{"id":5899,"date":"2013-05-02T13:15:31","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T03:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=5899"},"modified":"2014-04-10T13:17:08","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T03:17:08","slug":"cutting-our-cloth-part-iii-a-force-structure-for-straitened-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cutting-our-cloth-part-iii-a-force-structure-for-straitened-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Cutting our cloth &#8211; part III: a force structure for straitened times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/V9905007_lo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5905\" title=\"LCPL Ross Peters of Hobart, Tasmania, and PTE Paul Everett of WA provide outer perimeter protection for members of A Company, 3 RAR, 1 Platoon conducting a building clearance in Dili.\" alt=\"LCPL Ross Peters of Hobart, Tasmania, and PTE Paul Everett of WA provide outer perimeter protection for members of A Company, 3 RAR, 1 Platoon conducting a building clearance in Dili.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/V9905007_lo.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"392\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/V9905007_lo.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/V9905007_lo-205x134.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a>The 2013 Defence White Paper will be launched tomorrow. There&#8217;s always a chance that it&#8217;ll take a more austere approach to force structuring, but all the indications are that it will stick to the guns of the previous one, while failing to adequately explain how the proposed force structure will be funded. If so, it will merely put off the hard decisions to another day.<\/p>\n<p>In my previous two posts in this series I explained how an extended period of lean defence budgets would <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cutting-our-cloth\/\">inevitably lead to a serious decline in defence capability over time<\/a>, unless accompanied by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cutting-our-cloth-part-ii\/\">adjustments in strategy and tough decisions on force structure<\/a>. One of my premises is that Australia\u2019s budget situation won&#8217;t return to the halcyon days of 2000\u20132008. Mark Thomson will say much more about this in his budget brief later in the month, but <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.treasury.gov.au\/documents\/1881\/PDF\/04_Structural_Budget_Balance.pdf\">serious economists are talking about a structural deficit<\/a> which will take \u2018a substantial level of financial discipline\u2019 on the behalf of future governments to deal with.<\/p>\n<p>In the absence of a substantial external shock, Defence shouldn\u2019t hold its breath waiting for more money. Like it or not, we need to find ways to provide defence capability and capacity with spending levels not too different from today\u2019s. I think that\u2019s doable, but acknowledge in advance that the levels of risk we\u2019ll have to accept will rise\u2014the good news being that they are currently very low and aren\u2019t likely to substantially increase.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>My prescription for the ADF force structure is based on the following objectives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>having the ability to lead or contribute substantial military capability to regional stabilisation, peacekeeping and non-combatant evacuation operations<\/li>\n<li>having adequate surveillance and constabulary capabilities to protect our maritime interests<\/li>\n<li>having the capability to defeat the force projection capabilities of countries in our immediate region<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">having the capability to provide high value contributions to US led operations in the wider Asia-Pacific theatre and beyond\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">maintaining a critical mass of core warfighting capabilities which will allow for expansion in the future should the strategic situation deteriorate significantly<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first three points are options that support Australia\u2019s core interests. First, we have a greater stake in regional stability than powers further afield do. That\u2019s why we have found ourselves as leaders of operations in Bougainville, Timor Leste (twice) and the Solomon Islands. That\u2019s not going to change, and we&#8217;ll have to be ready to do it again when circumstances demand. We\u2019ll be able to handle similar operations with the land forces and air lift capability we have today plus the two large amphibious ships that will arrive in a few years. (Until then we might want to cross our fingers and hope our kiwi mates can provide sealift if we need it.)<\/p>\n<p>Second, while we actually do a pretty good job of policing our maritime interests, in part by making good use of intelligence sharing arrangements, the politics of border security will probably cause governments to try to do more. Throwing extra money at top-end platforms like the naval version of Global Hawk or the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft is likely to be at the top of Defence\u2019s wish list. But there are almost certainly more cost-effective ways to improve performance\u2014a topic I\u2019ll come back to in detail in an ASPI paper shortly.<\/p>\n<p>Third, while there\u2019s no indication that any country has designs on Australia\u2019s territory (and there\u2019s no credible reason for them to do so), maintaining capabilities that overmatch nearby militaries is prudent because intentions can change relatively quickly. We can put a large tick in that box with the forces we already have. Indonesia has neither the intent nor ability to seriously threaten Australia\u2019s current air or maritime forces and has little prospect of doing so in the next couple of decades. In fact, given the large size of Indonesia\u2019s army (and thus the unappealing idea of a land conflict there for Australia\u2019s small Army), there\u2019s a natural d\u00e9tente between the countries even if there\u2019s a massive falling out. No other small to medium power has the ability to first defeat Indonesia then use their territory to stage against Australia.<\/p>\n<p>That leaves us with hostile major powers\u2014and brings us to the fourth objective. There aren\u2019t any of those at the moment. But, again, intentions can change, and an insurance policy is worthwhile. That\u2019s where getting smart in our alliance contributions makes good sense. Providing similar capabilities to the United States but on a much smaller scale won\u2019t make any difference in the outcome of a major power conflict, but if we\u2019re clever and turn up with niche contributions of often oversubscribed force elements, we could\u2014and I hesitate to say it\u2014punch above our weight. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-alliance-run-forrest-run\/\">Peter Jennings pointed out some areas<\/a> for high-value contributions in an earlier post. I\u2019d add air-to-air refuellers (almost always oversubscribed in intense air operations), electronic warfare aircraft (ditto), Special Forces and (perhaps) conventional submarines\u2014although <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-choose-an-australian-submarine\/\">we need to have a frank discussion with the USN<\/a> about the concept of operations for those.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, it makes sense to keep up the levels of expertise and a baseline level of sophisticated hardware to allow us to expand our defence forces if we need to. But we don\u2019t need gold-plated technology to do that.<\/p>\n<p>The force structure decisions that follow from this line of reasoning include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>no need to develop substantial elements of Army as a \u2018Marine\u2019 force, with the exception of a vanguard force to seize and hold points of entry for larger forces\u2014but only against light opposition. Army doesn&#8217;t need weapon systems designed for high intensity warfare<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">no need for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter any time this decade\u2014consolidate on the Super Hornet (especially the Growler electronic attack variant) and have another look some time after 2020.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">the future frigate needn\u2019t be a large, top-end warfighting vessel. A larger number of less capable vessels would provide better value<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">maritime surveillance and response needs a cost-effective force mix of manned and unmanned and military and civilian platform<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">12 future submarines might not be necessary, depending on what we (and the USN) want them to do<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are some sacred cows in this list, and Defence won&#8217;t like it one bit. Nor will either side of politics be prepared to say\u00a0publicly\u00a0that they&#8217;ll settle for less capability than is in the increasingly fanciful Defence Capability Plan. But the alternative is to cut elsewhere in government spending to put more into Defence. Don&#8217;t hold your breath.<\/p>\n<p><em>Andrew Davies is senior analyst for defence capability at ASPI and executive editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Strategist<em>. Image courtesy of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.defence.gov.au\/opEx\/global\/opastute\/images\/gallery\/2009\/0918\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Defence<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2013 Defence White Paper will be launched tomorrow. There&#8217;s always a chance that it&#8217;ll take a more austere approach to force structuring, but all the indications are that it will stick to the guns &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,33,1425],"class_list":["post-5899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-defence-force","tag-capability","tag-defence-white-paper-2013"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cutting our cloth - part III: a force structure for straitened times | 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\/cutting-our-cloth-part-iii-a-force-structure-for-straitened-times\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cutting our cloth - part III: a force structure for straitened times | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The 2013 Defence White Paper will be launched tomorrow. 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