The Kokoda Foundation asks of the upcoming replacement of the F111 and F18 platforms; Australia's future Joint Strike Fighter fleet: How much is too little? The Australian government will probably be asking that same question from another angle: How much is enough!

The Kokoda Foundation tested force structures for three, four and five squadrons of JSFs in two scenarios. One regional and one expeditionary. The Foundation discovered that less than sixty-four frontline aircraft forced compromises in Australian government policy and ADF capability. A further discovery was that with eighty frontline aircraft, our force multipliers such as AEW&Cs and tankers inflicted limitations on the JSFs ability to operate.

Joint Strike Fighter and Australia

The JSF will add new capabilities to the ADF, especially in the areas of networked warfare. However the JSF is a high-tech short-run weapons system with a large development budget to recover. It will be expensive and Australia has a finite defence budget. The government will mix politics, foreign policies, budgets, future costs as well as defence needs in their final decision.

Australia maintains a competing and sometimes contradictory foreign policy that often requires the piecemeal deployment of Australian assets within the framework of another nation's forces. This has commonly been termed the conflict between the regionalist and expeditionists.

On the regionalist balance of the ledger is the tasks of;

  • Defend Australia. This requires projection over Australia's geographic vulnerabilities. Namely the Air-Sea gap in the North-West Shelf, the Timor Sea and the Coral Sea.
  • Contributing to regional security. This requires a mix of conventional projection, especially transport function, as well as possible low-tempo expeditionary deployment capability.
  • Peacetime national tasks, items such as disaster recovery.
On the expeditionary side are;

  • Supporting Australia's wider interests.

The last task is a function of the Great and Powerful Friends doctrine [GAPF] of foreign policy the government follows, and has done since Billy Hughes used it at Versailles. In recent years with the rise of the United Nations and its doctrine of deploying multi-national forces to support security, international law and humanitarian interests; other nations have joined the idea of multi-national expeditionary forces.

The difference under the GAPF policy is that Australia does it with the current superpower, placing Australian defence and foreign policy uncritically in the hands of that superpower, hoping in return that Australia receives security and economic benefits.

The GAPF has little to commend it, being a lazy policy, and one which has not returned much in the way of benefit. Other than the Keating government, every other Australian government has pursued it with zeal, and as such, it is a reality in any procurement for the ADF.

However, both regionalists and expeditionists believe that Australia must maintain air combat capability to ensure its own sovereignty and not out-source that task to other nations, or rely on the Australian region becoming a benign neighbourhood for the foreseeable future.

The Scenarios

The Kokoda Foundation ran several workshops that ran through scenario's supporting that with differing number of JSF assets;

Source: Australia's future Joint Strike Fighter fleet: How much is too little?

Two scenarios were developed to evaluate the possible strategic utility of three different JSF fleets. The fleet sizes chosen were three, four or five squadrons of sixteen aircraft, plus the necessary additional aircraft for maintenance, attrition and a training unit. In each case the force mix option drew on the planned fleets of six airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) and five multi-role tanker transport (MRTT) aircraft so that the 'total' air combat capability for 2015 could be considered.

The first scenario involved regional defence which involves power projection into the air-sea gap. The second scenario involved an expeditionary deployment outside of Australia's region.

Regional Scenario

For the first scenario where Australia's shores were threatened by a conventional force that had super-power backing the Foundation found;

  • Three squadrons would not allow Australia to sustain any significant regional projection. Maritime and land strike operations would be severely limited, and most likely limited to a first strike which if unsuccessful would force Australia into a purely defensive posture. Other problems faced would be that the JSFs would only be able to maintain high-tempo operations in two areas, leaving assets in locations outside of these vulnerable.

  • Four squadrons would enable limited regional projection and strike capability, but not in extended or prolonged situation. Strike and defence capability would be limited to one theatre of operations and tempo would not be 24/7. This stance would also make greater use of the back-end infrastructure, using tankers to extend their range and projection. Four squadrons would also limit any capability of the air assets supporting anything but air combat, in other words air support for maritime and land operations would be minimal.

  • Five squadrons gives the greatest flexibility enabling the a first strike of up to forty-eight targets while still maintaining sufficient defence. This number would free up JSF aircraft to undertake tasks such as battlespace awareness, maritime strikes, land operations support and close-air support. For this number of JSF, the small number of AEW&C and MRTT become the limiting factor, as they would not be able to sustain operations at the same tempo over a prolonged period as this number of JSFs could.

Expeditionary Scenario

For the second scenario the JSF was tested in the role of a force structure geared toward advancing Australia's global interests. In other words, an expeditionary alignment that is popular with the international liberalism style of UN operation and the Australian GAPF doctrine of foreign policy. In this structure it is more important for the forces to be readily deployable and capable of integrating with the forces of other nations.

  • Three squadrons would enable Australia to deploy a JSF overseas in support of an international deployment but it would be useless as this number of aircraft would not be able to contribute to operations in a sustainable manner as there are insufficient JSF assets in Australia to rotate the force. This would also leave Australia undefended from a regional incursion.

  • Four squadrons would enable Australia to deploy a JSF overseas in support of an international deployment in a sustained manner. There would be sufficient assets for the JSF squadron to rotate through the deployment over a two year period. The problem becomes our force multipliers - we do not have enough AEW&C and MRTT aircraft to maintain that tempo. We could hope that other coalition partners fill that gap for us, but as the Foundation warns, recent conflicts have shown that demand for AEW&C and tankers outstrips supply.

  • Five squadrons would enable Australia to maintain, and sustain two separate operations. The limitations in this environment would again be the force multipliers supporting the JSFs, who would only be able to support one deployment at a time.

Foundation's Findings

The report finds that the five squadrons of JSF provide the greatest flexibility and options in terms of regional and expeditionary capability. The additional JSF aircraft enable Australia to maintain both a defence and strike posture regionally. The five squadrons also enables Australia to commit to two overseas expeditionary deployments concurrently. The limiting factor with either four or five squadrons of JSF becomes the force multipliers supporting them;

Given the likely strong demand for its [force multipliers] services, it would make sense to ensure that the JSF fleet is supported by a sustainable fleet of force multipliers, including AEW&C and airborne refuelling aircraft.

and;

This issue is compounded by the fact that in many cases the AEW&C and MRTT fleets, as currently planned, are unlikely to sustain high-tempo operations beyond 30 days. In consequence, the Government should review the resources it intends to devote to AEW&C and MRTT - including aircrew, logistic support and ultimately the number of these aircraft that it intends to buy.

The Foundation also comments that the expansion of capability the JSF offers in networked warfare will pose personnel, information processing, training and organisational challenges for the ADF as well, as the structure will morph to take full advantage of the next generations of technology and capability.

Conclusion

The Australian government has indicated it will buy up to 100 JSF aircraft. The five squadron option that the Kokoda Foundation described is more than one hundred, yet it gives the Australian government the greatest capability in terms of meeting its often conflicting goals of both regional projection and expeditionary commitments.

Will Australia skimp on the purchasing of JSF aircraft? Most likely. It has skimped where it had the chance in other projects such as the Wedgetail AEW&C where it did not take the option of an additional airframe despite the electronics already being paid for . The recent purchase of a small number of C17 transport aircraft also point to this. Yet we are seeing odd purchases such as the Abrams, Air-warfare Destroyers [AWD] and Landing Helicopter Dock ships [LHD]. The latter two in a regional setting being better performed by JSF projection than sea-borne capability.

The other issue with Australian defence procurement, and highlighted in this report is that Australian governments do not understand the importance of investing in the tail. Australia historically has over-achieved in the teeth area - the trigger pullers, the fighter pilots and the bomber aircrew. Our teeth are well recognized and celebrated. A good recent example is how the SASR has performed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Being a regional power requires investment in the unsexy attributes of the tail, the back-end infrastructure and the force multipliers. It is these that give the teeth their bite.

The report notices that at a certain level the small number of Australian force multipliers limit the capability of the JSFs to maintain a high tempo. This suggests that Australia is under-served in the tail. Which is true.

The F111 was a superior strike platform and regional deterrent for its time, capable of ranging through Asia autonomously. The replacement of the F111 with the JSF left no doubt that the JSF would be a superior weapons platform, more suited to modern combat. The issue always was - would Australia undergo a drop in projection with the retirement of the F111. Unless Australia is willing to invest in the unsexy tail, the answer will be yes.

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Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.