Australia would be ill-prepared for any ‘high-end’ conflict

The war in Ukraine has made it clear we must urgently improve the ADF’s capabilities.

A man falls is seen on the ground after a blast following a drone attack in Kyiv. Picture: AFP

The seasoned advice in Defence headquarters is to be wary of early reports of enemy contact because, in the confusion of war, the first details will almost always be wrong.

Now it seems more likely that the missile which crashed near the Polish village of Przewodow on Ukraine’s northern border on Tuesday was not Russian but a Ukrainian anti-aircraft weapon.

The initial Polish report of the incident described a “Russian-made missile”. That remains true because the weapon is likely to be a Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missile. Ukraine inherited many hundreds of these weapons after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The S-300 weighs about two tonnes with a range of between 47 and 200km. A proximity fuse ­detonates the warhead when it is close to an aircraft or a drone. An investigation will show if the warhead detonated on impacting on the ground.

My guess is that it did not. Large pieces of the missile remain intact and photographs do not show the damage that would be created by a 150kg fragmentation warhead. Most likely the missile crashed after failing to hit an ­airborne target.

We know for certain that Russia launched a large-scale missile attack against Ukrainian cities on Tuesday night. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War reports that Russia launched about 100 cruise missiles and at least 10 Iranian ­Shahed-136 drones that night, primarily against critical infrastructure targets.

The Ukrainian military general staff claim to have shot down all the drones and 73 cruise missiles that evening. This amounts to a bad night for the Russian military, which is rapidly using up remaining supplies of sophisticated munitions.

Any loss of human life in ­conflict is a tragedy, but the deaths of two Polish citizens from the crash of the S-300 must be put down to a terrible accident.

As of late Thursday, the Ukrainian position was that the weapon was fired by Russia. Under the largest Russian missile barrage since the start of the war it is understandable that there is confusion about the weapon’s origin. US President Joe Biden quickly played down claims of Russian responsibility. He is uniquely able to know, as American satellites will have tracked the heat plume of the S-300’s rocket motor.

US President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping in Bali. Picture: AFP

After a more detailed investigation, we should expect that Kyiv will apologise and seek to make restitution to Poland which has, for reasons of self-interest as well as principle, been one of Ukraine’s strongest backers in the war.

The missile strikes of last Tuesday are one night’s action in a war in which, on recent American estimates, over 100,000 ­Russians have been killed and wounded – overwhelmingly ­military personnel – and as many Ukrainians, overwhelmingly civilian.

We should never forget that the cause of this war comes down to the warped historical view and nationalistic chauvinism of one man, Vladimir Putin.

Putin has caused incalculable suffering while failing to achieve a single Russian war aim. It will be astonishing and tragic if he ­survives as Russia’s President by the end of 2023.

Here, trying to draw some broader conclusions, I offer six reactions to the war’s events of last week.

First, it is remarkable how tightly the war has been confined inside Ukraine, an outcome that, for different reasons, Kyiv and Moscow have tried to achieve. Given the sheer volume of weapons and ammunition expended it is astonishing there have not been many more incidents like that missile crash in Poland.

It is true that Ukraine has carried the fight to several military bases in Russia, relatively close to the border. These have been carried out in a low-key way, with Kyiv’s leadership coy to claim credit. Have no doubt that Ukraine could do a lot more to take the fight into Russia but chooses not to do that to sustain NATO support and to limit ­conflict escalation.

Second, notwithstanding rhetoric about using tactical ­nuclear weapons, Russia is also carefully avoiding the risk of ­expanding the war. Biden’s language, backed by the Europeans, that every inch of NATO will be defended has been effective in ­deterring Putin’s instinct for ­adventurism – thus far.

A third conclusion is that Ukraine still has the momentum on the battlefield. Two very different wars are being fought. Ukraine is fighting and winning battlefield success against Russian military forces. In contrast, Russia’s ground forces seem to have come to a complete halt in the east and south of Ukraine and continue to lose ground. Moscow’s focus is on air and missile attacks against Ukrainian civilians and, more recently, critical ­infrastructure.

With winter approaching, Putin wants to intimidate and to freeze Ukrainians. He will fail on both counts. Russia does not have the volume or accuracy of weapons to achieve either objective.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: AFP

It will certainly be a grim ­winter for Ukraine, but every Russian atrocity hardens their will to resist. If that assessment is right, then Putin cannot win this war. My read of the situation is that this realisation is growing in Moscow in senior circles around Putin.

Conclusion number four is that Russia is losing heart. A disastrous conscription campaign has brought home the reality that many, perhaps most, Russians of fighting age want no part of the fighting.

Those caught by the press gangs lack training, equipment, leadership, purpose and motivation. They are being killed by Ukrainian precision targeting on an industrial scale that can no longer be hidden in Russia.

The G20 meeting in Bali was a disaster for Moscow. Foreign Minister Sergi Lavrov, usually with a hide tougher than a Lubyanka interrogator, couldn’t stomach the proceedings and left before a surprisingly strong communique condemned the war.

India, a now-reluctant Russian partner signed the communique. China allowed it to be released only with the weakest of defences that “there were other views and different assessments of the situation”.

Moreover, Washington has clearly put to the Kremlin the dire consequences of using nuclear weapons. Putin should never be written off but his pathway to ­victory is disappearing and even his most brutish backers know it.

Point five: Ukraine’s democratic backers are staying the course. Biden’s advisers may fret about a path to peace negotiations, but the President is consistent in backing Kyiv, buoyed by better than expected results in the congressional midterm ­elections.

The Europeans show no real sign of lessening their support for Kyiv. It helps certainly that ­Western Europe has enough gas stored to stay warm this winter. But every day that passes and every new Russian atrocity shows that there is no easy road back to Euro-pandering of Putin.

Finally, point six. The world is running out of weapons and ammunition. On an average day Ukraine is probably using more ammunition such as missiles, rockets, artillery shells and light arms ammunition than the entire Australian inventory of war stocks.

I say “probably” but Defence Minister Richard Marles would be well advised to ask his department to do a rapid stocktake of ammunition in storage. In the context of a rapidly worsening strategic environment the outcome of an honest assessment of Australia’s ammunition stocks would be ugly to say the least.

Marles clearly has some sense of the problem. In a speech on Monday he said: “The war in Ukraine has underlined that we must improve the ADF’s ability to sustain the capability and ­materiel required for high-end warfighting, especially ammunition. We have to draw more ­effectively on both domestic industry and international partners to establish more responsive and secure supply chains.”

Because of Ukraine, many of the key munitions Australia would need for what Defence calls “high-end conflict” are just not available and will not be available for some years. This has nothing to do with alliances or trusted supply chains. Our key partners will equip themselves first, filling warehouses emptied for Kyiv.

For Australia, the overwhelming lesson from the Ukraine conflict is that we are not remotely prepared to be drawn into a high-end conflict in the Indo-Pacific. This is despite the fact that, for years, our national security community have judged that the risk of conflict this decade is dramatically increasing.

To be clear, Australia’s plan is to prepare for conflict by not ­preparing. A decision not to do something is a decision. In a ­conflict we will have little to offer our key partners other than our geography, a lack of forethought and decades of accumulated complacency.