential and dominant feature of future warfare and a core part of a diverse joint or all-domain mix. That mix includes carefully designed and prepared conventional ground forces that are capable of long-range strike and of defence from enemy missiles and drones. But it also includes capabilities and forces designed and postured for conventional attack and defence from and through fortified positions on land at close quarters. Australia’s National Defence Strategy provides for this with an amphibious-capable combined-arms land system.

This is important, as the increasing range of emerging land-based strike systems will make the sea a very dangerous place for warships, including ships carrying units of the combined-arms land system. As an Australian force crossed the water to make a landing, it and friendly forces could try to suppress some of the enemy’s ability to attack it. Entirely suppressing that ability may be impossible, however.

One underexplored and perhaps less palatable option to overcoming enemy anti-access and area-denial capabilities is to use large numbers of small, inexpensive, fast and somewhat protected land vehicles and watercraft that overwhelm defensive systems. They would be mixed with autonomous decoys and using technologies to spoof sensors and remain undetected. This idea of small, cheap and many may be an answer to cover no-man’s-lands.

Indeed, the US Marine Corps is already testing low-profile vessels to resupply distant outposts in contested spaces. While seemingly inefficient, the large numbers of small and relatively inexpensive craft could absorb enough of the enemy’s fire to enable a decisive number of troops and materiel to get into the fray to carry the day.

To keep costs down and to ensure the defence industrial base can produce large enough quantities to rapidly reconstitute combat losses, the vessels would need to have minimal defensive capabilities. A premium could be placed on the ability to carry or instantly access command and control, computing, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capabilities. The intention would be to degrade an adversary’s ability to sense and target small watercraft or personnel carriers to enable a landing.

Rather than dismiss or ignore the problem of transportation, critics and advocates should turn their attention to resolving how to manoeuvre naval and land forces and all their supplies and other logistical needs across no-man’s-lands encompassing both sea and land. It’s an all-domain problem and solving it would go a long way towards building confidence that the ADF and potential partners can manoeuvre in the Indo-Pacific at all.

While this report sketches some rough ideas for how land forces might contribute to Australia’s all-domain defence in various scenarios, there’s still a lot of imagination and creativity required. A lack of circumspection about the problems of contemporary warfare will only serve to inhibit that imagination and creativity.

The challenge now is to work out how best to use those ground forces in concert with forces in other domains to create a truly maritime ADF.

Recruitment now focuses on the ADF, not each service. That’s a mistake

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The Australian Defence Force is missing an opportunity in shifting the focus of its recruitment drive away from the three armed services and onto the ADF as a whole. By doing so, it’s failing to make use of services’ separate traditions as attractions to potential recruits.

The former chief of the defence force General Angus Campbell told Senate estimates in February that the ADF was 4,308 personnel below its approved strength. In that context, ADF Careers in July launched its new recruitment campaign—Unlike any other job. Spruiking the benefits of joining the ADF, the flashy campaign splashed across social media.

But there’s a problem: people don’t join the ADF; they join one of the services. They join either the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army or Royal Australian Air Force, each of which has unique traditions, service life and a proud history of defending Australia.

The recent career advertisements, while slick and well produced, fail to tap into the core motivations that have driven Australians to serve for generations. Joining the navy, army or air force isn’t just a career move; it’s a commitment to a legacy of service and sacrifice.

The July 2024 ADF careers campaign came 12 months after the decision to rebrand recruiting from service specific—navy, army, air force recruiting—to ADF Careers. The amalgamation of the service recruiting functions, while an efficient use of resources, represents a wider trend within the Department of Defence of reducing the influence of the individual services.

The erosion of the authority of the service chiefs has added to a more bureaucratic structure and slower decision-making. But it’s the loss of service identity in the recruiting process that will be most problematic for an ADF attempting to grow to its greatest numbers since World War II.

This issue is not without precedent. The Canadian Armed Forces, in a well-meaning effort to streamline and modernise, unified the navy, army and air force into a single entity in 1968. The result was a loss of identity and tradition, which contributed to a decline in morale and recruitment. It took Canada more than four decades to reverse that decision; it officially reinstated separate branches in 2011. The lesson is clear: when military institutions distance themselves from their traditions and core values, they risk losing the very qualities that attract people to service in the first place.

Australia’s military has, until now, been largely immune to such missteps. The navy has its proud maritime legacy linked to battles such as the Leyte Gulf or Savo Island, the army its deep ties to land campaigns such as Gallipoli and Kokoda, and the air force its history of contributing to air superiority in theatres ranging from Europe to the Pacific. Those traditions are not just history; they’re living parts of what it means to serve. While it’s important for the ADF to adapt to modern challenges, it must do so without losing the traditions that make each service unique.

The recruitment shortfall in the ADF today isn’t due to a lack of attractive offers. Defence salaries are competitive, benefits are strong and the opportunities for career advancement are significant. But none of that will resonate with young Australians if the message of service is diluted. What the current advertisements fail to communicate is the sense of purpose that comes with wearing the uniform. That message, embedded in the traditions of the navy, army and air force, is what will inspire a new generation to enlist.

Canada’s decision to reverse unification of its services in 2011 was more than a symbolic gesture. It was an acknowledgement that the essence of military service lies in the identity that comes with being part of a distinct organisation. Reintroducing the separate services helped to restore the pride and tradition that had been lost. For Canada, the price of unification and efficiency had been the erosion of the very things that gave the military its soul. By reinstating the navy, army and air force as separate entities, Canada not only boosted morale but also reconnected its armed forces to the traditions that had historically been their source of strength and purpose.

The ADF should heed that example. The ADF’s strength lies not only in its modern capabilities but in the traditions that have shaped its identity. Young Australians aren’t just looking for jobs—they’re searching for meaning and purpose. They want to be part of something that matters.

If the ADF is to reverse its recruitment decline, it needs to shift the narrative. The focus must return to the traditions and values that make the navy, army and air force unique.

As Australia faces an increasingly complex strategic environment, the importance of a strong, capable and motivated defence force can’t be overstated. The lessons from Canada’s failed unification experiment are clear. When military institutions lose sight of their traditions, they risk losing their identity—and, with it, the ability to attract and retain the people they need. For the ADF, the path forward is not to abandon tradition in favour of efficiencies under the motto ‘One Defence’ but to find a way to honour the past while preparing for the future.

Australian Army chief prioritises trust, the study of war and military professionalism

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On 12 September, Land Forces 2024, Australia’s largest defence conference and industry exposition, opened to the Chief of Army Symposium for the first time. The symposium brought together almost 2000 attendees from across the Service, allied and partner forces, defence industry and academia for thematic talks on the human face of battle and the state of the army profession.

In his keynote address, the Chief of Army Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, delivered a rousing organisational and public message: the Australian Army will ‘weave together the [intellectual and the moral] elements of fighting power with the physical elements’ to meet Australia’s strategic challenges. This means building public trust and social license, elevating the study of classical military history and theory in army education and training, and strengthening the standard of professionalism expected of soldiers in action.

While not deliberate or planned, the timing of this message coincided with the government’s removal of medals from some senior officers over alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan under their command. This backdrop worked to highlight the responsibility of Army service personnel to show restraint and good judgement in morally demanding environments. In every sense the address proved a natural successor to Stuart’s 2023 response to the defence strategic review, which put people at the center of the army’s ongoing technological and doctrinal transformation.

The Army’s new capstone document is the best reference point for Australians to understand how the Service will contribute to the national defence strategy. As a vital component of Australia’s national power, the Army is being optimised to secure and control strategic land positions in the littoral and areas inland from the coast. This will involve using long-range strike weapons, battlefield aviation platforms, the combined arms land system and landing craft. With the largest equipment recapitalisation now well in-hand, trust has become the ‘central strategic priority’.

For Stuart, trust can’t be decoupled from social license. Maintaining social license will require building trust between the Army’s teams and with Australian communities—noting that the army serves, and recruits from, the citizenry. The Army is well-placed to leverage this connection. Around 43,500 soldiers operate from 157 bases nationwide, many of which are in the north, and all live and work in their community. And every soldier accepts a responsibility to ethically apply lethal force and may give their lives to defend Australia and its interests—the two sides of the ‘unlimited liability contract’, as first outlined by General Sir John Hackett in 1962. Both the army and society writ large are obliged to honour that commitment.

Responding to the release of final royal commission report into veteran suicide, Stuart reasoned that new learning systems were needed to hard-wire adaptation into the soldiering profession. Leading by example, Stuart quoted or cited at least 10 scholarly works in his remarks; a tactic reinforcing the idea that soldiers should be avid readers and students of military history, theory and philosophy. That less than 10 percent of graduates at the Australian Defence Force Academy elect to study Australian military history each year drove the point home. In his experience, a deep understanding of the art and science of war is vital to ensure soldiers are equipped to reconcile their instinct for self-preservation and sense of honour on the battlefield.

Alongside more thorough learning, the Army will engage in period of reflection to move beyond what Stuart called the ‘Long Shadow of Afghanistan’ in preparation for the future fight. To this end, Stuart committed to undertake a ‘first principles’ review of the key elements of the profession—the first since 1947.

The remainder of the symposium featured presentations from Dr Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare, Royal United Services Institute, and General David H. Berger, the former 38th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, and architect of the USMC’s ‘Future Force 2030’ transformation.

Two moderated panels with civilians and senior ranking military officials from allied and partner nations then considered the need to do things differently amidst increasing great power competition and risks of conflict. The discussions explored novel ways to promote readiness, resource stewardship and the importance of land forces to regional stability and security.

The public can expect an update from Stuart on progress in the coming months and further detail outlining next steps to achieve the Army’s strategic priorities sometime in 2025.

It’s clear the Army is embracing its role as an essential enabler of force protection and projection for the ADF with maturity and humility. Stuart’s remarks should give the public and the international community confidence that the Australian Army will realise the full potential of the profession. In this, as in war, according to Stuart, there can be no substitute for victory.

To exploit northern Australia’s strategic value, Defence has some talking to do

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It’s a pity that strategic geography isn’t on the agenda of a leading defence exhibition next week, because Defence and the Australian Army could well use a chance to talk with others about how better to exploit the great strategic potential of northern Australia.

Making the most of northern Australia would mean enhancing operational effectiveness of the Australian Defence Force and shortening its internal lines of communication. It can’t be done properly unless and until Defence and the army engage with the industry and local, state and territory governments of the north.

The event will be the Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition, bringing together Defence, industry and government leaders. It will follow this year’s National Defence Strategy and last year’s Defence Strategic Review, both of which repeatedly mentioned northern Australia.

As a pivotal gateway to the Indo-Pacific region, northern Australia holds a unique and significant position. It is an essential hub for projecting Australian military power and engaging in joint operations with regional allies. Its geographic location provides a crucial strategic advantage for monitoring and responding to regional threats.

By leveraging the advantages of both Darwin and Townsville, the Australian Army can refine its amphibious and coastal strategies, ensure swift and efficient maritime deployments and bolster its readiness to respond to emerging threats in littoral zones. However, to do so effectively, it must partner with the communities and governments it is working with. This collaboration is not just necessary but a strategic imperative for strengthening operational effectiveness in these critical environments, emphasising the importance of unity and shared goals.

So far, the army, and Defence more widely, haven’t been clear in their engagement in the north.

For example, in 2012 the Queensland government finished building its Southern Port Access Road across the Ross River. But the resulting low-level bridge is sometimes flooded, rendering the army’s amphibious base at Ross Island unusable.

For more than a year, Defence left the Northern Territory government and local industry with the distinct impression that the army’s helicopters would remain based in Darwin—only to find out later that this wasn’t the case.

In another case of poor communication, a northern government had to spend more than a year to get technical specifications from the army and Defence as it planned to build railway unloading ramps at a port rail terminal. That government wanted to ensure the ramps were strong enough to unload armoured vehicles, should the army need to do so.

In September 2023, the army designated Townsville as the hub for armoured vehicles and its attack and medium-lift aviation. As a result, 500 army personnel and their families will move from Adelaide to Townsville. Despite the decision’s great financial, economic and social implications, the Townsville local government was consulted only after the public announcement.

Darwin and Townsville, with their strategic locations and infrastructure, play pivotal roles in enhancing the Australian Army’s littoral capabilities. They provide crucial bases for deploying and sustaining littoral forces, facilitating rapid access to maritime and amphibious training areas. The cities’ port facilities and proximity to vital sea lanes enable effective staging and resupply of littoral operations. At the same time, their geographic positioning supports exercises and real-world operations across the Indo-Pacific region.

Northern Australia is a region of growth. Its private sector capacity is focused on commercial growth across various sectors, including agriculture, mining, and oil and gas. If the Australian Army is to operate in the region, it must actively discuss its current and future intent and work with the region and its stakeholders rather than through them.

The Korean War vividly displayed the value of leveraging geography to optimise internal lines of communication in logistics and resupply. At first, extended and vulnerable supply lines impeded prompt delivery of vital resources and reinforcements. As the US and allied forces engaged with North Korean troops, it became evident that speeding up resupply was essential to achieving operational success.

By refining their communication and logistics networks, the US and its allies markedly enhanced the speed and dependability of resupply operations. This overhaul mitigated logistical delays and bolstered the effectiveness of military sustainment. Consequently, frontline units received timely support, which proved instrumental in countering North Korean advances.

The US Department of Defense and the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command understand this lesson and the value of Australia’s strategic geography. Their investment in fuel storage in Darwin and the US Force Posture Initiative are clear signals. There can also be no mistake that these efforts are focused on shortening their internal lines of communication in case of any future conflict in the region.

There are apparent efficiencies in centralising Defence manufacturing in Australia’s southern states to achieve economies of scale. But Defence and the army must now take the National Defence Strategy and consider the strategic importance of geography in shortening their internal lines of communication for military logistics. They can do so by using Townsville and Darwin. Local, state and territory governments and industry would welcome such a development, but this would require significant collaboration.

Defence and the army will realise the strategic value of northern Australia only if the region’s infrastructure is sufficiently robust and scalable to support rapid deployment and resupply capabilities.

The necessary regional development isn’t just a matter for Defence; it will only occur with broader government intervention and private-public cooperation. This development issue is about more than just Defence meeting the costs. It is about how Defence and the army can work with industry and the governments in the north to nurture the necessary development.

It is time for Defence and the army to deepen their engagement in northern Australia—starting next week.

Australian Army chief’s direction on tech adoption puts people at the centre

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On 29 and 30 August, Perth played host to the annual Chief of Army Symposium. This year’s edition focused on the innovation and partnerships—with industry, entrepreneurs, end users and investors—necessary to continue to enable an adaptive Australian Army.

The media, commentariat and academia eagerly anticipate the service chiefs’ keynotes at these events. Meanwhile, the army’s rank and file want to hear directly from their leader on service priorities.

In a joint and integrated force, service priorities can’t be separated from the broader efforts of the Australian Defence Force, the civilian and contracted defence workforce, or the entrepreneurs and established industry players that must come together to deliver the defence leadership’s direction. And so the sea of green was appropriately punctuated with blue, grey, white and civvies.

In a speech that didn’t disappoint, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart offered a clear message to a large in-person and online crowd: Technology alone can’t win wars; it is a fundamentally human endeavour. And while the character of war may be ever changing, its nature is enduring. This message balances the narrative of technological primacy in modern conflict environments.

In the competition for strategic advantage, it’s enticing to think that the unprecedented speed of technological development can turn longstanding realities of war on their head.

Sure, the ability to understand the opportunities and risks of new and emerging technologies, and to put the best tech in the hands of warfighters quickly and responsibly, will provide an edge that modern militaries have long sought to exploit to create advantage.

But Stuart unquestionably focused on people as the differentiator in the Australian Army.

That’s a simple but powerful idea, and most consequentially it provides the necessary organising principle for strategy and planning across the army’s functions. It is a strong core for conceptual coherence.

The Australian Army focuses on adapting new technology to warfighting requirements and tactics in four main areas: robotics and automated systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, quantum computing, and human performance optimisation. As Stuart sees it, the combined application of these technologies is most likely to provide human advantage and enhance the utility of land power on future battlefields.

Land forces are uniquely positioned to leverage presence, persistence, distributed international networks and asymmetry in a potential contingency. Australia’s land forces are the largest and typically the least capitalised of the services and are therefore capable of delivering exceptional versatility and value for money. It’s the fighting force that presents the human face of war most tangibly across the spectrum of peacetime to wartime activities.

Stuart said he expects the army to leverage its capacity for innovation and intellectual wherewithal to identify the most appropriate innovations in emerging concepts so that it can fully exploit the technological developments that are occurring now.

But he reminded members to undertake that task anchored in the history. The ADF’s experiences during Operation Postern in 1943 should guide the integration of technology for operations in our littoral to preserve the human in the loop and minimise trading blood in the first contact. Stuart later echoed those sentiments at the Chief of Army History Conference held in Canberra this week, saying that the army has in its DNA the ability to develop sound doctrine and robust land tactics while in conflict, as the 1943 Lae landing in New Guinea aptly demonstrated.

Adapting the army for the future fight means seeking avenues to offload risk to technology where it is both possible and advantageous to do so, Stuart said. Merging the art and science of warfare by freeing up human capacity to apply lethal force and leveraging human–machine learning to generate mass, enhance force protection capabilities and improve manoeuvrability will unlock the full potential of technology as a significant force multiplier.

Stuart reiterated that while the transformation the army is undertaking isn’t new, changing the way it operates to meet the challenges in Australia’s strategic environment requires new thinking and difficult decisions.

Plan Beersheba, the modernisation strategy that came into effect in 2011 prioritised a balanced force that wasn’t optimised for any specific mission. Key changes to the army’s structure and posture today are focused on generating combat capabilities that are optimised for deterrence, extended strike and joint littoral operations. Under the latest restructure, the army is delivering on an ‘intellectual pivot’ that’s informed by an appreciation of history and seeks to build advantage through a people-first approach.

Beginning in 2025, a staged relocation process will see around 800 troops moved from Adelaide to Brisbane, Townsville and Darwin as armoured vehicles and full-time infantry are withdrawn from the South Australian capital. There are significant challenges to this move, and it will require strong planning and development of these northern locations to support the army’s critical hardware and capability along with its people.

The government has made it clear that the northern movement of forces will occur within the normal posting cycles to limit its human impact and that support will be extended to army personnel and family members as the changes are implemented. Nonetheless, the move is complex and relocating core army capabilities that have resided in the south for decades is a huge task.

It’s tempting to lament the fact that Australia’s defence strategy has resulted in such a dramatic restructuring of our land forces and posture. But even amid current recruiting issues, we should commend the army’s efforts to pair the best minds with the best technology. The 2023 defence strategic review’s focus on innovation and technology allows the army to continue its efforts to deliver outsized benefits and outcomes from its investments.

Importantly, Stuart clearly stated that his people remain at the centre of his conception of future army capability. This is the right approach to deliver on the obligation to ensure our warfighters have what they need to fight and win and come home. And it will help get the army through some challenging times ahead.

‘Impactful projection’—from land and sea

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The 2023 defence strategic review has as its centrepiece the concept Defence Minister Richard Marles has defined as ‘impactful projection’. The goal is to defend Australia and its immediate region, and to ‘deter through denial’ any attacker’s attempt to approach through the archipelago to the nation’s north. This requires Australia to be able to precisely strike targets at long range and to manufacture munitions in Australia. That will complement the acquisition of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines under the AUKUS agreement, and the development of infrastructure to enable Australia and its allies to operate more easily from bases in northern Australia.

The capabilities identified in the 2023 review and the 2020 force structure plan provide this increased range and ability to deter. The review recommends local manufacture of missiles, though the new guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise won’t start producing for some time.

But is this sufficient for Australia’s security in a much more contested strategic environment, when weapons of potential adversaries significantly out-range planned Australian capabilities?

The reality is that the recommendations won’t give the Australian Defence Force the ability to reach far enough beyond Australia’s shores to strike an enemy, at least not within the critical decade to come. The ADF needs longer-range capabilities faster or, failing that, a clear forward deployment strategy.

The review certainly elevates the army’s role in long-range strike, with the HIMARS missile launcher, which had been planned for acquisition in 2022, as well the development of the precision strike missile, first announced in 2021. HIMARS can fire ATACMS battlefield rockets, with a range of 300 kilometres, and precision-strike missiles, with a current range of about 500 kilometres. That’s a significant leap beyond the army’s towed artillery or the self-propelled artillery based on the Korean AS9 Huntsman, which can fire out to 30 kilometres.

But compared to the long-range capabilities of China’s military, the weapons coming to Australia are effectively short-range. Missile systems such as China’s DF-26 and DF-27 and sea- and air-based land-attack cruise missiles have the range to hit critical facilities in northern Australia from as far away as the South China Sea. But even with the planned new capabilities, Australian forces wouldn’t be able to place an attacking force at risk until it was well within the ADF’s anti-access and area-denial envelope set to emerge in coming years.

ASPI’s Alex Bristow and Marcus Schultz note that acquiring longer-range weapons, such as land-based anti-ship missiles, and the craft to manoeuvre in littoral areas equips the army for operations along Australia’s vast northern coastline and, potentially, in forward locations in the archipelago.

Unless the army receives missiles with much greater range, it will need to operate to the north of Australia, which will require the agreement of host nations. While there’s been concern in the army about the reduced number of infantry fighting vehicles it will receive, its enhanced role in littoral manoeuvre and its long-range weapons make it a key to delivering the sought-after impactful projection. But more needs to be done to extend the range of proposed land-based missiles.

The air force faces a similar range challenge. The review suggests fitting the AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missile to the F-35A joint strike fighter and acquiring the Kongsberg joint strike missile. The air force earlier announced plans to upgrade its AGM-158 JASSM to the much longer range JASSM-ER for its F/A-18F Super Hornets and potentially the F-35A. The air force is certainly enhancing its lethal reach, but without assured forward host-nation support, its range is still well short of where an attacking force might concentrate.

The navy’s planned acquisition of Tomahawk Block IV and Block V missiles, which can attack both maritime and land targets, will give its air warfare destroyers greater capability, but that will be severely constrained by the limited number of vertical launch cells able to accommodate them. This will also reduce the navy’s ability to sustain a fleet-integrated air and missile defence capability.

The review suggests that the AUKUS submarines can provide an adequate strike capability, but the first won’t turn up until 2033 at the earliest. As ASPI’s Jennifer Parker has noted, any suggestion that submarines diminish the requirement for a potent surface naval capability, including for strike operations, is open to challenge. With only three to four boats available at any time, the ability to generate significant firepower even with advanced missiles such as Tomahawks is constrained.

The lead-up to the 2024 national defence strategy will be a crucial period that includes the release of the review of the navy’s surface fleet requirements. This represents an opportunity for the ADF to embrace a new approach to power projection that fully exploits the unconstrained environment of the oceans, the air and space domains, and the undersea domain.

The ADF should seek to forward deploy well into these maritime regions. As Euan Graham noted last year, one possible option for closer defence cooperation would be the Philippines.

Once naval forces have control of the sea to our north, amphibious land forces can strike and limit an enemy’s ability to manoeuvre.

Littoral forces deployed ashore can be supported where possible by Australian-based US long-range bombers that can undertake land strike and anti-surface warfare, and by well-dispersed and well-armed naval surface combatants including stealthy high-speed missile-armed craft; armed autonomous systems in the air, on the sea and under the waves; and advanced loitering munitions.

The surface fleet review represents an opportunity to reconceptualise how the navy might function in war, shifting to a fleet emphasising stealth, speed, surprise and firepower across a larger number of platforms operating as a networked whole linked by a mix of space- and air-based systems.

If the review merely reaffirms the existing fleet structure and fails to take advantage of new technologies and new operational concepts, it will be a wasted effort and a waste of time—and time in this adverse strategic context is not a friend.

Why is Australia buying so many different types of strike missiles?

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Defence Minister Richard Marles called in February for the Australian Defence Force to be capable of ‘impactful projection’.

Well, the defence procurement machinery is aiming to achieve that in spades, lining up acquisitions of a remarkable diversity of strike missiles. Plans can be identified to bring no fewer than eight designs of such weapons into service and to start using an old one again.

Taxpayers may well wonder why the country needs so complex a menagerie of weapons that have overlapping capabilities. All can attack distant ships, stationary ground objects or both.

In general, adding each design to an inventory increases the average cost of acquisition, training and in-service support.

The scenario that’s obviously driving the acquisitions, and the one against which their value should be judged, is defence of Australia against China. The weapons will raise the risk of sending hostile ships towards Australia or placing ground installations and equipment—such as bases, surface-to-air batteries, radars and ammunition stores—close to it.

All that assumes targets can be detected and, if mobile, tracked—a major challenge not addressed in this article.

The planned strike missiles vary in utility; some look more justifiable than others. Probably the least justifiable type is also the most famous, the Raytheon RGM-109 Tomahawk.

A partial explanation for buying such a diverse inventory is that Australia’s strike missiles will be variously carried by aircraft, ships and trucks, which often require dissimilar weapon designs. Each of the three categories of platform offers fundamentally distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Aircraft can reach a long way, strike suddenly, return to base and come back again tomorrow. Ranging far and wide, they can rapidly switch to other targets.

Sustaining that capability, however, relies on the planes and their bases surviving an enemy’s strikes. It all vanishes in puffs of smoke if enemy missiles catch unprotected aircraft on the ground or destroy fuel supplies or ammunition stocks.

Ships may be able to approach targets that are further from Australia than aircraft can reach, though that capability is far more relevant to a Middle Eastern expeditionary scenario than to defence against China. Ships can also loiter and fire at short notice, if they can survive within range of their targets for long enough. It’s a big if.

Once they shoot, they usually can’t do so again for days, maybe more than a week, because they must retire to reload, probably at a port.

Ground vehicles have the great advantage of economy. The factory-gate cost of a launcher truck, not including the missiles, may be only millions of Australian dollars. A fighter, admittedly capable of other important functions, costs more than $100 million, and a destroyer more than $1 billion.

Launcher trucks can sit on station almost indefinitely, hiding under trees or in civilian buildings. If some are destroyed, many more may still be available nearby—if their low cost has been exploited to buy them in great numbers. They can reload in minutes, and airlifters can quickly reposition them over hundreds or thousands of kilometres.

But they are restricted to friendly territory and, in Australia’s strategic context, will be unable to move closer to an enemy once they reach a coast. That means that ground-basing of strike missiles is mainly an economical and survivable means of dealing with enemy forces that come towards them.

Bearing all that in mind, let’s look at the merits of the various plans.

The Royal Australian Air Force will use four strike-missile designs, which at first sounds excessive. But three will be versions of a single type, the Lockheed Martin AGM-158, and will therefore share some training and support procedures.

Two of those will be the AGM-158B JASSM-ER land-attack missile (probably its far-flying AGM-158B-2 derivative) and the AGM-158C LRASM anti-ship missile. To some extent they can or may be able to do each other’s jobs, but each has such great strengths in its specialty that buying both looks easily justified.

The third version will be the AGM-158A JASSM land-attack missile, which has a shorter range than the JASSM-ER. Once used by the RAAF on the now-retired F/A-18A/B Hornet, it has been retained in stock—no doubt in the expectation that the F/A-18F Super Hornet or, most likely, F-35A Lightning II will be cleared to use it within a few years.

At a time when securing supplies of Western missiles is difficult, our JASSMs have a great virtue: they’re already in our possession.

Unambiguous capability duplication will appear when the RAAF receives a second strike-missile type, the Kongsberg JSM, which will be useable by F-35As and maybe Super Hornets against both land and sea targets.

Reasons for adding the JSM must be in its characteristics. The AGM-158 versions will have bigger warheads and a longer range, but the JSM should be much better at penetrating strong defences.

Equipping the Royal Australian Navy with Tomahawks is less easy to justify because it’s hard to think of targets that could be safely attacked by ships but not by aircraft.

Against China, the quick reaction time of a ship loitering on station is an improbable asset. China has a fearsome assembly of sensors and weapons for finding and destroying ships even thousands of kilometres from its coasts. Ships couldn’t loiter.

Aircraft, on the other hand, would need only to dart into a firing position and then retire.

The Tomahawk has a long range, advertised at 1,850 kilometres, but the air-launched AGM-158B-2 may fly just about as far.

Another issue is the large number of Tomahawks that Australia apparently plans to buy—220. The Hobart-class destroyers that will carry them have only 48 vertical missile cells each. If 40 cells must be reserved for defensive surface-to-air missiles, a plausible assumption, each of the three ships would carry only eight Tomahawks. So each would need to load and reload nine times to exhaust the Tomahawk stock.

The ships would be exposed not just while on station but also during at least parts of their reloading shuttle runs. Their chances of surviving long enough to fire 220 Tomahawks in a scenario involving China don’t look at all high.

The navy will also install Kongsberg NSM missiles on the Hobarts and the eight Anzac-class frigates for use against land and, mainly, naval targets. Again, if hitting the target means sailing within the coverage of China’s anti-ship reconnaissance-strike complex, the job would be better done by aircraft.

At least NSMs won’t use scarce vertical missile cells; they will have separate canisters. Also, some commonality with JSMs may reduce operating costs.

An anti-ship strike capability will also be available from RIM-174 SM-6s in the Hobarts’ vertical cells—but commanders of those inadequately magazined ships would usually want to reserve SM-6s for air and missile defence, which is their main purpose.

While value for money is a strong reason for equipping the Australian Army with strike missiles, it won’t be able to hit very distant targets with them, at least at first. If based on Australian territory the missiles would provide only a sort of last-ditch capability to ward off enemy ships in case the RAAF was suppressed.

Army strike missiles would be far more useful if moved forward onto islands of our northern neighbours, helping to defend them while creating barriers against access to Australia. That concept seems to gel somewhat with the defence strategic review’s call for the army to have an amphibious capability.

The army will get cruise strike missiles, quite possibly NSMs, and Lockheed Martin PRSM ballistic weapons. The NSM can hit both land and sea targets, and the government should be aiming at a PRSM version that can do the same.

So why would we keep both types? Maybe because the NSM, though it has a shorter range than the 500-kilometre PRSM, would have a better chance of penetrating defences. Also, it would already be in navy service. Still, an opportunity for simplification is apparent.

Later, a third army type, the PRSM Increment 4, should also enter service for use against land and sea targets, justified by having yet more range. It surely will be more expensive, so we’ll probably want to keep the original PRSM, too.

Building integrated air and missile defence for Australia

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The defence strategic review has identified a glaring gap in Australian Defence Force capability—the almost complete absence of any form of long-range layered integrated air and missile defence (IAMD).

The long-held assumption that Australia is protected by its geography, with its splendid isolation from regions of instability and a sea–air gap to our north as an impassable strategic moat, means we’ve been slow to protect ourselves from a growing missile threat at longer ranges.

The review notes that China’s military build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of World War II.

While the review doesn’t specifically identify the threat posed by China’s strike capabilities, it’s clear that Australia’s north is wide open to long-range, medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons and advanced land-attack cruise missiles, all of which can now be employed by China’s navy, air force and rocket force.

The review says Defence must deliver a layered integrated air and missile defence capability urgently, and that it ‘must comprise a suite of appropriate command and control systems, sensors, air defence aircraft and surface (land and maritime) based missile defences’.

The review warns against the pursuit of a ‘perfect’ solution that won’t be available quickly enough or at an affordable cost, but urges military-off-the-shelf solutions. It says Defence must ‘reprioritise the delivery of a layered IAMD capability, allocating sufficient resources to the Chief of Air Force to deliver initial capability in a timely way and subsequently further develop the mature capability’.

IAMD is about networks and systems of systems rather than individual platforms. More specifically, it’s about kill chains comprising sensors and shooters and the command-and-control links between them and decision-makers. The goal is to defeat incoming missiles, be they ballistic or air-breathing cruise missiles or low-level aircraft and autonomous vehicles.

The complexity of IAMD and the highly technical nature of the challenge posed by ever more sophisticated attacking systems, with hypersonic weapons now on the horizon, will drive up project costs and generate delays if the goal is a comprehensive solution to provide what some call an ‘astrodome defence’. In considering IAMD, it’s important to distinguish between national missile defence, of the type deployed in the United States to defend against a very limited nuclear attack, and defending key targets against a directed attack by conventional missiles.

The objective for IAMD in Australia must be to defend geographical environments on and around key military facilities—particularly in the north—from direct missile attack, including by hypersonic weapons and advanced autonomous aerial vehicles. It should not be to protect the entire nation, or to provide a leak-proof astrodome defence that is technically unachievable within a short time and would be prohibitively costly.

Effective ground-based air and missile defence systems that Defence should consider are available. Project Air 6502 is intended to deal with medium-range threats, and Air 6503 with high-speed advanced-missile threats.

The Australian Army is already deploying the Kongsberg–Raytheon NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) to deal with shorter-range threats. It is one of the most advanced short- to medium-range ground-based air-defence systems available and is designed to counter threats such as drones, fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, and cruise missiles. Four NASAMSs have been used in Ukraine with great success against cruise missiles and armed drones. Seven more are to be provided. NASAMS is a highly networked system that can engage up to 72 targets concurrently. The system’s networked nature allows it to defend a wide region.

NASAMS’ maturity and availability make it the logical path for further development if Defence wants longer-range IAMD capabilities quickly. Its open and distributed architecture would enable additional longer-range interceptor missiles to be integrated into the system. The AMRAAM-ER missile with a range of 70 kilometres has been integrated into NASAMS, and Raytheon’s SkyCeptor missile has a range of 200 kilometres.

IAMD must also meet the challenge posed by longer-range medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, such as China’s DF-26 IRBM. Lockheed Martin’s THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence) system would enable the ADF to intercept ballistic missiles in the terminal phase (as they re-enter the atmosphere) out to 200 kilometres. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are the lead companies selected to support Defence’s guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise, enabling the option to manufacture missiles in Australia. Combining an inner layer based on enhanced NASAMS and an outer layer based on THAAD could effectively defend the north against ballistic missiles.

A key technical challenge in intercepting very high-speed missiles at long range is early detection. That’s even more difficult with manoeuvering hypersonic glide vehicles, which could be delivered by China’s DF-17 medium-range missile and DF-27 intermediate-range hypersonic glide vehicle. Relying on sensors to detect a missile launch by such a vehicle reduces the chance of early warning, especially if the craft can fly low and use terrain masking to minimise detection.

For Australia to have longer-range IAMD effective against emerging threats such as the DF-26 and DF-17, the system should have networked sensors based on satellites in orbit. Space must play a role, with small satellites dedicated to missile detection, early warning and tracking in low-earth orbit to extend early detection and expand reaction times.

Australia already gains access to missile threat information via the US space-based infrared system, and will also have access to its successor, the next-generation OPIR (overhead persistent infrared) satellite. But IAMD opens up a new opportunity for Australia’s commercial space sector to develop sovereign missile early warning capabilities to complement and augment the US system under the Combined Space Operations initiative. IAMD shouldn’t just be a ground-based capability—space needs to be part of any ADF system to counter longer-range high-speed threats.

Collaboration on space-based missile early warning, detection and tracking, including for manoeuvering hypersonic threats, would fall neatly into the AUKUS Pillar 2 priority area of hypersonics and counter-hypersonics. Traditional ballistic missiles such as the DF-26 and DF-21D are hypersonic. China is developing hypersonic glide vehicles and in 2021 tested a ‘fractional orbital bombardment system’. Investment in IAMD must embrace new threats and must be able to engage high-speed, long-range capabilities.

The challenges are to meet these threats without requiring a silver bullet and to deliver a capability quickly and at a reasonable cost. Establishing IAMD won’t be easy.

Japan ditches attack helicopters—will Australia do the same?

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France invented the attack helicopter in 1956. Sixty-seven years later, Japan has decided that the idea has had its day.

‘Elimination of obsolete equipment’ is the cruelly decisive headline above photos of a Bell AH-1 Cobra and a Boeing AH-64D Apache, both attack helicopters, in a Japanese Ministry of Defense policy update published in December.

Uncrewed aircraft will replace them. The reason isn’t budget stress. On the contrary, plenty of money would have been available for the ministry’s formerly planned Cobra replacement program, because Japan is doubling its defence budget’s share of the economy.

This further calls into question Australia’s 2021 decision to renew the Australian Army’s attack helicopter force by buying 29 Apaches of the AH-64E version.

If fact, the Australian government and Department of Defence already may have lost interest in placing an immediate order.

Japan is also getting rid of scout helicopters—essentially, light attack helicopters that put more design emphasis on sensors instead of firepower. This decision is less radical than ditching helicopters for the attack mission, since reconnaissance and surveillance are among the first tasks shifted to uncrewed vehicles of any kind.

Japan will begin operating uncrewed replacements for attack helicopters this year, says the Yomiuri newspaper, citing several unnamed official sources. General deployment is to follow in 2025, the Yomiuri has said.

The 48 Cobras were already due for retirement. The ministry assessed possible crewed replacements for them in 2018 but omitted acquisition from its defence plan for 2019–2023.

Judging from reported plans for the trials, replacements will include loitering munitions (also referred to internationally as ‘kamikaze drones’). There will also be ordinary reusable drones of various sizes, such as have been appearing in armies in greater numbers for decades, often taking over the roles of crewed helicopters.

Australia’s intended order for Apaches has been part of the army’s plan to thoroughly re-equip itself for intense combined-arms ground combat.

As the risk of a maritime and air war involving China has become Australia’s overwhelming security concern, the army’s costly equipment plans have looked ever less relevant.

Now we have the judgement of Japan, a close friend, that attack helicopters are not worthwhile even for its capability requirements, which include land fighting to defend territory.

The attack helicopter was invented when the French Army, fighting in Algeria, took a step beyond simply bolting machine guns onto rotorcraft airframes. In 1956 it variously equipped Alouette II light utility choppers with anti-tank missiles or unguided rockets. Two years later, Bell Helicopter in the US saw that an ideal helicopter configuration for the attack mission would include a slim body with two crew members sitting in tandem; the US Army ordered the concept into production in 1966 as the AH-1.

The Australian Army didn’t participate in this revolution until 2004, when it began taking deliveries of 22 Airbus Tigers. They were so troublesome that they did not become fully operational until 2016 but since then have been performing well. The former government decided to replace them with Apaches.

Weapon categories rarely become suddenly obsolete. Usually, they progressively lose application as people devise increasingly effective countermeasures to them. In the fight to stay relevant, they often become more elaborate and costly. In some cases, a new, cheaper weapon category appears as a replacement.

All that has been happening to the attack helicopter. Short-range weapons for use against fleeting, low-level air targets have improved—and these weapons are largely designed to knock down jet aeroplanes flying several times faster than helicopters. Even unsophisticated guns and rockets intended for ground targets can be alarmingly effective against helicopters.

As lessons from wars such as the Iraq conflict 20 years ago have sunk in, decisions on the use of attack helicopters have become more prudent, meaning that sometimes they’re not used at all.

Russian attack helicopters have suffered badly in Ukraine. The Royal United Services Institute in London finds that at least 37 were lost between the 24 February invasion and 7 November last year.

Portable air-defence systems, or manpads, imposed heavy losses on attack helicopters that penetrated Ukrainian-held territory on search and destroy missions, RUSI says. Russia resorted to keeping such rotorcraft on its own side of the battle area, from where they could safely lob rockets.

No doubt Japan would imagine that its Apaches and the formerly planned Cobra replacements, if it had bought them, would have performed better than Russia’s attack helicopters—but not well enough, it seems.

Attack helicopters have also become more complex as armies have demanded more robustness, situational awareness, and weapon range, for safety. Compared with the Cobra, which is smaller, the Apache is an astonishingly high-performance machine.

And the cost these days? Well, the budget for Australia to buy 29 Apaches and make them operational is more than $5.5 billion—$190 million each.

Meanwhile, cheap battlefield drones are proliferating. They’ve also suffered badly in Ukraine, but they’re much cheaper and don’t have anyone in them when they crash. The Turkish-made Baykar Bayraktar TB2 drone, with a gross weight of 700 kilograms, reportedly costs US$1–2 million. For fair comparison with the Australian Apache acquisition, we could double that figure to include the cost of making them operational, with weapons, training and so on.

All this doesn’t mean that the attack helicopter is useless or that drones can replace it in every mission. But each of the trends discussed here is undermining its competitiveness in terms of value for money.

Japan has evidently judged that the competitiveness has now been damaged too much.

One aspect of its decision should stand out for Australia. Tokyo did not conclude that attack helicopters would still be viable if they had the highest capability available—which is to say, if they were AH-64Es. And it took that view even though its possession of 12 AH-64Ds would have greatly cut the cost of introducing the newer version.

That newer version is precisely the one that Australia decided on.

In May 2022, then–prime minister Scott Morrison said the government had ‘finalised’ the ‘investment’ to acquire AH-64Es.

But is Australia still planning to purchase new crewed attack helicopters at all?

In preparing this article, I asked the Defence Department about the status of the AH-64E program.

Defence did not provide an answer, not even a ‘no comment’, which would be most unusual for a program of no great secrecy that was proceeding more or less as intended. The department may be awaiting the outcome of the government’s defence strategic review.