{"id":57156,"date":"2020-07-02T09:30:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T23:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=57156"},"modified":"2020-07-02T09:28:42","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T23:28:42","slug":"if-were-sliding-towards-war-the-money-must-flow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/if-were-sliding-towards-war-the-money-must-flow\/","title":{"rendered":"If we\u2019re sliding towards war, the money must flow"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Scott Morrison\u2019s speech at the launch<\/a> of\u00a0the defence strategic update and new force structure plan<\/a>\u00a0was fascinating. No fewer than four times he said that the \u00addeterioration in Indo-Pacific \u00adsecurity was as concerning as the slide to global war in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

In a comment not in his prepared notes, the prime minister said, \u2018That period of the 1930s has been something I have been revisiting on a very regular basis, and when you connect both the economic challenges and the global uncertainty, it can be very haunting.\u2019<\/p>\n

My sense is that Morrison and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds understand just how dangerous our security situation is getting. We are heading to a potential military crisis at some point in the next year or two around the first island chain that borders the approach to the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n

The biggest change in the strategic update is temporal, not geographic. The Indo-Pacific\u2014now defined for defence planning purposes as the northeastern Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, Timor-Leste and the Pacific islands\u2014has been at the core of Australian strategic thinking for decades.<\/p>\n

What is new is the realisation that the risk of conflict is upon us right now, not a comfortably distant 20 years away. In fact, the update abandons a long-held strategic view that we would have 10 years of \u2018strategic warning time\u2019 to prepare for a large-scale conflict.<\/p>\n

This judgement will force massive change in how we produce and stockpile ammunition, fuel and critical defence supplies, and leads the strategy to say that Australia should look to manufacture our own complex guided munitions.<\/p>\n

We should soon get more \u00addetail on a plan to acquire a precision-strike missile, launchable from combat aircraft and ships, adding hundreds of kilometres to the range of deployed forces. In \u00adeffect, any major war Australia is involved in will most likely start in maritime Southeast Asia. The aim is to keep our opponents as far as possible from our landmass.<\/p>\n

Nor will this be Australia operating alone. We are likely to be alongside a range of countries equally as worried about the PRC\u2019s attempts to dominate the region.<\/p>\n

Another decision adds to our over-the-horizon radar network so that the system can look east as well as northwest and north. I expect the concern here is the PRC\u2019s relentless influence-building with the Pacific island countries, and the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s desire to establish a naval base.<\/p>\n

Australia has not had to worry about a security threat from the east since the battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. If you want to understand why China so consistently puts out the red carpet for Pacific island leaders in Beijing, you should read up on the Imperial Japanese Army\u2019s Pacific War plans.<\/p>\n

Ultimately the Chinese Communist Party wants to impede US access to the western Pacific. A strong PLA presence through the Pacific region achieves that goal. Morrison\u2019s Pacific \u2018step-up\u2019 is as important to Washington as it is to Canberra.<\/p>\n

The strategic update and force structure plan are a welcome and necessary reset to defence thinking, and aim to give \u00adDefence more hitting power and deterrent value.<\/p>\n

Now comes the hard part: the many new equipment proposals must be paid for and delivered in strategically relevant timeframes.<\/p>\n

The government has said that about $270\u00a0billion will be spent on defence capabilities over the next 10 years. This is not new money, but the continuation of the plan set out in the 2016 defence white paper, with five more years of spending plans (2025\u20132030) now \u00advisible.<\/p>\n

Most of that $270\u00a0billion remains committed to existing projects like the Collins submarine life-of-type extension, the future submarines, the future frigates and the bulk of F-35 program costs. The strategic review does indeed shelve some equipment projects\u2014there will be no more C-17 aircraft and the army\u2019s long-suffering \u2018G-Wagon\u2019 program for non-combat vehicles is gone.<\/p>\n

A reasonably educated guess might say that $50 billion of the $270 billion is free to be allocated to long-range missiles, hypersonic and directed-energy weapons, autonomous land, sea and air vehicles, satellite constellations, \u00adamphibious ships and the rest.<\/p>\n

The government no longer wants to link defence spending to the \u2018target\u2019 of 2% of gross domestic product. Fair enough, but we should be clear that what we have here is a defence plan that, in maturity, looks more like 3.5% of GDP.<\/p>\n

In the last Cold War, defence budgets tended to be 3.2% to 3.5% of GDP. If the 1930s-style slide to war continues, that\u2019s where our defence spending must head too.<\/p>\n

Morrison should now apply his strategic lens to Australia\u2019s thin diplomatic effort in Southeast Asia. Leadership carries costs. We must work with the region to show that it\u2019s possible to push back against PRC domination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Morrison\u2019s speech at the launch of\u00a0the defence strategic update and new force structure plan\u00a0was fascinating. No fewer than four times he said that the \u00addeterioration in Indo-Pacific \u00adsecurity was as concerning as the slide …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":57164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1823,2795,279,56],"class_list":["post-57156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-defence-budget","tag-defence-strategic-update","tag-force-structure","tag-indo-pacific","dinkus-strategic-update-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIf we\u2019re sliding towards war, the money must flow | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/if-were-sliding-towards-war-the-money-must-flow\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If we\u2019re sliding towards war, the money must flow | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scott Morrison\u2019s speech at the launch of\u00a0the defence strategic update and new force structure plan\u00a0was fascinating. No fewer than four times he said that the \u00addeterioration in Indo-Pacific \u00adsecurity was as concerning as the slide ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/if-were-sliding-towards-war-the-money-must-flow\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-01T23:30:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-01T23:28:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701adf8654564_2282-e1593646039671.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"662\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter Jennings\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter Jennings\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/if-were-sliding-towards-war-the-money-must-flow\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701adf8654564_2282-e1593646039671.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/20200701adf8654564_2282-e1593646039671.jpg\",\"width\":900,\"height\":662,\"caption\":\"The Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Scott Morrison, and the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds CSC, Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell, AO, DSC, with a 211 Boxer 8x8 Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle for the Australian Army, at the launch of the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the 2020 Force Structure Plan at the Australian Defence Force Academy on 1 July 2020. *** Local Caption *** The Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Scott Morrison, and the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds, launched the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the 2020 Force Structure Plan at the Australian Defence Force Academy on 1 July 2020. 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