Australia unprepared for war with China despite $1b weapons manufacturing deal

Australia is heading into a “decade of concern” underprepared for nuclear-armed war a new report has concluded, while China builds missiles to win a fight for the Pacific.

A disturbing new report has found that Australia has been “napping on the job” while Beijing built a new generation of anti-ship cruise missiles designed to take out fleets as far from the Chinese mainland as West Papua and help the People’s Liberation Army win a fight for the Pacific.

The analysis comes as the government hit the accelarator on a project to build missiles at home to counter growing threats in the region.

According to Dr Sam Goldsmith, who authored the report released Tuesday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China has developed a wide range of lethal cruise missiles, designed to skim the surface and in some cases travel at hypersonic speeds before taking out their targets.

At the same time, an analysis of US and Australian capability found that we are potentially outgunned, with an American Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) that, in the words of the report, “might not have sufficient range to match let alone out-range” China’s anti-ship missiles.

Concluding that “Australia is rapidly running out of time” the report calls for, as a starting point, “a bipartisan parliamentary inquiry with the aim of educating the general public on what a regional war against a nuclear-armed major-power adversary would look like and what would be needed to defend the Australian way of life from such a threat.”

Royal Australian Navy helicopter frigate HMAS Parramatta conducts officer of the watch manoeuvres with amphibious assault ship USS America, guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill and guided-missile destroyer USS Barry in the South China Sea. Picture: Department of Defence

The report also echoes the call from the likes of Senator Jim Molan and others for a full and frank review of Australia’s defence capabilities.

However, Dr Goldsmith cautioned that even this may not buy us enough time given that senior American defence experts have described 2020-2030 as a “decade of concern” during which a regional war involving China could easily be touched of.

“Australia has arguably been caught napping on the job; decades of uncontested US strategic primacy has shielded Australia from the consequences of complacency and underinvestment in its national defence,” said Dr Goldsmith.

“With US strategic primacy being actively contested, if not eroded, Australia must face up to a future that looks increasingly dangerous and uncertain. The time for major changes was 10 years ago; but now, wholesale changes are well overdue.”

Defence Minister Peter Dutton has announced a $1 billion investment for onshore weapons and explosives manufacturing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The report comes down as Defence Minister Peter Dutton announced that Raytheon Australia and Lockheed Martin Australia would be the new strategic partners for the Morrison government’s $1 billion project to build guided weapons and explosive ordnance on shore, and opened a new $96 million state-of-the-art maintenance facility for Navy guided weapons in Orchard Hills in Western Sydney.

“This is an incredibly complex undertaking that will see this new manufacturing capability

built from the ground up.”

“Accelerating the guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise will be a whole-of-nation endeavour.”

“Our prime industry partners will work with a panel of local Australian-based providers to

deliver an array of necessary infrastructure to support this program into the future,” Mr Dutton said.

Originally published as Australia unprepared for war with China despite $1b weapons manufacturing deal