Missiles top priority amid call for defence spending budget boost

Defence Strategic Review co-author Peter Dean has urged the government to use the March 25 budget to lift defence spending, starting with a funding boost for urgently needed missile defence systems.

A NASAMS High Mobility Launcher on a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle. Picture: Defence

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Defence Strategic Review co-author Peter Dean has urged the government to use the upcoming March 25 budget to lift defence spending, starting with a funding boost for urgently needed missile defence systems.

Professor Dean, head of the US Studies Centre’s defence program, said the government had consistently warned of unprecedented strategic challenges, “but it’s not matching the (funding) levels that are required”.

He said the defence budget needed to move from its current 2 per cent to “somewhere around 3 per cent” of GDP – as advocated by the Trump administration.

He said the recent circumnavigation of Australia by three Chinese warships had underscored the vulnerability of Australia’s military bases, including those used by US forces, which were wide open to attack in the event of a conflict.

Professor Dean said the government’s decision to hand down a budget rather than heading to an April election provided it with an opportunity to get on the front foot and boost defence spending.

“They have warned Australians they face the most dangerous circumstances since the Second World War. Is that going to be matched by an increase in defence funding? And if so, where does that money come from?” he said.

His comments came days after Donald Trump’s nominee for head of policy at the Pentagon, Elbridge Colby, said Australia needed to lift military spending to at least 3 per cent of GDP.

Professor Peter Dean, director of defence and foreign policy at the United States Studies Centre.

Defence Minister Richard Marles last week said the government was ready for “an ongoing conversation” with the US on the defence budget. But a defiant Anthony Albanese pushed back, declaring “Australia determines our national interest”.

Professor Dean said an integrated air and missile defence system “should be at the very, very top of the list of things that we’re looking to invest in”.

“I would name it my No.1 priority for increased defence investment,” he said.

“It’s a key area of our defences that is not getting enough attention, and it does not seem to be going at the speed of minimum viable capability in the shortest possible time.”

The case for extra funds was especially urgent as the lower Australian dollar and a run of high inflation had eroded Australia’s purchasing power, creating new funding shortfalls, Professor Dean said.

Labor has attacked the Coalition for “over-programming” the defence budget, leaving 40 per cent of planned investments effectively unfunded.

But Professor Dean said: “I understand the level of over-programming is creeping up again. “And there’s only two ways you can solve that problem. You provide more funding to defence or you cut the number of programs.”

US soldiers from 2006 sit on a turret of the M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle in front of the launcher of a Patriot missile PAC-3 system. Picture: AFP

The Coalition says it will spend more than Labor on defence, pledging an extra $3bn for an additional squadron of F-35 fighters.

But Professor Dean said missile defence systems were a higher-order priority, and $3bn would buy only a third of the promised extra 28 aircraft.

Labor delayed the acquisition of tens of billions of dollars worth of new missile defence systems in its most recent investment program last year, putting off protection for Australian troops and US forces on Australian soil.

It’s understood US officials have expressed concerns in talks with Australian counterparts that Perth’s HMAS Stirling naval base, where US rotational submarines will be stationed from 2027, has no defences against missile, drone and underwater attacks.

The US is also concerned at the lack of threat protection over Darwin, where thousands of US Marine Corps troops spend six months a year, and at the RAAF’s northern bases, from where US bombers operate.

The 2023 DSR, authored by Professor Dean with former defence chief Angus Houston and incumbent high commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith, said: “Defence must deliver a layered integrated air and missile defence operational capability urgently.”

It said current efforts were not structured to deliver a “minimum viable capability”, and “off-the-shelf options must be explored”.

Labor has publicly argued that the navy’s three Hobart-class air warfare destroyers, the RAAF’s 72 F-35s, and two NASAMS short-range surface-to-air missile batteries, to be operated by the army, will provide sufficient protection until an integrated solution can be developed.

But critics argue the AWDs cannot be relied upon to defend land bases, that using F-35s to shoot down incoming missiles is highly inefficient, and that NASAMS launchers are designed to hit cruise missiles but not ballistic or hypersonic missiles.