White paper orders huge military build-upPatrick Walters, National security editor | April 25, 2009
KEVIN Rudd is set to announce Australia's biggest military build-up since World War II, led by a multi-billion-dollar investment in maritime defense, including 100 new F-35 fighters, a doubling of the submarine fleet, and powerful new surface warships.
The new defence white paper will outline plans for a fundamental shake-up of Australia's defense organisation to ensure that the nation can meet what the Prime Minister sees as a far more challenging and uncertain security outlook in Asia over the next two decades.
China's steadily growing military might and the prospect of sharper strategic competition among Asia's great powers are driving the maritime build-up, which will see new-generation submarines and warships equipped with cruise missiles, and a big new investment in anti-submarine warfare and electronic warfare platforms, including new naval helicopters.
The white paper will consider the emerging non-traditional threats to Australia, including cyber security, climate change and its associated risk of large uncontrolled people movements.
Senior government sources say Mr Rudd has insisted that defense spending remain largely insulated from the Government's budget difficulties, but the Defense Department will still have to find at least $15 billion of internal savings over the next decade to help pay for the $100 billion-plus long-term equipment plan.
Mr Rudd said yesterday the delivery of the white paper was proving "acutely challenging as we work to defend ourselves from the global economic storm".
"It is the most difficult environment to frame the Australian budget in modern economic history. It is also the most difficult environment to frame our long-term defense planning in modern economic history as well," he told the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. "Nevertheless the Government will not resile even in the difficult times from the requirement for long-term coherence of our defense planning for the long-term security of our nation. This is core business for government. That is why we have forged ahead in our preparation of the defense white paper because national security needs do not disappear because of the global recession. If anything, those needs become more acute."
Funding pressures will mean the navy will not get a fourth air warfare destroyer, and the delivery of the first batch of the RAAF's F-35 joint strike fighters will slip by at least one year to 2014-15.
The huge cost of paying for the next-generation defense force, due to be detailed in the white paper and the forthcoming 10-year defense capability plan, will have little impact on the defence budget over the the next four years.
Apart from the air warfare destroyers and the F-35 fighters, most of the planned defence purchases will not have to be paid for until well into the next decade and beyond.
Mr Rudd and Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon are expected to release the long-awaited white paper as early as next week, with the more detailed 10-year defense capability plan due to be published by mid-year.
The naval build-up will be led by a planned 12-strong submarine fleet expected to replace the Collins-class boats from 2025. It will enable the RAN to deploy up to seven boats to protect Australia's northern approaches, including key maritime straits running through the Indonesian archipelago, at times of high threat.
The white paper will outline the requirement for a new class of eight 7000-tonne warships equipped with ballistic missile defense systems similar to the three air warfare destroyers already on order that will eventually replace the Anzac frigates.
A new class of 1500-tonne corvette-size patrol boats able to take a helicopter is slated to replace the Armidale-class vessels from the mid-2020s.
The more robust maritime force will also mean the RAAF's veteran AP-3 Orion fleet being replaced with a mix of at least eight P-8 Poseidon long-range surveillance aircraft, together with up to seven unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles, possibly the US-made Global Hawk, operating out of an expanded Edinburgh air base in South Australia.
The navy is also expected to acquire up to 27 anti-submarine helicopters.
Mr Rudd has foreshadowed the maritime build-up as pointing to the need for Australia to accommodate "huge increases in military spending here in our own region".
"If we are going to defend our sea-lines of communication to the rest of the world, we have got to make sure that we have got the naval capability to underpin that. And Australia must therefore have necessary maritime power in the future in order to give that effect," Mr Rudd said late last year.
As well as re-equipping with up to 100 F-35 fighters, the air force is expected to get up to six extra C-130J Hercules transport aircraft and a replacement for the Vietnam war-era Caribou light transport, expected to be the C-27J.
The $10 billion long-term expansion and "hardening and networking" of the army will continue with the regular army growing to about 30,000, including eight infantry battalions.
The army's Chinook helicopter fleet is expected to expand from six to 10 aircraft and the land force is expected to be re-equipped with self-propelled and towed artillery in the next decade.
The army will also acquire a new generation of armored fighting vehicles from 2020.
The new white paper says Australia's defense force should be capable of taking the lead security role in Australia's neighborhood, particularly the South Pacific, as well as having the ability to deploy military forces further afield.
Senior government sources say this year's white paper is a more broad-ranging and ambitious document than the 2000 white paper. It aims to give Australia more strategic weight and the Government more options when it comes to deploying military forces in the neighborhood or further afield.
The white paper has moved defense doctrine back to a more regionally-focused approach firmly founded on the defense of Australia. It rejects the notion that terrorism and unconventional intrastate conflict should be a primary driver of the defense force structure.
The Rudd Government's focus on expensive war-fighting equipment underlines the Prime Minister's view that Australia must face up to a much broader range of contingencies, including the strategic consequences of inter-state conflict in Asia.
For the first time the white paper will address in detail electronic warfare trends, particularly the growing cyber security threat to Australia's national security network.
The Government is already investing millions of dollars to bolster Australia's cyber defense capability, led by the Defense Signals Directorate, and will invest even more heavily in the years ahead to protect critical infrastructure from cyber attacks already being mounted by a number of countries led by China and Russia. The Government is also moving quietly to bolster Australia's ability to mount offensive cyber operations.
The threat posed by ballistic missile proliferation in the Asia-Pacific will also be carefully monitored by Defense but the Government has ruled out any early development of a dedicated ballistic missile defense system for Australia. The biggest challenge to the blueprint remains the global economic crisis.
Source
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25383010-601,00.html
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