Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Resistance is Not Futile

The new American national defense strategy focus on great power competition gives Australia a reason to focus their military on keeping great powers away from Australia's shores. Well, yeah.

Sure:

All of this suggests to me that Australia needs to refocus on its own region of primary strategic concern, building the military capability to ensure that we can deny our vulnerable approaches to any potential adversary—including China.

Nine years ago I wrote the same thing when noting Australia's move to fielding F-35s, submarines, and frigates:

This all makes perfect sense. Australia needs to defend at sea, for if any enemy intent on waging war makes it to shore, Australia would need a huge army to defend their nation/continent. That's not going to happen, although it wouldn't hurt the Australians to organize light infantry local defense forces to fight until the good but tiny army arrives to fight any enemy force that does make it ashore.

But the basic defense will be aircraft and submarines that could attack enemy ships on the way to assault Australia. Even if the enemy had a couple carriers, the F-35s with their stealth abilities would be a good weapon to sink them and shoot down any aircraft they carry. The submarines would be able to operate against the invasion fleet, too, even in the face of enemy naval superiority.

The frigates would be best for leveraging allied help to sail with either American or possibly Indian ships to fight a common foe. Alone against a major enemy fleet they'd be fairly worthless.

Australia stands at a crucial pivot point that allows American power to shift between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

When I wrote that I still had hopes that Russia wouldn't revert to total jerk status. But that development doesn't change the need for America to shift naval power to the Asia-Pacific region. Russia's fleet is withering and if NATO navies can carry the burden against a more hostile but still weak Russia at sea, we have bigger problems than carrying out a pivot.

And if Indonesia can be brought on board based on shared worries about Chinese ambitions and capabilities, that same Australian air-naval capability that could deny a potential adversary access to the seas and air space near Australia can be used to project power into the South China Sea.

It's nice to see voices in Australia that want Australia to have a relevant military. Australia is far smaller than China but resistance is not futile if it leverages help from America, India, and other regional allies.

Only giving up and hoping China will be merciful in victory is futile.