The Strategic Holiday Is Over (Part 2)

In my last post, I considered the high-level strategic policy implications of strengthening Australia’s relationships with the US and other nations as part of an effort to support the US national defence strategy (NDS). That will require greater coordination between Australia, the US and our Asian partners on capability development.

One contribution we could make immediately is to acquire the ability to carry out long-range strikes, thus filling a gap in the ADF’s force structure as envisaged in the 2016 defence white paper and the integrated investment program (IIP). As I’ve exploredpreviously, that could involve installing naval land-attack cruise-missile systems on submarines and naval surface combatants. Or, in the longer term, we could acquire common long-range bomber systems alongside the US. That would demand careful diplomatic coordination in the region to avoid misperceptions and reassure our partners about why we’re acquiring such a capability. We’d need to make it clear that the overall objective would be to counter China’s advantages in anti-access and area denial (A2AD) operations. Read More