Defence Minister Linda Reynolds says the government recognised ‘importance of Northern Australia to our national security’

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds says the government recognised the “importance of Northern Australia to our national security”.

Riflemen from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, supported by US Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey during a Top End exercise.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the government recognised the “vital importance of Northern Australia to our national security”.

Senator Reynolds said the Coalition was committed to a “strong Australian Defence Force presence in our country’s north”, with “significant Defence investment in this region”.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.

“Over the next decade, over $8 billion will be invested in defence infrastructure in the Northern Territory alone. Northern Australia is key to Australian international engagement in support of our strategic partnerships.”

Her comments come as Australia was warned it must urgently test its ­ability to defend its northern border­s, amid aggressive expansion­ of Chinese defence and strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific­ and the US losing its “milit­ary primacy” in the region.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute and United States Studies Centre will sound a warning today on the lack of personnel and hardware deployment in northern Australia and the need to increase munition and fuel stockpiles, with security experts warning of ­“serious threats emerging with disconcerting rapidity”.

An ASPI report to be released today calls for a simulated “stress test” involving defence, intelligence and border security agencies­ to test the nation’s capac­ity to defend itself against sudden threats and highlights a “widening gap” ­between strategic policy and the country’s military assets in northern Australia.

ASPI warns of a shortfall in military person­nel and strategic deployment north of the 26th parallel south — with Australian Defence Force staff numbers at an 11-year low in the Northern Territory — and calls for a “single scalable defence­ and national security ­ecosystem”.

Senator Reynolds said there was more than 13,000 ADF members stationed in the North, and “thousands more participate in operations or training scenarios across the North annually”.

“We host over 2,500 US Marines and Air Force members in Darwin yearly, providing security benefits for Australia and the United States by deepening our interoperability and enhancing capabilities through increased combined training and exercises, stepping up our engagement with regional countries, and better position both nations to respond to crises in the region,” she said.

An Australian Army 1st Armoured Regiment M1A1 Abrams tank fires a 120mm round from its main gun during the Warfighter activity at Shoalwater Bay Training Area in Queensland.

A US Studies Centre report, also to be released today, declares that America no longer “enjoys military primacy in the Indo-Pacific­” and that its capacity to “uphold a favourable balance of power is increasingly uncertain”.

The renewed focus on northern Australia and Indo-Pacific ­security infrastructure comes as China expands its presence in the region, targeting South Pacific and Asian nations to enhance its ­defence and strategic operations.

The reports point towards Australia needing to deliver targeted funding to combat China’s rising strength and aggressive military expansion, and a re-examination of its strategic partnership with the US. Expanded air and naval capabilities — to support F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, submarines, upgrad­ed frigates and amphibious assault vessels — are viewed by ­defence experts as crucial in ­enhancing Australia’s presence in the Indo-Pacific.

It was confirmed last week that the US Defence Department was preparing to spend $305.9 million to upgrade its air defence capabilities in Darwin. The announcement followed Scott Morrison hosing down suggestions that the US was aiming to deploy ground-based missiles there. The US has long railed against the 2015 long-term lease of Darwin’s port to Chinese­-owned company Land­bridge, which focused­ attention on the US-China contest for domin­ance in the region.

The largest group of US marines­ to rotate into Darwin for a six-month deployment began in April, beefing up Western forces in the Indo-Pacific. Since 2012, more than 6800 US marines have served in the Territory alongside ADF personnel; 2500 more mar­ines are expected this year.

The ADF operates army bases in Darwin and Townsville, RAAF bases in Darwin, Katherine and Townsville (in addition to “bare bases” near Weipa, Derby and Exmouth­), and naval bases at Trinity Bay and Darwin.

Amphibious assault vehicles with the United States military, Australian Defence Force and Japan Self-Defence Force simulate a combined force entry assault operation as a part of Talisman Sabre 2019 on Langhams Beach.

John Coyne, author of ASPI’s report, Strong and Free? The ­Future ­Security of Australia’s North, outlines the likelihood of northern Australia becoming the ADF’s forward operating base or its “lily pad to another forward ­location within the Pacific or the first or second island chain. There’s a need to reconceptualise northern Australia, defined as those areas north of the 26-degree south parallel, as a single scalable defence and ­national security ecosystem.”

Dr Coyne said the forward ­operating base would ensure defence­ infrastructure in northern Australia was in a “state of readiness to support a range of ­defence contingencies with little advance warning”.

ASPI argues that, 33 years after Paul Dibb’s landmark 1986 report, only the second time since Federation that Australia has seriou­sly focused on northern defence­, it was time for the Mor­rison government to again ­“seriously consider continental defence and national security”.

Dr Coyne, who suggests the Darwin and Tindal bases “become­ critical nodes in global ­defence supply chains for such capabilities as the JSF-35”, said the first step towards developing a northern Australian defence strategy should be led by a “nat­ionally co-ordinated simulated stress test of the north’s Defence and civilian capacity to withstand a range of contingencies”.

This would involve “desktop exercises that access real datasets on industry, state and territory government, Home Affairs, intelligence and Defence capacity in the north”.

“In addition to testing legal frameworks, strategic reserves and force posture, attention should be directed to questions of time and space for responses.”

The stress data would “fully map the existing support ecosystem in northern Australia” for the ADF, identifying “specific supply-chain vulnerabilities, legislative impediments, organisational and cultural challenges, command and control issues and risks”.

The US Studies Centre report lists nine recommendations to ­respond to China’s undermining of the ability of the US to project power in the region. It warns that the readiness of US forces has been “eroded” after 20 years of “near-continuous combat and budget instability”.

United States Marine Corps and United States Army High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems perform a live firing drill at Plains Airfield during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2019.

“Given the stresses of preparing for a possible conflict with China … the joint force will have to scale back other responsib­ilities, particular­ly in secondary regions like the Middle East,” ­report authors­ Ashley Towns­hend, Brendan Thomas-Noone and Matilda Steward say.

Writing in The Australian today, Alan Dupont warns that “in the next crisis we won’t have the luxury of 10 years’ warning”.

Dr Dupont, chief executive of geopolitical risk consultancy the Cognoscenti Group and member of the Northern Territory’s ­Strategic Defence Advisory Board, writes that “serious threats are emerging with disconcerting rapidity”.

He said Australia’s prepar­ation ahead of the Japanese air force attacking Darwin in Feb­ruary 1942 was “too little and too late, despite adequate intelligence warning”.

“The problem is that we are underdone on defence infrastructure and manufacturing in the north and haven’t done nearly enough to think through, and ­invest in, the sustainment of forces deployed from the north,” Dr ­Dupont writes.

He said that in the three decades since the Dibb report, “defence and national security investment in the north has rarely matched government rhetoric” and that the north must be “central, not ­peripheral, to ­defence and national security”.

“At a national level our fuel reserves­ and refining capacity are too thin. In a crisis, we can’t rely on others to provide the fuel we need for ADF operations and nationa­l emergencies. But a land-based, or offshore floating ­refinery in the north could help solve this problem.”

The US Studies Centre report highlights the need to “pursue capability aggregation and collective deterrence in the Indo-Pacific with regional allies and partners”, namely Japan and the US.

“This will require a step-change in Australia’s operational and strategic planning. Canberra would need to plan and credibly demonstrate a willingness to use its sophisticated and high-end capabilities — in combination with other like-minded partners — to deny, disrupt and destroy the forces of a highlycapable ­aggressor in the absence of all-­domain dominance.”

“As Tokyo and Canberra continue to modernise their militar­ies over the next decade, they will maintain — and in some cases ­expand — their collective invent­ory of assets in several crucial areas: attack submarines, anti-submarine warfare assets and principal surface combatants.”

The US Studies Centre report recommends that the ADF ­“strategically rebalance Aust­ralian defence resources from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific”, establish “new, and expand existing, high-end military exercises”, “acquire robust land-based strike and denial capabilities”, and ­“improve regional posture, infrastructure and networked logistics” to “strengthen Australia’s northern posture”.

Australia must also “increase munition and fuel stockpiles”.