Australia should talk to Washington about buying B-2 stealth bombers
China’s recent naval circumnavigation of Australia has highlighted a pressing need to defend Australia’s air and sea approaches more effectively. Potent as nuclear submarines are, the first Australian boats under AUKUS are at least seven years away. Air power is well-positioned to fill the gap in Australia’s long-range strike capability: It has clear advantages over submarines and ships in terms of its responsiveness in the maritime strike role.
But the F-35A and F/A-18F lack the necessary range, and Australia has not fielded a bomber since the F-111 was retired in 2010. No new candidate aircraft has been identified as available for purchase, on a timeline that is relevant, or on a budget within Australia’s means.
Solving this problem requires imagination from Australia as well as its key ally, the US. Fortunately, there is a solution at hand but, like the aircraft itself, it is not easy to detect. As unlikely as it sounds, Australia should pursue America’s B-2A Spirit bomber, and has a narrow opportunity to do so.
Australia, to be clear, would be acquiring the B-2A as a fully sovereign capability, to boost its deterrent and war-fighting capabilities, with China’s strategic challenge primarily in mind. America would also gain by further enabling a close ally to make a stabilizing contribution to the regional balance of power, through a significant augmentation to its air power, alongside the development of undersea and other capabilities via AUKUS.
The B-2A is well suited to meet Australia’s capability requirements in terms of range, payload and stand-alone platform survivability. There are indications that the B-2A is already transitioning to a long-range precision strike role — delivering such weapons as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Extended Range) with which it was integrated in 2022. Maritime strike was a particular focus of the B-2A’s participation in last year’s RIMPAC exercises, when it demonstrated the use of modified JDAM gravity bombs as low-cost ship-sinkers. These are capabilities the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) already fields.
Obviously, Australia would need to clear some major obstacles to acquire the B-2A.
First, the US has never before entertained exporting the Spirit, given its limited numbers (only 18 remain) and proprietary technology. Second, Australia would be concentrating a multibillion-dollar investment into very few platforms, just when the Australian Defence Force arguably needs to pivot away from ”exquisite” capabilities and inject greater mass, depth and risk-worthiness into its order of battle. Third, the B-2A serves the USAF in a nuclear as well as conventional delivery role, which would have to be reconciled with Australia’s prohibition on possessing nuclear weapons. Finally, Australian critics of the Trump administration would pillory such an acquisition as foolhardy, at a time when doubts about Washington’s political reliability as an ally are peaking.
Without dismissing these drawbacks, there is a pathway for Australia to acquire a viable B-2A bomber capability, on a timeline that is relevant to its strategic needs. And the window of opportunity is relatively slim— requiring decisive action by Canberra within the next couple of years.
Why Not Other Aircraft?
What about other options? There are really only three other avenues, all with significant downsides: buying into the US’s future B-21 Raider program, acquiring B-1B Lancer bombers as they are retired from the USAF, or trying to tie into the British-Italian-Japanese GCAP effort.
While it would provide a capability for the long term, the problem with the B-21 option for Australia is that it conflicts with the USAF’s overriding need to recapitalize its own bomber force. It would therefore not be available until well into the 2030s — if at all. Cost is another factor, at an estimated $16-18 billion USD for a squadron of twelve. And while the B-21 remains laudably on track, indeed under-budget in the FY25 appropriations request, the potential for cost overruns and delays remains.
The main advantage of pressing used USAF B-1Bs into Australian service is that the Lancers are flying now and are already configured for anti-ship missions. The major downside is that the RAAF would have to assume the full burden for the B-1B’s sustainment while the USAF pivots resources to the B-21. Designed for an operational lifespan of 8,000-10,000 flying hours, the B-1Bs now average above 12,000 hours because of the aircraft’s extensive use as a loitering close air-support platform in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the USAF has retired them from all but short-duration missions. While statistics on flying hours aren’t publicly available for the B-2A, the USAF has been much more sparing with them than the B-1B. Australia would be investing at the point of sharply diminishing returns.
The GCAP joint venture aircraft, while not a bomber per se, is likely to be large enough to be considered in the long-range strike role. Australian interest in the program is rising and GCAP is likely to be more affordable than the B-21. But it may not be available on a significantly more favorable timeline, and there is a constant concern that the multi-national nature of the program could lead to delays or spiraling costs.
Meanwhile, the Spirit is already on borrowed time in USAF service, as it will be retired (along with the B-1B) in the early 2030s in order to accommodate the transition to the B-21, without expanding the overall size of Global Strike Command. Although a precise date is difficult to identify, provided the B-21 rollout proceeds smoothly, the USAF could potentially start retiring B-2As at the end of this decade without reducing its overall bomber fleet. (While the USAF has previously stated it could keep the B-2As flying into the 2040s, Northrop Grumman’s $7 billion contract for B-2A maintenance and support concludes at the end of 2029.)
Retiring the B-1B and B-2A in parallel (the venerable B-52 will be retained in service) creates an expensive and burdensome disposal problem for the USAF. Framed in this context, an Australian pitch to buy eight or more B-2As could be well received by both the USAF and the Trump administration, which has emphasized the need for stepped-up burden sharing from allies.
How This Could Work
Make no mistake, this would be a costly effort, one that would have to come as part of a significant uplift in defense spending, closer to 3 percent of GDP, up from roughly 2 percent GDP today. But if the government is willing to do that, then there are mutual benefits for both Canberra and Washington.
Australia has upgraded several air bases to support regular deployments of USAF bombers and other combat aircraft, and B-2As have already operated from Australia, albeit on short-term detachments. An Australian base in the Northern Territory was used to support a B-2A strike mission against Houthi targets in Yemen last October, most likely for refueling.
Future B-2A deployments to Australia could be scaled up, to further explore the practical challenges of maintaining and sustaining these aircraft here. Deep maintenance might still have to be done in the US, and Australia would need to support that part of any agreement. But as the USAF transitions towards B-21, Australia could incrementally take on more of the funding for B-2A maintenance, easing the cost on American taxpayers. Assuming some overlap in the sustainment footprint between the B-2A and B-21, the RAAF and USAF could also develop shared support facilities, in Australia, for Spirits transferring into Australian service as sovereign assets, as well as B-21s which the USAF could begin to forward deploy to Australia around the same time. This promises economies of scale, within an alliance framework.
While the B-2A would be a stopgap capability for Australia, a further advantage of operating it is that it would provide the RAAF with a pathway to transitioning to the B-21, if it eventually becomes available in sufficient numbers for the US to consider exporting it to Canberra.
To assuage anti-nuclear concerns in Australia, the systems that allow the B-2A to carry nuclear weapons could be disabled through software changes that conform to RAAF standards. Similarly, adapting the B-2A for anti-ship weapons, like LRASM, could be done without insurmountable delays.
All this would require a major Australian diplomatic effort to persuade Washington that it can be trusted to safeguard such highly prized stealth and other technologies via a foreign military sale. But the precedent created by AUKUS, Australia’s subsequent ITAR carve-outs and the existing, close relationship between the RAAF and USAF would do much to make this transfer practicable.
Yes, it’s wildly ambitious. Yes, the hurdles to making this happen may simply be too many to overcome. But now is the time for Canberra to be contemplating bold moves, and convincing the US to sell the B-2A would transform Australia’s defense posture on a significantly faster timeline — an effort worth pursuing to meet the gathering threats.
South Korea and Australia in space: Towards a strategic partnership
Space cooperation between Australian and South Korea remains stuck in its infancy and, to some extent, is treated as an end in itself. This report argues that the time is ripe for both Australia and South Korea to embark on joint projects and initiatives that would deliver tangible and practical outcomes for both countries.
For South Korea and Australia, space cooperation and space development serve as key pillars of the bilateral relationship. The two nations elevated their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in December 2021, incorporating space development into core areas of cooperation in the fields of economics, innovation and technology. As a part of that elevation, the leaders of both countries agreed to strengthen joint research and cooperation between space research institutes and industries. Following that, in 2022, South Korea and Australia established a Space Policy Dialogue.
A greater bilateral focus on expanding the scope and opportunities for space cooperation could deliver foreign-policy, national-security, defence and economic outcomes for South Korea and Australia. This report argues that there are opportunities in the bilateral relationship to boost both space cooperation (the collaborative efforts between nations to leverage space advancements for mutual benefit and to foster diplomatic ties and intergovernmental collaboration) and space development (the advancement of space-related technologies, infrastructure and industries) and is pivotal in areas such as national security, economic growth and resource management.
This report first analyses the space development strategies of South Korea and Australia and examines the environmental factors that can increase the potential for cooperation. It then proposes areas where the two countries can combine their technologies and resources to maximise mutual benefits and offers eight policy recommendations to the governments of both countries.
Scott Pace, former Executive Secretary of the US National Space Council, has emphasised that ‘International space cooperation is not an end in itself, but a means of advancing national interests.’ The South Korea – Australia partnership aligns with that principle, and it’s time to realise the opportunity.
Pressure points: China’s air and maritime coercion
New research from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reveals a range of nations are increasingly willing to challenge China’s excessive claims in the South China Sea than they were previously.
The analysis, detailed in Pressure points—a world first online resource tracking the activity and behaviour of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the South China Sea and beyond.
The website highlights almost a dozen recent incidents of unsafe military behaviour by China against countries including the United States, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, the Netherlands and others, and finds these unsafe incidents have ramped up in recent years, after first beginning in 2021.
The research also analyses the Chinese military’s use of air and maritime coercion to enforce Beijing’s excessive claims and advance China’s security and defence interests in the Indo-Pacific.
As outlined on the website, the PLA employs a variety of risky and dangerous tactics to try to deter others from operating in areas of the South China Sea and East China Sea, including through the release of flares, the use of lasers, sonar bursts and other dangerous manoeuvres.
Through a detailed examination of which countries do or don’t use their military forces to challenge China’s excessive claims, the research also finds that not all countries are regularly publicising the challenges they are engaged in.
While the US, Canada, France and the United Kingdom regularly publicise their challenges, Australia, Japan and New Zealand are among the countries that do not.
The project also provides governments, as well as regional and global militaries, with policy recommendations to help push back against China’s ambitions to reshape the regional order.
These focus on enhancing transparency through regular public statements to reinforce the importance of their military actions, building and strengthening networks between like-minded countries and demonstrating perseverance.
This new ASPI project fills an information gap regarding the PLA’s regional activity, and through greater data-driven transparency the project aims to deepen and inform public discourse on important defence and security issues.
It provides the public with a reliable and accurate account of the PLA’s regional activity by highlighting and analysing open-source data, military imagery and satellite footage and official statements. Future expansions of the work will occur in 2025-26.
James Curran is wrong: ASPI is and will remain independent
James Curran gets a number of things wrong in his column on the Varghese Review and the work of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Above all, ASPI did not “work hand in glove with the Morrison government on how to play China as an issue in Australian domestic politics”. This is a baseless accusation, for which Curran provides zero evidence. One can only assume the intention is to make ASPI a political target in the aftermath of the review’s release. ASPI is a non-partisan institute that shouldn’t be painted as working or aligning with any side of politics.
Curran further alleges that ASPI has “strayed” from its founding charter, regarding itself as an “ideological font” for “calling out and confronting an assertive China”. ASPI is, and will remain, a non-partisan, independent think tank as stipulated in its charter, laid out in 2001.
He then avers that “some of its analysts created an atmosphere in which to question government policy settings on China was deemed unpatriotic”. These allegations are also completely unsubstantiated. Who is he talking about, exactly?
Varghese was indeed right to point out that Australia has failed to nurture academic expertise on China.
The only person at ASPI that Curran mentions by name is the executive director, Justin Bassi. He accuses Bassi of making a “reprehensible” and “juvenile” comparison between the 14 recommendations in former diplomat Peter Varghese’s report and the 14 grievances against the Australian government, aired by the Chinese embassy in 2020.
Bassi simply noted that there was a “grim irony” in the numerical coincidence, as one of the complaints was widely interpreted as a demand to defund ASPI because it has produced research and commentary critical of the Chinese Communist Party. How is this observation in any sense juvenile? Varghese did not recommend closing down ASPI, but he did recommend that direct government funding for ASPI’s office in Washington DC be discontinued, along with other moves designed to tighten government controls over the sector, including a role for ministers in setting research priorities and appointing government observers to ASPI’s board.
The fact that the government has agreed with most of Varghese’s recommendations is worrying in itself, but especially in light of the Chinese government’s long-running campaign to vilify ASPI. Regardless of the government’s or Varghese’s intentions, Beijing might be forgiven for leaping to the conclusion that ASPI has had its wings clipped in the diplomatic and economic cause of stabilisation – a policy that some ASPI analysts (myself included) have legitimately contested.
The fact that the government coincidentally celebrated the full resumption of the live lobster trade with China the same week it released the Varghese review and its official response can only have strengthened such associations, and perhaps even buoyed the belief in Beijing that its economic coercion of Australia was effective, after all. The timing of this statement, at a minimum, showed poor judgment.
ASPI continues to abide by the guidance in its charter that its main purpose is to provide “alternative sources of input to Government decision-making processes on major strategic and defence policy issues”. Also, that it should help to “nourish public debate and understanding”.
ASPI’s research output on China is an important part of what we do, though only one part. As an institution, ASPI is proud of the breadth of its China expertise and language skills, which is unsurpassed among think tanks in Australia. ASPI has also provided an outlet for prominent Australia-based academics to publish policy-relevant research on China. ASPI has contributed significantly to Australia’s stock of China expertise. Just this week, the US designated companies including battery maker CATL as Chinese military companies after years of research from institutions like ASPI about links to the Chinese government and military, and about human rights abuses.
Ministers from around the world seek out ASPI analysts for briefings on our research. Datasets we have built over the past decade as a public good have been used by governments and organisations worldwide.
Blind spot
In his report, Varghese was indeed right to point out that Australia has failed to nurture academic expertise on China. But universities, for their own reasons, have long since abandoned the field in the areas that matter most for Australia’s strategic policy – the external behaviours of China’s Communist Party, through its state security apparatus and the People’s Liberation Army. ASPI will continue to do what it can to nurture the talent required to fill that national blind spot and to publish ground-breaking research in these areas. ASPI’s researchers would collegially welcome a greater investment of resources by other think tanks, universities and the government in this regard.
Curran and others are free to criticise ASPI and other research institutes but should focus on evidence, not innuendo. I, for one, would much prefer to be writing about Australia’s regional security environment, defence capability and military strategy. A glance at the international headlines is sufficient to understand there is an urgent and growing appetite for expert analysis in these areas, to inform the general public, and provide alternative policy inputs for the Australian government.
The implications of emerging changes in land warfare for the focused all-domain defence force
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.
This report is an analysis of emergent features of contemporary warfare coupled with a range of lessons learned from the history of war relevant to developing solutions for how land forces might contribute to the all-domain ADF. The author’s analysis is proffered in good faith for the sake of further discussion and contest of ideas.
The first section of this report explores the effects of emerging technologies and social circumstances on warfare and how armed forces might adapt. The second section examines the implications of the features of contemporary battlefields for the Army’s role in the focused ADF. The third section explores the implications of the tendency for wars to go on much longer than the belligerents would like. The fourth section explores the often-overlooked role of land forces in deterrence. The fifth and final section makes note of the challenges surrounding the logistics of ADF land warfare in a maritime environment and discusses the relative merits of heavier land forces in the Indo-Pacific.