The AFR View
Bold navy plan needs backing with hard cash
Australia reaped a resources bonanza from China’s rise as the workshop to the world. Now some of that needs to be redirected as a national security insurance premium.
Bold new naval construction plans announced this week will make the Royal Australian Navy bigger than Britain’s illustrious Royal Navy, at least in terms of workhorse escort ships.
The navy will have 20 destroyers and frigates in the 2040s, if all its plans come off, against British planning for just 19 such ships into the foreseeable future. Yet, it’s also the bare minimum needed to provide more than the current handful of Navy warships across the vast Indian and Pacific oceans and China seas which are no longer benign.
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