Australian defence is divided in political doctrine between the Regionalists and the Expeditionists. Tempered in with these two doctrines is the "Great and Powerful Friends" doctrine of foreign policy which both major parties follow. Under the Howard Government Expeditionists have been claiming victory, unfortunately procurement in the last nine years has been highly unfocused, and will have a deleterious effect on Australian projection. The Expeditionist viewpoint is inherently limiting as it is dependent upon the "Great and Powerful Friends" doctrine and cannot serve as the basis for an independent Australian military or foreign policy.
Expeditionism vs Regionalism
The expeditionalists believe that Australia's global interests should come first and believe the Australian Defence Force (ADF) should be structured to that end. The regionalist believe that Australian defence needs to be focused regionally and the ADF structured with the necessary projection in mind.
The expeditionists cannot be entwined from the "Great and Powerful Friends" doctrine of foreign policy. This is where Australia places its security in subservience to the current superpower and then tries to influence the superpower toward Australian interests.
This was initially used by Billy Hughes at Versailles in 1919. It has been used by every government since. Menzies and Curtin were both hopelessly dependent upon the doctrine. Hawke and Keating were probably the most indifferent toward the doctrine. The Howard years have seen a re-alignment of foreign policy toward uncritical support of the current superpower/hyperpower.
Given this intersection between political doctrine and strategic doctrine it is worthy to understand just what the purposes of the ADF are. From the Fundamentals of Australian Aerospace Power;
... strategic doctrine is the the collection of fundamental principles associated with the application of military force as part of a national effort .... Senior commanders, attempting to contribute to the employment of national power, are, on a daily basis, exposed to the doctrines of other government organizations. The government of the day, together with its supporting bureaucracy, has its doctrine on which the political party is founded and on which it bases its approach to all matters of national importance ....Central to the military is power. The "Great and Powerful Friends" doctrine deliberately secedes Australian effort to another nation. Australia's national effort toward a goal is immediately removed as being necessary. The expeditionist school of military power diffuses Australian military power until Australia is absolutely dependent upon a superpower for security. Both these doctrines, political and strategic defray Australian ability to act independently in military and foreign policy matters. Projection Central to Australian regional projection is the triumvirate of the F111, Collins Class Attack Submarines and the Orion P3C. A simple fact of Australian geography is that only a long range aircraft with good speed and endurance will get into the sea approaches where we are vulnerable. Australian defence is dominated by an air-sea gap. This air-sea gap is the Timor Sea, the Coral Sea and the North-West shelf. These areas also comprise national assets such as oil and fishing grounds. The second major component of Australian projection is the logistical side. Australia is a large continent and our interests reach far out into the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and Indonesia Archipelago. Consequently Australian airlift ability and sea-going logistical support across the Timor Sea is highly important. The expeditionist school also quickly forgets that two of Australia's most successful expeditions were across the Timor Sea and Coral Sea. This is where Australian projected its soft and hard power across the air-sea gap. The F111 has also been a remarkable regional deterrent. It should not be forgotten that the moving of an F111 strike force to the Northern Territory was a necessary prelude to the Indonesian Government requesting the UN to come and secure the East Timor situation. Recent Procurement Recent procurement for the ADF has been odd. Given the confusion in Australian Government as to the role of the ADF and the changing manner in which the US has used its forces since September 11th, the Australian Government has responded by entertaining big ticket items that do nothing to resolve either expeditionist or regionalist requirements. It looks like the ADF is taking advantage of a government naive on defence and requesting macro weaponry of little use to Australian strategic doctrine. The Army recently requested and got Abrams tanks. The tanks were surplus US battle tanks that had seen action in the 1991 Gulf War. The cost for these sixty tanks was $550 million. The rhetoric was that it made the Australian-American alliance closer and gave Australian greater operational compatibility with the US. The problem is the Australian Army does not do "Operation Desert Storm" and if we did, the thirty or so Abrams that left Wooloomolloo would not be enough. The Abrams is a big ticket item that will see the same role as the HMAS Melbourne did. It can never be a front-line battle tank. Australia doesn't have the tank numbers, nor does it keep up with the cutting edge technology. The $550 million would have been better spent on creating a new specification for an armoured vehicle to match Australian needs on the continent, and in deployments like East Timor and the Solomons. Australian industry would have leapt at the chance to create a flexible tank that fits the Australian Army's operational needs. The Landing Helicopter Dock The Navy has also been on a big ticket item binge. It requested two 27,000 tonne Landing Helicopter Dock flat-tops and the upcoming Air Defence Destroyers. the LHDs look like aircraft carriers but are amphibious ships for the landing of troops on hostile shores. They carry helicopter support and are quite large. They are 7,000 tonnes larger than the last Australian aircraft carrier - the HMAS Melbourne. Hugh White writes ;
One of the Howard Government's key defence policy achievements has been to reorient the army towards operations in our immediate neighbourhood - such as East Timor and Solomon Islands. We need amphibious ships for such missions.Both the East Timor and Solomons deployments came with the consent of the governments of those nations. The ADF weren't hitting hot landing zones when Australian troops landed. One aspect of the regional expeditions where Australia has had the greatest effect has been the diplomacy that went on before to ensure that it was a security operation, not warfare. It is questionable whether Australia needs such size and power in amphibious naval ships. The Tasmanian company, Incat, supplied the HMAS Jervis Bay during the East Timor crisis which as a littoral ship performed superbly. Incat has also come up with innovative designs in amphibious and aviation support ships. Before a mammoth piece of iron is bought from overseas, the indigenous designs should be reviewed and exhausted first. Once again Australian industry is quite capable of supplying platforms that more than meet Australia's strategic and operational needs. All that is missing is the government's confidence in Australian industry to provide those solutions. Air-Warfare Destroyers Australia has put out tenders for six billion dollars worth of Air Warfare Destroyers (AWD). These are large ships that are intended to replace the Frigates that are currently in service. The Frigates since the First Gulf War have been used as a token coalition force. Even during the height of Australian contribution to the Second Gulf War, the Frigate forces comprised nearly half of Australian commitments in manpower. These destroyers are also quite large. Again Hugh White writes;
But smaller amphibious ships in the 12,000-tonne range - such as the ones we were planning to buy - are fine for these kinds of lower-level operations, and they would be capable of handling tougher fights against the kinds of forces we might find in our immediate neighbourhood.
The bigger ships come into their own in high-level conflicts. They are designed specifically for what are called amphibious assaults: D-day style operations in which forces are landed directly against strong opponents in well-defended positions. An LHD can launch a lot of helicopters at the same time. That lets you put a lot of troops on the objective at once - a big advantage.
The proposed new ships look nothing like the ships they are replacing. For a start they will be much bigger. At 6000 tonnes (possibly more), they would be bigger than any frigate, destroyer or cruiser the navy has commissioned since World War II. ....This is the crux of it, the Navy somehow thinks that it will be fighting independently in the Mediterrainian, while the Army thinks that its sixty tanks are going to take Rommel on in North Africa. Even worse, the Government thinks the same way and has been giving the Navy and Army what it wants. The biggest deficiencies in Australian projection have become Aerospace projection and the diggers on the ground. The Australian Air Force is facing block obsolescence. Its most powerful strike weapon is being phased out early, with nothing to replace it. Our Army is facing deployments in Iraq, East Timor and the Solomons. An Army requires a large tail to teeth ratio - often as high as seven to one - this can leave the teeth stretched as it gets deployed far and wide. The F111 The F111 has been the best deterrent Australia has ever had. it can range up to six thousand kilometres armed with a heavy load of precision weaponry. In comparison the F18 can only manage nine hundred kilometres and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) two thousand. The F111 is a powerful, autonomous and independent precision strike weapon. The F111 is an aging airframe and is expensive to maintain in operational condition. It is necessary to replace it with a similarly potent platform for Australian projection. Unfortunately the Government has decided to retire the platform early in 2010, with nothing to replace it. The JSF is not expected to start service until 2012 - assuming there are no delays in the JSF's development schedule. This leaves a large capability gap. Australia has bought $450 million worth of cruise missiles, for 2007/2009, to try and replace the loss of projection with the early retirement of the F111. The cruise missile will be able to be fitted on the F18 and P3C aircraft. The cruise missiles are capable of around four hundred kilometres range. They do not replace the F111 unfortunately. The procurement of the JSF in 2012 will still leave Australia with a drop in projection. The US military has the largest back-end on the planet that is filled to the brim with force multipliers. The United States maintains its power through the heavy use of these force multipliers such as Air to Air Refuelling (AAR) and Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C). The AAR component of the Australian Air Force is in dire need of modernisation. Currently Australia uses a couple of converted 707s. Australia still does not have an AEW&C system, being entirely reliant on the United States for that capability. Thankfully the the Wedgetail project is nearing deployment . But again, the Australian Government showed their lack of care for Australian projection and opted out of the largely paid for eighth Wedgetail. For the JSF to achieve the same level of projection as the F111 it will be reliant on the AAR and AEW&C force multipliers. Unfortunately the force multipliers are themselves fat, slow and highly vulnerable targets that need protecting with JSF escort. This diffuses the number of JSF available to project power. If Australia is going to pursue the JSF, then to squeeze the maximum of project from the platform, it will need numbers. The six billion that is thought of being spent on the Air Warfare Destroyers would be better spent on more JSF aircraft. Australian Solutions for Australian Issues The fact of the matter is that the world doesn't make weaponry for Australia any longer. If Australia is going to satisfy its strategic and operation needs it is going to need a more vigorous indigenous defence industry that designs and manufactures all manner of systems, from micro to macro. The United States and United Kingdom are both more interested in global projection, which Australia does not have an interest in, nor the Defence budget to make a reality. The European defence industry are still making point to point weaponry for a mix of western European warfare and colonial deployment. There is none making air-sea gap projection weaponry any longer. Australia is not alone in this need however, there are several other air-sea gap nations that need these type of defence systems . Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - even Indonesia. If the American and European defence industries are not supplying then Australia must look to its own industries to supply these needs. If the project requires a great deal of capital and knowledge, then we need to look to our regional neighbours as partners; who are equally forgotten in the defence marketplace. There we can forge new defence, technology, industry and political ties. cam
But the new destroyers are not just big, they are complex. Called Air Warfare Destroyers (AWDs in defence speak), their main task is to defend themselves and other ships from air attack. To do that they have powerful radar and potent anti-aircraft missiles, as well as a lot of other sophisticated systems, all of which have to be made to work together. They will be by far the most complex warships we have ever built.
Why would we want such ships? The Government has never given a comprehensive answer, but the brief comments in the Defence Minister's press releases say that the ships are needed to protect amphibious deployments of Australian land forces. Fair enough: if Australia ever finds itself deploying an amphibious task group against a capable adversary in a major conventional conflict, it would be very important to protect them from air attack. But do we need AWDs to do that?
As long as our ships are operating within range of our own or allied air bases, our fighters would be much more effective than the AWDs in defending the fleet from air attack. And bombing enemy aircraft on the ground before they take off would be even better.
