The long-awaited Defence Strategic Review requires Australia to spend extra, make munitions domestically and enhance its long-range missile capabilities and assets within the nation’s north, amid warnings about cyber warfare and “the rise of the ‘missile age'”.
It highlights “intense” competitors between the United States and China within the Indo-Pacific and warns of the potential for battle.
“China’s military build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of the Second World War,” the assessment states.
“This has occurred alongside significant economic development, benefiting many countries in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia.
“This build-up is going on with out transparency or reassurance to the Indo-Pacific area of China’s strategic intent.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday said China’s defence policy was “defensive” and insisted the country was committed to peace in the Asia-Pacific and further afield.
“We don’t pose a problem to any nation,” she said.
“We hope sure international locations is not going to use China as an excuse for army build-up and can chorus from hyping up the ‘China menace’ narrative.”
Even amid thawing diplomatic relations following a years-long trade war, China has been critical of any moves by Canberra to increase defensive capability.
That has been particularly true of the AUKUS agreement set to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, a move supported by the strategic review.
The government has also agreed in-principle to recommendations in the document to boost the defence workforce, improve efforts to quickly incorporate “disruptive new applied sciences” and deepen local diplomatic and defence ties.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, revealing implementing the plan would cost $19 billion over the forward estimates, said the country must seek to shape the future “reasonably than ready for the longer term to form us”.
The review also calls for expanded cyber and space capabilities and for ships and guided missiles to be manufactured locally.
“We’re weak if we’re simply on the finish of worldwide provide chains,” Albanese said.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said there would be major cuts to Army projects — a fleet of infantry fighting vehicles will be cut from 450 to 129 — to pay for new long-range air and sea weapons.
Those savings will fund the acceleration of the acquisition of US HIMARS rocket systems proving effective in the Ukraine war.
While there is only a “distant risk” of another power thinking about invading Australia, the defence review warns vital trade and supply routes could be more easily targeted and highlights cyber threats.
“The rise of the ‘missile age’ in fashionable warfare, crystallised by the proliferation of long-range precision strike weapons, has radically decreased Australia’s geographic advantages, the consolation of distance and our qualitative regional functionality edge,” the authors write.
Opposition defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie criticised a seeming lack of urgency, while independent Senator Jacqui Lambie called for more information about where the money would come from.
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“The mission is obvious, we should reply to our strategic circumstances,” Hastie said.
“Yet we’ve not seen a method. There is not any new cash, and we’re cannibalising functionality.”
Albanese stated the assessment was essentially the most important since World War II.
Source: www.9news.com.au
