Army battle management system failure to cost taxpayers $2bn

The implosion of the Australian army’s signature digitised tactical command and control system is not only going to cost a lot of money but also risks sparking an international diplomatic incident.

The implosion of army’s signature digitised tactical command and control system is not only going to cost a lot of money but also risks sparking an international diplomatic incident. This is because Defence has widely leaked the information that the Battle Management System (BMS) in question is from the Israeli company Elbit and it has a vulnerability in the software that could be exploited by the company to gain access to classified US networks. No evidence for this has been provided — at least not publicly — and Defence Minister Peter Dutton has refused to comment.

Elbit has furiously denied the rumours and says that all source code has been supplied to Defence and that work on program has taken place in a collaborative fashion. The company is believed to be considering legal action — though the practical task of pinning down unknown rumour spreaders with unverifiable whispers might be daunting.

However, the BMS falls under project LAND 200 which has been in difficulty for years and has been plagued by cost over runs, poor contractor performance and defective management by Defence.

In hindsight it should have been cancelled completely in May 2019 when the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) released a devastating report that exposed major and repeated failures on the part of all parties. Instead, Defence officially paused the next stage of the project — worth another $1bn on top of the $2bn already spent — for 24 months while various options were studied.

Less than six months into the pause, Defence issued a classified internal memo calling for the BMS to be withdrawn from service — a process that was due to be completed in mid-May. What caused this sudden and unannounced change of heart is unknown — but it has generated a flood of stories and speculation around the system’s security. One of the suggestions is that our top cyber security agency — the Australian Signals Directorate — stepped in and recommended that army ditch the BMS. Even if true, it is unknown whether ASD had specific evidence of wrongdoing or whether their concerns were more generic in nature about the use of defence technology from Israel.