Australia’s only ground-based air defence is the dated RBS-70 short-range Man Portable Air Defence System (MANPAD). This system is utilised by the Australian Army and relies on laser guidance to strike the target. In effect, this means that the operator must keep the weapon’s sights trained on the target aircraft until the missile scores a hit. For the soldier employing the weapon system in a battlefield environment there are obvious dangers as he or she becomes a prime target for enemy fire.

The Australian government has recently approved a single supplier limited request for tender to Raytheon to develop the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) for use by the Australian Army to replace the RBS-70. It’s possible that this system may use the Hawkei vehicle as a launch platform and be armed with the AMRAAM which is a ‘fire and forget’ missile using radar guidance with an increased range over the RBS-70. This will provide forward deployed troops with a highly mobile and effective ground based air defence system and limit the effectiveness of enemy close air support such as low flying fixed wing aircraft and helicopters and intelligence gathering unmanned aerial vehicles.

A further consideration for this project is the collaboration between Raytheon and local company, CEA Technologies, to integrate a land based version of their Phased Array Radar with NASAMS. CEA Technologies has already incorporated a Phased Array Radar into four ANZAC-class Frigates and the Ground Based Multi Mission Radar (GBMMR) version is capable of being mounted on a large truck. According to the 2016 Defence White Paper, an RBS-70 replacement will enter service by the early 2020s.

The media interest regarding ADF procurement in recent years has centred largely on the Collins replacement program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyers. These are all very important systems but it’s crucial not to overlook the immense value and advantage that NASAMS will provide to our forward deployment capability. It will be a big leap forward for the Australian Army, as it provides another layer-to-air defence capabilities in an age where air superiority is the key to success in many strategic and tactical scenarios.

History is littered with examples of Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) impacting on a battlefield environment. One that springs to mind that has hopefully been studied by those involved in the potential procurement of NASAMS is the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Egypt learnt valuable lessons from the 1967 Six-Day War where Israeli air superiority destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground and provided close air support throughout the conflict.

As a result of this experience, Egypt built a layered ground-based air defence system utilising SAMs purchased from the Soviet Union such as the SA-2, SA-3 and the highly mobile SA-6 Kub. This integrated network was highly effective in disrupting Israeli airstrikes, severely limiting the ability of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) to conduct low-level strafing attacks. A declassified CIA publication showed that the effectiveness of the Egyptian ground based air defence system during the conflict is measured by disruption rather than the quantity of aircraft shot down. The IAF was unable to deploy its close air support effectively while Egyptian forces were protected by the air defence umbrella.

Mounting the NASAMS on the Hawkei will provide a mobile air defence capability which is critical for survivability as the system can conduct fire and movement operations limiting enemy target opportunities as well as the ability to move with ground forces as it advances or retreats to maintain coverage within the air defence umbrella. Potential limitations are that the Hawkei is a four-wheeled platform which could struggle in some terrain. It will lack an inbuilt radar, forcing it to rely on an independent radar separate from the launch vehicle for locating and tracking enemy aircraft. If that radar is lost or is unable to cover the mobile field of operations, the air defence capability will be rendered useless. The Soviets learnt this lesson very early and developed the Buk system where each tracked vehicle or TELAR consists of its own independent radar so that it can operate autonomously if need be.

Upgrading the Australian Army’s ground-based air defence capability is an example of sound strategic thinking by the ADF. The benefits of employing this system for the safety and the ability for our troops to act more independently in a hostile environment cannot be overstated. The government deserves credit for modernising Australia’s integrated air defence network.

My last article concluded that one of the risks Australia might face in a more unpredictable future was ‘strike warfare’ by China to coerce Australia as part of intensified strategic competition with the US in what Rod Lyon has described as a ‘dark future’ scenario. Defending against the threat of non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missile attacks through development of Ballistic Missile Defences (BMD) and enhanced multilayered air defences would become a challenging but vital task for the ADF to avoid coercive pressure being placed on Australia. However BMD isn’t a solution by itself and it’s important to counter other potential forms of coercion that a rising China could exploit.

A key aspect of Chinese military thinking is the concept of Integrated Network-Electronic Warfare (INEW) that’s based around the integrated employment of computer network operations, and Electronic Warfare. Having the means to counter or deny China’s ability to fight and win information warfare by defeating its ability to wage INEW effectively should be a key focus for ADF capability development in the future. Once again, as with BMD, this can be done in concert with key allies like the US, and a focus on acquiring new capabilities for preserving our knowledge edge against an opponent. Types of new capabilities to be considered could include developing and maintaining effective and independent ADF Space capabilities to complement US satellites, strengthening our computer network security, and enhancing ADF Electronic Warfare. Australia could consider how these new types of capability might impose tactical and strategic costs across the electromagnetic spectrum and within cyberspace to further deter or dissuade an opponent from continuing coercion.

Space capabilities and the space domain is clearly a vital centre of gravity for modern information-based warfare. The ADF depends on space to undertake almost every aspect of its missions, and diversification of our space capabilities, including establishing an independent ADF space support (here and here) capability based around low-cost COTs-based ‘small satellites’ could boost our national resilience in the face of growing counter-space threats, including from countries like China. By boosting space resilience, Australia wouldn’t be completely dependent on US provision of limited numbers of space capabilities, and would increase its direct ability to support both US and other key defence partners’ interests, as well as our ability to act independently of the US when necessary. The key point isn’t to think of a vast, costly government-run end-to-end space program, but instead to embrace the commercial space revolution that’s now on the horizon and will gather momentum in the next decade. The goal of Australia taking this path is to make ADF space capabilities resilient in the face of future counter-space threats.

China too depends on space capabilities to fight and win what it refers to as ‘informationized local war’, with the control of space delivering ‘control of the ground, oceans, and the electromagnetic space, which also means having the strategic initiative in one’s hands’. Australia seems as unlikely to seek counter-space capabilities (‘ASATs’) as it is to seek nuclear weapons, but preventing an adversary from waging an effective counter-space campaign through investing in diversified and resilient space capabilities that leverage the advantage of the ‘small and the many’ over the ‘large and the few’ is an idea whose time has come.

In terms of cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, developing enhanced measures to blunt Chinese computer network operations—both in terms of computer network exploitation in peacetime, and computer network attack—and protecting vital C4ISR networks against Chinese INEW are vital given China’s growing network warfare capabilities. ADF deterrent effect could be further enhanced if retaliatory capabilities across the electromagnetic spectrum were to be developed.  This type of new capability would open up radically different types of operational possibilities for the future, and would segue with a growing role for unmanned systems in the air, on the surface of the ocean and on land, and our own long-range strike options for the future.

Australia is an island continent and a maritime nation, girt by sea. For any adversary, seeking to project expeditionary forces into our air and maritime approaches isn’t without risk. That risk can be accentuated if the ADF extends its operational reach closer to any potential threat. For example, Chinese naval power is vulnerable to submarine forces that can engage in decisive maritime strikes—an attack at source—and which can exploit gaps in Chinese anti-submarine warfare, and use Asia’s strategic geography to good effect. That may require not only require investment in deployable networked undersea warfare systems such as sensor arrays to direct unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) that can hold at risk an opponent’s forces close to his territory, but also in long range anti-surface warfare (ASuW) weapons launched by submarines and naval surface combatants well beyond the reach of an opponent’s anti-access forces.

Any of those options must meet the essential requirement of delivering effective outcomes relevant to strategy ends. Furthermore, new capability choices for the ADF must be properly funded, and a vital policy question must be addressed—should the figure of 2% GDP spending on Defence be an aspirational ceiling, or a mandatory floor in a more contested and challenging future?

There are better options than nuclear weapons if Australia seeks to deter or dissuade an opponent—even one with nuclear weapons—from coercing it in a future crisis. An Australian nuclear weapons capability would be politically untenable and unacceptable to the broader population. It could encourage other states to consider nuclear weapons, and raise the risk of proliferation cascades that would undermine Australian security. More importantly, a state like China could coerce Australia below the nuclear threshold, leaving a massive investment in financial, political and strategic terms in nuclear weapons wasted. Instead it makes more sense to develop a suite of advanced non-nuclear deterrence and dissuasion capabilities that can meet this lower-level but more realistic threat. If Australia emphasised deterrence by denial and dissuasion to a level where any Chinese effort to coerce is unlikely to succeed, or would only succeed at unacceptable cost, such a threat may not occur in the first place. That has to be better than dependence on weapons of mass destruction.