New defence plan is a paper tiger

Amid the deteriorating strategic outlook across the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific, the Albanese government’s National Defence Strategy has the correct focus: missile defence, drones, new ships, guided weapons and undersea warfare, including nuclear-powered submarines. As the dust settles it is also clear, unfortunately, that in kicking the heavy spending needed down the road for several parliaments the government is prepared to leave the nation vulnerable. Its response to last year’s much vaunted Defence Strategic Review is a missed opportunity for which this and future generations could pay a devastating price. Even if the plan is fully implemented, it would be 15 to 20 years before the nation has a more powerful Australian Defence Force, Greg Sheridan warns in Inquirer.

The grim reality, Ben Packham wrote this week, is that the plan, contrary to what Defence Minister Richard Marles purports, has delayed the acquisition of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of vital missile defence systems, putting off protection for Australian troops against the sorts of attacks seen in Israel and Ukraine. It is silent on two major air defence programs listed in the 2020 version of the plan, worth a combined $23.1bn-$31bn, which are to be pushed back by two years. They will be considered in the 2026 National Defence Strategy, the document says, “taking into account developments in the technology used by the US and other key partners”.

That delay is unconscionable when government ministers know the risks. Nor will it help morale in the ranks when the services need new recruits. In August last year, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy warned that China would have 21 nuclear submarines and 200 warships in the water by 2030, creating an urgent need to deliver the AUKUS subs and defence technologies. “Strength deters war,” he argued. It was against Australia’s interest to have “one power dominate our ­region, especially one that breaches international laws”.

Labor’s plan identifies the gaping holes in our defence preparedness, the long-term legacy of complacency on the part of ADF top brass and both sides of politics. But the plan has none of the sense of urgency Mr Conroy expressed last year when he said that while some people wrongly claimed AUKUS would start a regional arms race, “I’m here to tell you that arms race is already happening before our very eyes”. Despite its claims about “unwarranted anxieties”, China is on the march. With war in the Middle East and Ukraine, the US, with an eye-watering deficit, is stretched. And isolationism, on the left and right, is gaining ground in its body politic. The Albanese government urgently needs to revisit the timetable of its defence strategy.