Tag Archive for: RAAF

More F-35s, more tankers: a reliable way to strengthen Australian deterrence

If the Chinese navy’s task group sailing around Australia a few weeks ago showed us anything, it’s that Australia has a deterrence gap so large you can drive a ship through it. Waiting for AUKUS or hoping Australia’s troubled shipbuilding program will deliver—in the 2030s—is a recipe for annual panic about grey zone coercion as Chinese deployments become routine.

Boosting our air combat capability is the fastest way to address Australia’s deterrence gap. That requires two things: more combat aircraft and more airborne tankers.

For decades, received wisdom has been that 100 fighter aircraft were enough for Australia. The logic was vague and came from the Royal Australian Air Force’s four fighter squadrons retaining different mission specialisations. Given multi-role capabilities and sensor fusion of modern aircraft, this specialisations argument is outdated.

So, can 100 aircraft provide credible deterrence?

Currently the RAAF has 72 F-35A Lightnings, 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets and 12 EA-18G Growlers (electromagnetic attackers), for a total of 108 combat-capable aircraft. The jets are supported by seven A330 MRTT tanker-transports (called KC-30As by the RAAF).

Combat readiness is a different story. The Australian Department of Defence doesn’t provide combat aircraft availability numbers, but in 2019 the then US secretary of defense, James Mattis, told the US Navy and Air Force to attain an 80 percent mission-capable rate for combat aircraft.

There are four RAAF F-35A squadrons, including one that’s a training unit in peacetime. Each is allocated 18 aircraft to provide an intended 14 ready for duty while airframes and engines are cycled through maintenance. Two of the 14 are usually held as spares during squadron operations. Therefore, in a crisis the Australian government can expect to call on 36 operational F-35As. The same considerations result in just 16 F/A-18Fs and eight EA-18G Growlers being available

That’s a total of no more than 60 aircraft for a continent the size of Europe—hardly enough.

During surge operations the 60 RAAF combat jets could all be available. But during ongoing crisis operations—such as conducting defensive combat air patrols in the east, north and west of Australia or keeping aircraft next to runways for quick intercepts—the air combat force will quickly run into sustainment problems.

Historical observations of British and US combat aircraft availability show the mission- availability rate can be even worse—for example, due to unreliable parts supply.

On an island continent, air power is the fastest and most efficient means of deterrence. But we just don’t have enough air power.

The Royal Air Force operates 171 combat aircraft and 14 tankers from a land mass 3 percent the size of Australia. The Japanese air force has about 330 fighters and a land mass 5 percent of Australia’s. No other nation seems as committed as Australia to doing so much with so little. The only comparable air force in size to the RAAF is Canada’s, which has 79 fighters.

If Australia is serious about retaining strategic independence, including the ability to credibly deter an enemy, we should increase the size of the RAAF’s fighter force by two squadrons—36 aircraft—and add four A330 MRTT tankers. This should be phased alongside introduction of unmanned semi-autonomous teamed aircraft on a ratio of three uncrewed systems, including some for refuelling, for each additional crewed combat aircraft.

Increasing the fighter force to seven operational squadrons, including the existing dedicated electronic attack squadron but not the training unit, and supplementing it with about 100 autonomous aircraft would grow the RAAF’s combat capability to 240 aircraft before 2034.

A force this size reduces the fragility of the current air combat capability by adding depth through numbers and provides the government with a much broader range of options.

The flexibility of packaged air combat aircraft means they can quickly swing between roles and locations in a matter of hours. Missions can range from air policing and regional assurance to cruise missile defence, maritime strike and counter-air missions. Combat aircraft can be permanently stationed on both the west and east coasts.

The United States is the only country that could supply 36 fighters quickly. The obvious choice is the F-35A, since Lockheed Martin is pushing out 150 fighters of that design annually. Moreover, acquiring aircraft of designs that are already in-service avoids the risks inherent in introducing new types.

Over the long-term, policy settings such backing the development of long-range autonomous and teamed systems can be put in place to make us more strategically secure. But what we need now is an air combat system that helps us understand, decide and act.

The building blocks are in place. The RAAF operates the Wedgetail airborne surveillance, P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and MC-55A Peregrine electromagnetic surveillance aircraft. Combined with the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar network and Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangements, these give us a reasonable understanding of what is happening in our region and where.

But there must be greater emphasis on the action part of the system—the combat aircraft—because deterrence is about the potential for response.

This is an ambitious proposal that would require significant investment in airbase and support infrastructure, particularly in the north and west of the country. But as a realistic, actionable plan that secures Australia’s future it is within our reach. And what’s more, it can be attained in years, not decades.

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

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.

Future RAAF air combat capability (1): making the most of the Ghost Bat

The next National Defence Strategy (NDS) statement and its accompanying spending plan will have to pay a lot more attention to the Royal Australian Air Force’s future air combat capability.  And they must aim at exploiting big changes underway in the nature of airpower, giving the Boeing Australia MQ-28 Ghost Bat a leading role.

Those next policy statements, due in 2026, should contrast strongly with the 2024 NDS and its spending plan, the Integrated Investment Program (IIP), which offered little forward vision of air combat capability. Instead, they prioritised funding for nuclear-powered submarines, a larger surface combatant fleet and moving towards fielding a long-range strike capability.

The 2024 IIP’s biggest effect on future air combat capability was cancellation of a fourth squadron of Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightnings—leaving the RAAF with just 72 aircraft of the type—and a recommendation for their incremental improvement. It set out plans to keep the RAAF’s 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets and 12 E/A-18G Growlers until 2040, and it offered support for further development of the Ghost Bat, which is a collaborative combat aircraft (or CCA, an uncrewed aircraft designed to work with fighters). The IIP also made a vague statement on supporting development of ‘other uncrewed aerial systems.’

The rest of the airpower chapter in the IIP reiterated previous capability announcements on air mobility, such as replacing C-130H Hercules airlifters with aircraft of the more modern C-130J version. In regard to strengthening air-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the IIP just reiterated long-standing plans—for buying MQ-4C Triton uncrewed aircraft and MC-55 Peregrines. Interestingly, it also mentioned a replacement for the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft. This appears, with little detail, in the chapter on integrated air and missile defence.

The document’s cautious support for the future development of CCAs such as the Ghost Bat  was one, welcome glimpse towards the next generation of capability. But in two years the next NDS and IIP will need to be much more ambitious: they will need to fully support rapid production and early entry into operational service of Ghost Bat and development of future evolved versions with greater range, payload and performance for service late this decade or in the early 2030s.

Those evolved versions will be needed for the Ghost Bat to reach its greatest potential, but Defence and Boeing will also have to hold down manufacturing and sustainment costs. The great merit of CCAs is that they can bring combat mass—large numbers of aircraft—thanks to low costs. If the Ghost Bat becomes too expensive, we will simply end up back where we started, with few, exquisite aircraft providing a brittle combat capability. This will be a significant challenge for defence acquisition in the coming decade.

Defence also needs to push the edge of the envelope in trusted autonomy, with humans still not in the loop but on it, meaning that they can intervene when necessary to oversee CCA operations. Defence should be willing to embrace the role of artificial intelligence in managing large numbers of CCAs alongside smaller numbers of crewed platforms. Maximising the role of AI also mitigates risk posed by Chinese system-destruction warfare that is aimed at attacking critical information infrastructure at the outset of a conflict, and in doing so, destroying the resilience of ADF command and control. It’s time to let the machine take control, with humans asserting control only when they need to.

The current government has decided not to arm the Ghost Bat, though this option remains open for later versions. Even without weapons, the type can be valuable for ISR and electromagnetic-warfare missions and should be developed accordingly. Ghost Bats could, for example, offer enhanced situational awareness for crewed fighters undertaking defensive counter-air operations. Exploiting their stealthy design, CCAs could carry their sensors well forward of the crewed shooters and pass target information to them by data link. Ghost Bats could support warships in the same way.

Ultimately, the Ghost Bat’s potential won’t be fully realised unless it is armed with long-range air-to-air missiles or stand-off weapons to strike surface targets.

They must have long endurance but also high performance to ensure survivability, and they ideally should be able to be air refueled. This will of course cost more, and as noted before, its vital to avoid that cost blowing out to the point where the ability to procure large numbers of systems is lost.

It’s also important to get the acquisition model correct. One option is to exploit iterative acquisition of small numbers of more role-specialised designs, which can be developed quickly and updated more frequently. That, and exploiting design and development based on use of a digital-twin in simulated environments should allow faster and more flexible responses to changing threats. In the same way, heavy sustainment costs can be avoided.

CCAs such as the Ghost Bat are one type of capability which future NDS and IIP need to emphasise, but those aircraft and F-35As, Super Hornets and Growlers are not necessarily a complete solution to the RAAF’s future air combat needs. The next article will consider the implications of next generation crewed air combat aircraft.

Editors’ picks for 2023: ‘RAAF Wedgetail to protect vital supply lines to Ukraine’

Originally published on 26 October 2023.

A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail early warning aircraft will use its highly effective radar system to search for missiles launched from hundreds of kilometers inside Russia and Belarus as it watches over Ukraine’s supply lines from Europe.

The chief of the RAAF, Air Marshal Robert Chipman, tells The Strategist that the US decision to call in the Wedgetail to help protect the flow of military and humanitarian supplies Ukraine relies on as it battles Russia’s invasion demonstrates the aircraft’s effectiveness.

Chipman says the Wedgetail will provide early warning of any missile attack on depots and supply routes into Ukraine that run through Poland and other neighbouring countries. It will track the missiles and assess where they might hit, increasing defenders’ chances of bringing them down.

The Australian public sees the RAAF’s fast jets at air displays and giant transport aircraft on the news in a crisis, but most people would know little about the extraordinary role and capabilities of the Wedgetail.

The aircraft will operate from Germany for six months, and the very fact that it can carry out its crucial surveillance without entering the airspace of Ukraine, Russia or Belarus demonstrates the effectiveness of its electronic systems.

‘It’s not deploying to Europe to do an air battle-management role, but as an airborne sensor with a fantastic capability to detect missiles that might be directed outside of Ukraine towards some of the supply hubs providing Ukraine’s lifeline,’ says Chipman. ‘I think they would see Australia’s deployment as a very valuable contribution to secure their supplies, even as they know that it’s not providing any direct support to the battlespace.

‘It’s protecting Europe in the unlikely event that Russia would choose to escalate the war.’

The length of warning time the Wedgetail can provide depends on the type of missile and whether it’s been fired from an expected location, Chipman says. ‘But some missiles will be airborne for 20 minutes to get to a destination over a couple of hundred miles, so that gives you a reasonable chance to detect them.‘

That warning gives ground-based defences extra time to engage the incoming missiles and gives people in the target area time to disperse into shelters to minimise loss of life.

The Wedgetail has a crew of two pilots with another 10 aviators on its surveillance and communications equipment. Up to 100 Australian Defence Force personnel will accompany the aircraft to Germany to maintain and sustain it.

The Wedgetail was once on Australia’s defence projects of concern list. But Wing Commander Warren Haynes, who commands Number 2 Squadron which operates the aircraft, says years of effort have made it arguably the world’s most advanced battle-management system. Haynes, who will lead the deployment, says the Wedgetail is the perfect platform to help protect Europe’s humanitarian gateway into Ukraine.

Chris Deeble, who now heads the Defence Department’s Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, first played a role in the Wedgetail project in 2006. He says that for Defence and the companies that produced the aircraft and the radar systems, dealing with the most complex technical issues and getting it into operation was extremely hard.

Early tests as the technology was assembled were far from promising. The industry partners were losing money and pressure mounted for the project to be abandoned.

An aircraft that was supposed to enter service by 2006 wasn’t operational until 2010. But those backing the Wedgetail persevered, and the capability it ultimately brought was a key to making the RAAF the world’s best small tactical air force, Deeble says. ‘It’s not a slow, incremental change to warfighting capability. It’s a step-function jump in capability. When you add that to the RAAF’s other aircraft, you get a capability that is much greater than the sum of the parts. It doesn’t get much better than that.’

The Wedgetail is an important node in any network, says Deeble. ‘It’s a significant sensor in any fight, a critical aggregator of information and dissemination of information, taking information in, adding its own sensor and other information, and being able to push that out to the fighter force.’

US fliers and their commanders have been deeply impressed by the Wedgetail’s performance on operations. Based on Boeing’s 737 airliner and developed for the RAAF, the aircraft proved highly successful on missions over Iraq and Syria during the war on the Islamic State terror group and was clearly superior to US equivalents such as the ageing E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft, or AWACS. Over Iraq, the Wedgetail operated as a battlespace manager directing fighter aircraft and linking up attack aircraft with tankers.

The request to deploy the Wedgetail in its different role for Ukraine came to Australia from the US military’s European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

Last August, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was hosted in Canberra by Chipman, then the new chief of the RAAF. A key focus of Kendall’s trip was on modernisation, and he discussed options with his Australian counterparts on how to collaboratively develop the air and space capabilities both countries needed. Kendall told a media briefing that the American decision to acquire the E-7A Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft was an example of what the US could learn from Australia. ‘This demonstrates that there’s very much a two-way street,’ Kendall said, ‘that we depend upon our partners just as much as they depend upon us in any number of ways.’

In December, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Washington for the annual AUSMIN consultations.

A statement released after the talks said the two countries committed to work closely on developing the Wedgetail, including through the training of US Air Force personnel by the RAAF in Australia.

Haynes says some Americans are already serving with the unit in Australia and 70 to 80 will be trained overall. They include flight-deck crew, electronic-warfare operators and technical trades and support staff that are all needed to put a mission together.

Britain has also opted to buy the Wedgetail and 20 to 25 Royal Air Force personnel are now serving with 2 Squadron. Haynes says he and many other RAAF personnel had trained with US and British squadrons and this is an opportunity to return the favour. ‘We’re paying back what was afforded to us when we were trying to stand up a new capability.’

Haynes believes that after years of effort by the RAAF, industry and other defence partners to integrate new technology into the aircraft, the Wedgetail is now the best of its type in the world. ‘What we provide is a magnitude never probably seen before on any command-and-control aircraft. The ability of its crew and the aircraft to sustain operations and get the job done across multiple domains is probably unsurpassed at this point.’

Its advanced multi-role electronically scanned array (MESA) radar provides a very long range, unrestricted 360° view around the aircraft. According to publicly available sources, the MESA radar can track 180 targets and carry out 24 intercepts at once.

Chipman says that if Australia hadn’t persevered with the Wedgetail’s development, the Americans would probably not have ultimately bought the aircraft.

‘This was an Australian idea, an aircraft built to Australian specifications to meet an Australian requirement. The manufacturing was done by Boeing in the US and by Northrop Grumman for the radar and BAE Systems for the electronic-warfare system. So, a coalition of companies came together to deliver the aircraft, but it was to an Australian specification.’

Chipman says that in terms of fifth-generation technology, the Wedgetail has very effective sensors and it can use and share the picture it builds through modern datalink technology. ‘It’s not a stealthy platform, but it brings fifth-generation technologies into our air combat system. It’s an enabler of the fifth-generation air combat system that we fight today. It fits very comfortably in with the F-35, Super Hornet and Growler mix.’

The Wedgetail is the centrepiece of a system that includes aircraft, ground-based, maritime and space-based sensors and other capabilities. As the technology is refined, a goal is for the Wedgetail to seamlessly feed information to aircraft and other units on operations so that they can stay stealthy and avoid having to send out detectable signals.

Deeble says it is a ‘gem’.

RAAF Wedgetail to protect vital supply lines to Ukraine

A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail early warning aircraft will use its highly effective radar system to search for missiles launched from hundreds of kilometers inside Russia and Belarus as it watches over Ukraine’s supply lines from Europe.

The chief of the RAAF, Air Marshal Robert Chipman, tells The Strategist that the US decision to call in the Wedgetail to help protect the flow of military and humanitarian supplies Ukraine relies on as it battles Russia’s invasion demonstrates the aircraft’s effectiveness.

Chipman says the Wedgetail will provide early warning of any missile attack on depots and supply routes into Ukraine that run through Poland and other neighbouring countries. It will track the missiles and assess where they might hit, increasing defenders’ chances of bringing them down.

The Australian public sees the RAAF’s fast jets at air displays and giant transport aircraft on the news in a crisis, but most people would know little about the extraordinary role and capabilities of the Wedgetail.

The aircraft will operate from Germany for six months, and the very fact that it can carry out its crucial surveillance without entering the airspace of Ukraine, Russia or Belarus demonstrates the effectiveness of its electronic systems.

‘It’s not deploying to Europe to do an air battle-management role, but as an airborne sensor with a fantastic capability to detect missiles that might be directed outside of Ukraine towards some of the supply hubs providing Ukraine’s lifeline,’ says Chipman. ‘I think they would see Australia’s deployment as a very valuable contribution to secure their supplies, even as they know that it’s not providing any direct support to the battlespace.

‘It’s protecting Europe in the unlikely event that Russia would choose to escalate the war.’

The length of warning time the Wedgetail can provide depends on the type of missile and whether it’s been fired from an expected location, Chipman says. ‘But some missiles will be airborne for 20 minutes to get to a destination over a couple of hundred miles, so that gives you a reasonable chance to detect them.‘

That warning gives ground-based defences extra time to engage the incoming missiles and gives people in the target area time to disperse into shelters to minimise loss of life.

The Wedgetail has a crew of two pilots with another 10 aviators on its surveillance and communications equipment. Up to 100 Australian Defence Force personnel will accompany the aircraft to Germany to maintain and sustain it.

The Wedgetail was once on Australia’s defence projects of concern list. But Wing Commander Warren Haynes, who commands Number 2 Squadron which operates the aircraft, says years of effort have made it arguably the world’s most advanced battle-management system. Haynes, who will lead the deployment, says the Wedgetail is the perfect platform to help protect Europe’s humanitarian gateway into Ukraine.

Chris Deeble, who now heads the Defence Department’s Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, first played a role in the Wedgetail project in 2006. He says that for Defence and the companies that produced the aircraft and the radar systems, dealing with the most complex technical issues and getting it into operation was extremely hard.

Early tests as the technology was assembled were far from promising. The industry partners were losing money and pressure mounted for the project to be abandoned.

An aircraft that was supposed to enter service by 2006 wasn’t operational until 2010. But those backing the Wedgetail persevered, and the capability it ultimately brought was a key to making the RAAF the world’s best small tactical air force, Deeble says. ‘It’s not a slow, incremental change to warfighting capability. It’s a step-function jump in capability. When you add that to the RAAF’s other aircraft, you get a capability that is much greater than the sum of the parts. It doesn’t get much better than that.’

The Wedgetail is an important node in any network, says Deeble. ‘It’s a significant sensor in any fight, a critical aggregator of information and dissemination of information, taking information in, adding its own sensor and other information, and being able to push that out to the fighter force.’

US fliers and their commanders have been deeply impressed by the Wedgetail’s performance on operations. Based on Boeing’s 737 airliner and developed for the RAAF, the aircraft proved highly successful on missions over Iraq and Syria during the war on the Islamic State terror group and was clearly superior to US equivalents such as the ageing E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft, or AWACS. Over Iraq, the Wedgetail operated as a battlespace manager directing fighter aircraft and linking up attack aircraft with tankers.

The request to deploy the Wedgetail in its different role for Ukraine came to Australia from the US military’s European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

Last August, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was hosted in Canberra by Chipman, then the new chief of the RAAF. A key focus of Kendall’s trip was on modernisation, and he discussed options with his Australian counterparts on how to collaboratively develop the air and space capabilities both countries needed. Kendall told a media briefing that the American decision to acquire the E-7A Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft was an example of what the US could learn from Australia. ‘This demonstrates that there’s very much a two-way street,’ Kendall said, ‘that we depend upon our partners just as much as they depend upon us in any number of ways.’

In December, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Washington for the annual AUSMIN consultations.

A statement released after the talks said the two countries committed to work closely on developing the Wedgetail, including through the training of US Air Force personnel by the RAAF in Australia.

Haynes says some Americans are already serving with the unit in Australia and 70 to 80 will be trained overall. They include flight-deck crew, electronic-warfare operators and technical trades and support staff that are all needed to put a mission together.

Britain has also opted to buy the Wedgetail and 20 to 25 Royal Air Force personnel are now serving with 2 Squadron. Haynes says he and many other RAAF personnel had trained with US and British squadrons and this is an opportunity to return the favour. ‘We’re paying back what was afforded to us when we were trying to stand up a new capability.’

Haynes believes that after years of effort by the RAAF, industry and other defence partners to integrate new technology into the aircraft, the Wedgetail is now the best of its type in the world. ‘What we provide is a magnitude never probably seen before on any command-and-control aircraft. The ability of its crew and the aircraft to sustain operations and get the job done across multiple domains is probably unsurpassed at this point.’

Its advanced multi-role electronically scanned array (MESA) radar provides a very long range, unrestricted 360° view around the aircraft. According to publicly available sources, the MESA radar can track 180 targets and carry out 24 intercepts at once.

Chipman says that if Australia hadn’t persevered with the Wedgetail’s development, the Americans would probably not have ultimately bought the aircraft.

‘This was an Australian idea, an aircraft built to Australian specifications to meet an Australian requirement. The manufacturing was done by Boeing in the US and by Northrop Grumman for the radar and BAE Systems for the electronic-warfare system. So, a coalition of companies came together to deliver the aircraft, but it was to an Australian specification.’

Chipman says that in terms of fifth-generation technology, the Wedgetail has very effective sensors and it can use and share the picture it builds through modern datalink technology. ‘It’s not a stealthy platform, but it brings fifth-generation technologies into our air combat system. It’s an enabler of the fifth-generation air combat system that we fight today. It fits very comfortably in with the F-35, Super Hornet and Growler mix.’

The Wedgetail is the centrepiece of a system that includes aircraft, ground-based, maritime and space-based sensors and other capabilities. As the technology is refined, a goal is for the Wedgetail to seamlessly feed information to aircraft and other units on operations so that they can stay stealthy and avoid having to send out detectable signals.

Deeble says it is a ‘gem’.

Senior US official says Washington would consider supplying B-21 bombers to Australia

A senior Washington official has indicated that the United States would consider providing Australia with B-21 Raider long-range bombers, if Canberra requested them.

US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was hosted in Canberra this week by the new chief of the Royal Australian Air Force, Air Marshal Robert Chipman. The two fielded questions at a media briefing.

It has long been accepted that the US wouldn’t provide allies such as Australia with platforms such as nuclear-powered submarines and certain aircraft such as the formidable and stealthy F-22 fighter. At least in the case of submarines, the rapidly deteriorating global strategic situation brought a dramatic change in that thinking with the AUKUS agreement a year ago. The AUKUS partnership opened the way for the UK and US to help Australia obtain the submarines and to collaborate on a range of other defence capabilities.

Asked by The Strategist if the US would consider allowing Australia to join its development of the B-21 to provide the RAAF with a long-range strike capability, Kendall said that, generally speaking, Australia acquired the weapon systems it needed for its defence. ‘And I think the United States, in general, would be willing to talk to Australia about anything that there was an interest in from the Australian perspective that we could help them with.’

Close cooperation on the F-35 joint strike fighter was an example, Kendall said. ‘So, I don’t think that there’s any fundamental limitation on the areas in which we can cooperate. If Australia had a requirement for long-range strike, and I think I’d turn it over to the chief of air staff to talk about that, then we’d be willing to have a conversation with them about that.’

Chipman then said more would be learned as the government’s defence strategic review progressed on the role of long-range strike in Australia’s force structure. ‘But what I would say is, if we were to invest in long-range strike, then it’s got to be balanced. We’d also need to be able to protect and sustain those platforms while they’re on the ground in Australia. So, while we might work with the US on B-21, that’s a small part of an overall strike capability that we would need in Australia.’

Kendall is responsible for organising, training and equipping US air and space forces. He said his visit to Australia and time spent with the RAAF chief was part of US liaison with its closest partners. ‘I liaise around the world under a rubric of integrated deterrence, that we are all stronger by operating closely together and supporting each other’s capabilities,’ Kendall said. ‘A free and open Pacific is incredibly important to us.’

A key focus of his trip was on modernisation, and he was discussing options with his Australian counterparts on how to collaboratively develop the air and space capabilities both countries needed. The American decision to acquire the E-7A Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft was an example of what the US could learn from Australia, Kendall said.

US fliers and their commanders have been deeply impressed by the Wedgetail’s performance on operations. Based on Boeing’s 737 airliner and developed for the RAAF, the aircraft proved highly successful on missions over Iraq and Syria during the war on the Islamic State terror group and was clearly superior to US equivalents such as ageing E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft, or AWACS.

‘This demonstrates that there’s very much a two-way street,’ Kendall said, ‘that we depend upon our partners just as much as they depend upon us in any number of ways.’

On this trip he was also visiting Japan and US forces in Hawaii, Guam and Alaska. ‘All of this represents an integrated strategic capability that the US and its partners around the world use to keep peace and stability in the region.’

Kendall also said he was talking to Australians about possible cooperation on unmanned aircraft, including Boeing Australia’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat. ‘There are a lot of options on the table right now. We’re having preliminary discussions. I think there’s a lot of mutual interest in working together and we’re going to be sorting out the details over the next few weeks and months.’

Chipman said the RAAF was excited by the MQ-28 program in Australia. ‘It’s a great innovation. It’s something that has been homegrown for the first time in a long time in Australia. But my interest is in accelerating the program, and that’s where working closely with our allies is so useful, because we can operationalise it and bring it into service more quickly.’

The cost of an unmanned aircraft was dramatically lower than a manned fighter and it could be procured in large numbers, he said. The US had until now bought better and better versions of the things that it already had. ‘And I think we need to rethink that, and the uncrewed combat aircraft is one opportunity to do that.’

And was there room for cooperation with Australia?

‘Absolutely,’ said Kendall, ‘That’s why I’m here.’

Asked about RAAF operations over areas in the South China Sea militarised by China, Kendall responded that the US and its allies were all concerned about Chinese behaviour in the region. ‘I think my Australian counterparts are very interested and focused on this too. And keeping high awareness of what kind of activities are going on in that part of the world is important to all of us.’

Chipman said the RAAF operated in the South China Sea to maintain the status quo, to preserve the rules-based global order and to exercise freedom of navigation under international law. ‘We have, and they’re well-publicised, experienced recent encounters with the Chinese, which have been robust to say the least. And to make a finer point, they’ve been unsafe. We see the Chinese as an incredibly capable, modern military. What should follow are high standards of professionalism, and we would like to see the same standards of professionalism from the Chinese that we extend to them.’

The RAAF chief said safety issues were being monitored very closely. ‘We certainly have seen a recent spate of unsafe incidents, but it’s not a trend line that we can see sustained.’

Chipman said RAAF operations hadn’t changed. ‘It is still business as usual for us. We force generate our crews to a very high standard. They’re capable of operating in contested environments. And so we think they’re well equipped to continue operating in the South China Sea.’

He added later that the RAAF was designed to be able to respond very quickly to a range of scenarios in the region.

On the question of whether Chinese platforms such as the stealthy J-20 fighter were getting close to the capability of the US-designed F-35, Kendall said he’d been very concerned about China’s military modernisation program for some time. ‘I had spent most of my life in the intersection of technology and operational capabilities and came back into government in 2010 and looked at what China was doing to develop and modernise their military. And it was quite clear that they were developing the capability to try to keep others away from their shores, including the United States and its partners, and that they were pretty well down the path towards fielding those kinds of capabilities,’ Kendall said. The label given then was anti-access, area denial, or A2/AD.

‘I come back again, a dozen years later, and they’ve continued on that path very aggressively. And it’s of concern, I think, to everyone in the region. It has big implications for peace and stability in the region.’

China’s defence investments were widespread, strategic and focused, he said. ‘They’re acquiring technology through intellectual property theft and through generating it themselves. They’re educating their engineering workforce, largely overseas in universities and other places. They are as formidable a strategic opponent as I have seen. And I spent 20 years as a court lawyer. So, they are investing very thoughtfully and with significant resources with a great breadth of capabilities that they’re trying to field or have fielded. And they continue to do that.’

China was thinking ahead on how the US and its allies might respond so that they could develop countermeasures, Kendall said. ‘We are in what I consider to be a race for military technological superiority with the Chinese. There are a number of areas in which I feel very confident about America’s capabilities.’

It was difficult to know if there’d be parity between the US and China, Kendall said. ‘A number of things are not obvious, such as electronic warfare capabilities, war reserve modes for radars, counter-countermeasures, deception techniques, and so on. Some things we’re not very concerned about; other things we’re more concerned about. But there’s going to be a lot that we don’t know about each other’s capabilities.’

The war in Ukraine had demonstrated that some Russian capabilities that looked good on paper turned out to be much less effective when they were used, Kendall said.

‘I would hope that Xi Jinping learns three lessons from what he’s seeing happening right now. The economic consequences of an aggressive action may be much more severe than you’d anticipated. And that should be a significant deterrent. The capabilities your military is telling you it has may not be an accurate description of what they have. And the short war you anticipate may not be the war you get. So I’m hopeful that those will be the lessons he learns from what he’s seeing right now.’

Chipman added that that underscored the importance of AUKUS, ‘where we work together to collaboratively develop and research and engineer new technologies so that we can stay abreast and competitive’.

Russia and China give Australia’s space commander the need for speed

The head of the Australian Defence Force’s new space command says she wants to focus on speed and doing things differently to meet the challenge of ensuring Australia can maintain access to space in uncertain times.

Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts said Chinese and Russian activities in space were her biggest concern and that Australia needs to quickly develop the ability to protect both its civilian and military space infrastructure, something it currently lacks.

‘I think the activities by China and Russia, which have been fairly well documented in the public domain, scare me … We need to accelerate the capabilities so we can deal with the threats,’ she told a media briefing at the Royal Australian Air Force’s air and space power conference in Canberra on Tuesday.

Roberts used the example of China’s Shijian-21, which recently towed a defunct Chinese satellite out of its position in geosynchronous earth orbit to dispose of it, saying that Australia has no way to counter such a capability if it’s used against Australian assets in GEO, which include an Optus telecommunications satellite and the satellite responsible for the NBN’s Sky Muster internet service.

She said that the establishment of a space command in Defence, which although small at little more than 100 people, will aim to move quickly to stand up both defensive and offensive Australian space capabilities.

Roberts says space command is already investigating both reversible and irreversible methods to disable adversary space assets, including jamming from ground stations or using lasers to blind orbital satellites.

Australia will not, Roberts says, use methods that create space debris as Russia did with its test of an anti-satellite missile last year that created an estimated 1,500 pieces of trackable and potentially dangerous debris.

Another area of priority is ensuring satellite communications are resilient and cannot be easily disrupted or taken offline in a conflict.

Part of that effort is Defence’s Joint Project 9102, which aims to provide Australia with its first sovereign military communications satellites.

The current timeline for delivery of the $4-billion project is the mid- to late 2020s, though it’s clear that it’s a priority for the new command. Asked if under her leadership the new satellites would still be several years away, Roberts responded, ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

A sovereign Australian launch capability is also on the cards, with plans to launch a 100-kilogram satellite as soon as next year. It’s something that Roberts wants to work closely with both local and international companies to achieve.

‘There will be a launch capability in Australia, but it needs to be commercially viable. Defence won’t have enough launches by ourselves, but there are a lot of customers out there,’ she says.

Officials are frank in admitting that Australia has a lot of catching up to do since its time as a space industry leader in the 1960s.

‘From the late 1970s we just stopped looking at space … and so did Defence, probably because of the same reason—everyone was just like, “Oh, someone else will look after it”,’ Roberts says.

‘Did we take our eye off the ball? It’s arguable. You’ve got priorities, [but] for us as Australia and the Australian Defence Force to turn around and say we’re going to assure Australia’s access to space, that’s pretty bold,’ adds Air Commodore Nicholas Hogan, the new command’s director general of space capability.

Space command is a joint command that takes in members of all three services and while it’s now small, RAAF chief Mel Hupfeld told the conference that the air force will likely soon shift its investment focus to space.

Whether that means the command will eventually morph into its own service similar to the US Space Force is not certain, though the possibility has already been flagged by Defence Minister Peter Dutton.

Senior US commanders echoed concerns about Russian and Chinese activities in space, as well as the need for the rapid development and acquisition of new capabilities to keep pace.

General John Dickinson, the head of US Space Command, said China has growing capabilities that the US is monitoring, though he wouldn’t be drawn on whether the US has its own satellites that could replicate what Beijing had done with Shijian-21.

‘China is our pacing threat and we’re watching it very closely,’ he noted, adding that the US has a specific focus on dual-use technologies that can be employed for both civil and military purposes.

He said Russia’s anti-satellite test was ‘irresponsible’ and added significantly to the burden of the almost 44,000 pieces of space debris his command is tracking.

Speaking on Wednesday, the head of the US Space Force, General William Raymond, said that his service wanted to rapidly accelerate the traditional methods of acquiring new technologies.

Raymond noted that after a meeting with SpaceX founder Elon Musk in a largely empty warehouse, satellites made in that building were launched into orbit barely four months later. ‘We want to be able to leverage that.’

Instead of giving companies a set-in-stone requirement for a particular capability, Raymond wants to bring industry players in earlier in the process—going to them with a problem and asking, ‘How would you build that?’

Raymond noted that simply looking at acquisition wouldn’t necessarily solve problems that begin with decisions on how to structure a force. One based around small numbers of exquisite platforms is going to look very different to one that is focused on using capabilities that can be easily, cheaply and quickly replaced.

Both Australian and US commanders are also thinking about how to manage personnel in less traditional ways as their requirements for people grow.

The US Space Force is looking at how to implement an approach similar to Defence’s total workforce system to allow its people to more easily transition between services and in and out of defence industry.

‘There are things you’re doing in the Australian air force that we would like to be doing in our service,’ Raymond said.

For its part, Defence’s space command is confident its workforce model will provide the people it needs despite the fact that prospective recruits can’t sign up to join a Royal Australian Space Force—yet.

China’s long-range missiles highlight RAAF’s strike shortcomings

Australia’s new F-35A joint strike fighters deliver tactical advantages in air combat bestowed by stealth, systems integration and data fusion. Yet, as advanced as it is, the fleet we’re acquiring doesn’t address two key deficiencies of the air force’s strike and air combat capabilities—lack of combat mass and lack of operational range.

In our quest for an absolute qualitative edge, we’ve forgotten that quantity has a quality all its own. Our dependence on small numbers of exquisite platforms will make it difficult to sustain high-intensity operations, particularly if we’re confronting a major-power adversary such as China. And the lack of range of those platforms accentuates that risk. Addressing that challenge will demand an urgent rethink of how defence capability is developed and acquired and a fundamental paradigm shift. We face a much more dangerous strategic outlook than has been the case for decades, at the centre of which is the prospect of war with China.

Australian defence planners didn’t consider preparing for a major-power war in our region to be a priority until the release of the 2020 defence strategic update. As that document makes clear, an assumption of 10 years’ strategic warning time is no longer appropriate for defence capability planning. The possibility of Chinese military operations against Taiwan—perhaps within the next five or six years—demands that Australian defence planners begin thinking about the implications of a major-power conflict in the Indo-Pacific, which would likely involve Australia alongside the United States.

With that in mind, we need to urgently address a gap in our long-range power-projection capabilities to generate decisive effects well beyond the air–sea gap. That hasn’t really been a significant issue before. Expeditionary air operations with host-nation support, such as those over Syria and Iraq in Operation Okra, were highly effective, but they occurred in a largely uncontested operational environment. Emerging operational challenges in the Indo-Pacific are markedly different and far more challenging than the skies over Syria.

The 2020 force structure plan doesn’t really address the gap, at least in terms of providing an offensive strike capability with numbers and range sufficient to respond to our current strategic predicament. The Defence Department is making some good decisions, though. The acquisition of 200 AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missiles, or LRASMs, for the F/A-18F Super Hornets, and eventually the P-8A Poseidons, will considerably enhance the air force’s anti-surface warfare capability, replacing the largely obsolete Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The force structure plan and the 2021–22 defence portfolio budget statements mention the acquisition of 1,500-kilometre range BGM-109 Block IV Tomahawk land attack missiles for land and maritime strike from the navy’s Hobart-class air warfare destroyers and Hunter-class future frigates.

Hypersonic weapons are also on the horizon, and Australia and the US are now collaborating under the SCIFiRE program to that end, but the timelines for introducing hypersonic weapons are vague. The force structure plan also notes the importance of autonomous systems and ‘teaming air vehicles’, with Boeing Australia now developing the ‘loyal wingman’ drone as part of its Airpower Teaming System. But that’s a developmental program, and while the air force is supporting it, it hasn’t yet committed to funding its acquisition.

The Block IV Tomahawks are a navy capability and may not be introduced in significant numbers, and hypersonic weapons aren’t likely to appear until much later in the decade. So, for the next five years the air force will be left with little long-range strike potential, other than the LRASMs, which still depend on launch from short-range tactical platforms. Those in turn depend either on host-nation support closer to the fight or on tankers that can’t operate in highly contested airspace. And even if tanker support is available, the challenge of insufficient range persists. ASPI’s Marcus Hellyer has noted that tankers don’t necessarily extend the reach of platforms like the Super Hornet, or even the JSF, to key operational areas relevant to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. We’re still left with a strike gap.

Having long-range offensive strike must be matched with effective defence to meet the threat posed by Chinese air and missile capabilities in the event of a Taiwan Strait crisis. China’s H-6N bombers can launch CH-AS-X-13 air-launched ballistic missiles from near Hainan Island, and their 3,000-kilometre range would allow targeting of bases across northern Australia. If China were to deploy its 4,000-kilometre range ground-based DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Hainan, they could also strike our northern bases.

Acquiring ballistic missile defence systems isn’t necessarily the complete answer. They don’t have a great record of success in defeating simulated attacks by lesser threats such as North Korea. It’s questionable how effective a missile defence network in our north, perhaps comprising sea-based SM-3 interceptors aboard the Hobart air warfare destroyers and land-based systems such as Aegis Ashore, would be against a more sophisticated Chinese missile threat. In any case, China’s further development of hypersonic glide vehicles such as the DF-17 might ultimately allow it to circumvent such systems. Betting on missile defence systems now could suck up precious resources with little gain.

Meeting the challenge posed by long-range missiles is a ‘wicked problem’ for Defence. An urgent threat is emerging to which there is no clear response. Investment in systems such as the F-35 isn’t necessarily the answer. Time isn’t on our side, and we need a fast-tracked solution.

The answer, which I’ll explore in a future post, lies in accelerated development and acquisition of greater numbers of innovative autonomous systems, matched with more capable crewed platforms that have greater range, performance and payload than even the F-35. The aim should be to develop a new layer of forward anti-access and area denial, a more resilient and distributed command-and-control architecture that can survive initial blows in a potentially prolonged high-intensity conflict, hardened bases and protected logistics. We would also benefit from building sovereign production chains for combat capability that are located beyond the reach of China’s long-range missiles, for both defence operations and expeditionary operations as part of a coalition.

Australia has more important things to buy than MQ-9 drones

Let’s see if we can spot a contradiction here.

On 25 April, Defence Minister Peter Dutton told the ABC war with China over Taiwan could not be ruled out. He did not need to add that, if such a war broke out, Australia, alongside the US, would be fighting fearsome, high-technology enemy forces.

Two days before, the US State Department approved export to Australia of $2.1 billion worth of General Atomics MQ-9B drones—aircraft that are useful only against an enemy that doesn’t shoot back.

In other words, amid a high and rising Chinese threat to the peace of the Western Pacific, the government is preparing to buy costly equipment for another Middle East campaign.

Australia is not remotely prepared for a major war against a powerful enemy close to home. Critical improvements to national resilience are urgently needed: for example, improved abilities to repair air bases, supply them with fuel, disperse aircraft to civilian fields, fix aircraft battle damage, and clear sea mines. We also need more pilots.

Dutton should challenge the Department of Defence to explain why a single dollar should be spent on preparing to go back to the Middle East before these more pressing issues have been attended to.

MQ-9Bs would be just about useless in a war with China. These propeller-driven aircraft have worse flight performance than World War II fighters and are simply unsurvivable in the face of modern fighters and surface-to-air systems.

This is not because the MQ-9B is badly designed but, rather, because it is not intended for serious combat or anything like it. As the latest version of the MQ-9 Reaper, it’s tailor made for conducting surveillance of territory occupied by enemies who have only guns or, at most, low-level anti-aircraft missiles. It can also attack targets if they are similarly incapable of defending themselves.

In a war with China, by contrast, the most that MQ-9Bs could do would be to collect radio signals from a very safe distance, from which they might not collect much at all.

The prospective Australian order would cover up to 12 MQ-9Bs, according to the US. They would come with an impressively complete array of sensors, communications radios and targeting systems, plus equipment on the ground for control and training. Hardly any weapons are mentioned, and additional facilities in Australia will presumably needed, so the overall budget has to be bigger than $2.1 billion.

Altogether, this program would indeed produce an excellent force for supporting Australian soldiers on the ground in, say, Afghanistan.

But Australia is not obliged to turn up in such places with all the equipment it needs. As with attack helicopters, it could rely on allies, such as the US and UK, which have similar aircraft and would well understand that Australia was under far too much strategic stress to fully equip itself for secondary wars. That is to say, they would understand something that the Australian Department of Defence evidently does not.

The MQ-9B should be a doubly unwelcome addition to Australia’s military, because it will be another type added to the aircraft fleet, with consequent complications in support and training. The burdens of a new fleet would not arise if the money were spent instead on, for example, hardening air bases.

Nor would new burdens arise if the money were used to pay for more aircraft of a type already in service, deepening an important capability rather than adding a new one of low priority. Limiting the conversation to surveillance and intelligence, there are three types, in service or coming into service, for which more units would be highly valuable.

For $2.1 billion, Defence could probably buy:

  • Four or five Boeing E-7A Wedgetail air surveillance aircraft;
  • Seven Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrollers (with weapons); or
  • At least seven MC-55A Peregrine electromagnetic warfare aircraft from Gulfstream and L3Harris.

The budget would cover spare parts but would hardly need to pay for more infrastructure for any of these types, since that’s in place or coming. Support and crew costs might require more funding but would at least benefit from economies of scale by using existing training set-ups, for example. For supporting MQ-9Bs, just about everything would have to be new.

The MQ-9B would be even less attractive after 2031, probably only about six years after it becomes operational with Australia, because that’s when the US Air Force plans to begin replacing the Reaper with something more useful. Australian support costs will then begin to rise as interoperability advantages fade.

In the meantime, the USAF is upgrading the Reaper to make it useful in any war with Russia, especially by making it serve as a communications node. The MQ-9B already comes with a comms-node function, and that could be handy for defending Australia. But if that job is part of the requirement, it hasn’t been mentioned—and simpler drones could provide the service.

We must ask ourselves how this program to buy costly drones for Middle Eastern wars has persisted as the Chinese threat has galloped ahead.

The RAAF first mentioned its aim to acquire MQ-9s or something like them in 2014. Some might argue that the need to prioritise defence of Australia over expeditionary capability should already have been apparent. But, if it wasn’t then, it certainly was in the next few years as China moved closer to this continent by illegally building military bases in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the risk of war over Taiwan kept rising as China built its capacity to ward off US intervention. And meanwhile Canberra’s relations with Beijing have plummeted.

Amid all that, we seem to have had defence thinking running on rails. It seems that, since the drone program had got started, it’s just kept going, regardless of changing circumstances.

One must wonder why neither Marise Payne nor Christopher Pyne called a halt to this during their terms as defence minister between 2015 and 2019. In Linda Reynolds’s term, from 2019 to 2021, the program somehow survived a 2020 defence policy review that called for a focus on fighting closer to home.

Now Dutton is the minister, and reportedly resistant to being run by his department. Will he, too, stick by this low-priority waste of funds?

What’s beyond the F-35 for Australia?

The evolving debate in the US about the future of the F-35A joint strike fighter may open up new opportunities for the Royal Australian Air Force to take a radically different direction in its future capability development.

Under Project AIR 6000 Phase 7, additional F-35As are one option under consideration, bringing the fleet up to a maximum of 100 aircraft in total. There now might be good reason to consider alternatives, rather than rush to embrace an all-F-35A capability.

The current debate in the US focuses on the high sustainment cost of the JSF, and whether the US Air Force really wants to depend so heavily on the aircraft as its core capability amid rising US–China strategic and military competition.

There’s also talk of reducing the USAF’s purchase of 1,765 aircraft, and even discussion about a clean-sheet design for a lightweight ‘fourth gen-plus/fifth gen-minus’ aircraft to replace the F-16, rather than buying more F-35As.

A recent US Government Accountability Office report on USAF F-35 sustainment and readiness suggests that full mission capable rates for the F-35A fall short of USAF requirements, at only 54% versus a 72% objective for the 2020 US fiscal year, while sustainment costs over a 60-year life cycle have increased steadily from $US1.11 trillion to $US1.27 trillion, leading to ‘a substantial and growing gap between estimated sustainment costs and affordability constraints’.

The report also notes ongoing challenges with logistics support emerging from the failure of the Autonomous Logistics Information System known as ALIS and notes the subsequent development of a replacement Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN, is encountering ‘myriad … technical and programmatic uncertainties’.

The GAO report suggests there are also challenges with the F-35’s engine, with a greater number of repairs taking longer than expected, reducing mission readiness further and driving up costs.

In terms of sustainment costs, the USAF will ‘need to reduce F-35A sustainment costs by 47 per cent’, in order to avoid multibillion-dollar funding gaps for a fleet of 1,192 aircraft by 2036.

These challenges cannot help but influence debate now emerging that could shape a USAF air combat review and the US Department of Defense 2023 budget. The prospect of escalating sustainment costs, and less than acceptable mission-capable rates will boost calls by proponents for reducing dependency on the F-35 in favour of a new platform.

This is occurring as the USAF is engaged in developing the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) project to complement and ultimately replace both the F-35A and the older F-22 aircraft.

Central to success of NGAD is a new approach to capability acquisition called e-development.

That NGAD project, employing e-development based around synthetic design and testing, has already seen an actual physical demonstrator aircraft fly after a development period of three years.

As the RAAF considers its options for AIR 6000 Phase 7, these challenges in the US present opportunity not risk.

Rather than automatically defaulting to acquiring another 28 F-35As, the RAAF needs to seize the opportunity to embrace what might emerge from NGAD by the early 2030s and at the same time fully support the development of manned–unmanned teaming via the Boeing loyal wingman aircraft as a complementary capability to both the F-35 and a future air dominance system.

Above all else, the RAAF and Defence must shift gears to embrace rapid capability acquisition that epitomises e-development and the ‘digital century series’ of NGAD.

Delaying consideration of an F-35 replacement until the mid-2030s would be a mistake.

Instead, a ‘digital century series’ approach will allow Australia to keep pace with rapidly emerging threats and remain on a technological par with the US.

If the USAF does decide to avoid banking everything on the F-35A, it will be better for Australia to maintain a synergistic approach to capability development between the USAF and the RAAF.

That would boost our operational and geopolitical capital within the alliance beyond even what exists now and enable us to better respond to rapid adversary capability growth and technological surprise.

The time for new ideas and new thinking on future air combat capability is now.