{"id":14040,"date":"2014-05-26T14:30:19","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T04:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=14040"},"modified":"2014-05-29T06:22:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T20:22:42","slug":"aircraft-carriers-for-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/aircraft-carriers-for-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Aircraft carriers for Australia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/a>Commentators are suggesting Prime Minister Abbott and Defence Minister Johnston haven\u2019t completely discounted the possibility<\/a> of acquiring the jump-jet version of our future F-35 fighter, and might even be keen on the idea<\/a>. As a result, friends and colleagues are lining up to rib me for supporting the target of spending 2% GDP<\/a> on Defence. \u2018See what happens when the funding taps open up?\u2019 they chide.<\/p>\n

In my defence, I\u2019d argued that Australia requires <\/span>both<\/i> sound strategy and adequate funding. Since strategists have to plan for a highly uncertain, and <\/span>seemingly increasingly threatening<\/a>, future, it\u2019s generally better to have more capabilities in order to give Government a wider range of options across various credible scenarios. <\/span>Signalling strategic resolve<\/a> and weight can also be useful in troubling times. But taking steps to be able to operate jet fighters off our LHDs doesn\u2019t pass the cost-benefit test for me, and could send signals we\u2019d rather not. So while it\u2019ll be useful for the <\/span>White Paper authors to revisit the case for fixed-wing navy jets<\/a> in changing strategic circumstances, I\u2019m sceptical they\u2019ll identify strong grounds to proceed.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Robert Farley notes, efforts to operate F-35Bs from the Canberra class amphibious ships we\u2019re acquiring would entail significant <\/span>opportunity costs<\/a>. He suggests \u2018the ADF would have to commit immense resources to what amounts to a niche capability\u2019. That\u2019s partly because it\u2019s hard to imagine F-35Bs launched from the soon-to-be commissioned HMAS Canberra or HMAS Adelaide having a decisive impact if we found ourselves supporting high-intensity coalition operations in Northeast Asia. (Andrew Davies has shown that re-jigging the LHDs for a mini-aircraft carrier role would <\/span>be expensive and generate little combat weight<\/a> for genuinely high-end operations.) Although the survivability of <\/span>any<\/i> ADF contribution would be precarious in a lethal Northeast Asian shooting environment, we\u2019d surely be better-off offering other useful capabilities if our carrier-style efforts aren\u2019t going to tip the scales.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, putting fast-jets on our flat-tops might make a handy contribution to war-prevention even if it isn\u2019t strictly justifiable for war-fighting, by helping symbolise that countries are increasingly alarmed by, and starting to react to, growing Chinese military capability and assertiveness. But we shouldn\u2019t do that at the expense of more-immediate pressing defence requirements. Although the move towards 2% GDP might ultimately generate considerable extra combat weight for the ADF (we\u2019ll have to wait until Mark Thomson\u2019s annual Budget Report on Thursday for a sense of just what the extra billions could buy) even 2% remains well below the level Australia has sometimes spent when we\u2019ve felt really threatened. As such, we\u2019ll still need to prioritise. Let\u2019s fill the <\/span>$33 billion mismatch<\/a> between objectives and money in Australia\u2019s capability plan\u2014further exacerbated each day by <\/span>inexorable above-inflation increases<\/a> in acquisition and sustainment costs\u2014before we start shopping for expensive symbols and prestige items. Turning our amphibs into mini carriers would also distract from the huge and challenging task of <\/span>re-shaping Navy and Army<\/a> partly to be able to use the LHDs for <\/span>what they were principally designed to do<\/a>: reduce risk in any future East Timor or Solomon Islands-style major regional stabilisation missions.<\/span><\/p>\n

So wouldn\u2019t embarking jet fighters on our amphibious ships be useful if we had to conduct another such intervention? I\u2019d argue not. I\u2019m as much of an <\/span>enthusiast<\/a> as anyone for the sort of reach the LHDs will give us to cooperate with regional partners where it matters most and where we could potentially be required to conduct stabilisation missions or civilian evacuation operations\u2014across our direct approaches. But we need to be careful our growing capability doesn\u2019t draw us into <\/span>military entanglements<\/a> we\u2019d be better off resolving non-kinetically and in partnership with, rather than against, our neighbours. It\u2019s essential that regional security forces see themselves, and act, as part of the solution (preferably under the Biketawa Declaration for Pacific security cooperation) rather than as the potential end-customers of ANZAC \u2018bullying\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I\u2019m cautiously optimistic Suva will hold fair and orderly elections in September, the prospect of disproportionality getting us in trouble is perhaps starkest in thinking about Fiji scenarios. As I\u2019ve previously warned, whenever we\u2019ve considered intervening in Fiji in the past we\u2019ve been held back by two factors: <\/span>entirely lacking the capacity<\/a>; and a judgment that doing so would have been, to use the technical term, <\/span>really dumb<\/a>. In a couple of years, only one of those conditions will hold.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although an <\/span>initially visibly muscular approach<\/a> was central to RAMSI\u2019s early success, demonstrating change was unstoppable in neighbouring Solomon Islands in 2003; we\u2019d been asked to step-in there alongside a group of friendly countries. Putting stealth fighters on our LHDs could be misconstrued as preparing for the sort of unilateral action it\u2019s hard to imagine we\u2019d contemplate without an invitation, unless our citizens were being directly targeted with the indifference or connivance of local authorities\u2014a vanishingly remote possibility in places like Fiji.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, if the RAAF\u2019s land-based airpower and Army\u2019s Tiger attack helicopters embarked on the LHDs don\u2019t give us sufficient military overmatch for a <\/span>regional contingency<\/a>, we almost certainly shouldn\u2019t be playing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Karl Claxton is an analyst at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr user Official U.S. Navy<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentators are suggesting Prime Minister Abbott and Defence Minister Johnston haven\u2019t completely discounted the possibility of acquiring the jump-jet version of our future F-35 fighter, and might even be keen on the idea. 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