Abandoning AUKUS: a better way to defend Australia – Asia Times
For more than a century, Australia has followed the same military plan: dependent on a great authority. This was first the United Kingdom and then the United States.
Without effectively considering other options, subsequent national governments have intensified this plan with the AUKUS deal and locked Australia into dominance on the US for decades to come.
A more clever and modern government may have investigated various ways to achieve a strong and independent nationwide defense policy.
One that, for instance, did n’t need Australia to sacrifice its sovereignty to a foreign power. Nor require the acquisition of fantastically cheap nuclear-powered submarines and the creating of undervalued, under-gunned area warships, such as the Hunter battleships.
In truth, in an age of fast improving uncrewed techniques, Australia does not need any manned vessels or ships at all.
Instead, Australia may move into a military idea that I describe in my forthcoming book, The Big Fix: Rebuilding Australia’s National Security. This is known as the “strategic defense. ”
What is the proper defence?
The proper defence is a method of waging war employed throughout history, although the term’s use just dates to the earlier 19th century. It does n’t demand a condition to fight its intruder. Instead, the state may refuse the attacker the ability to achieve their objectives.
The proper protective best fits “status status states” like Australia. The citizens of status quo says are content with what they have. Their needs can be met without recourse to harassment or murder. These says also tend to be physically frail sibling to potential oppressors, and aren’t aggressors themselves.
In short, if conflict eventuates, Australia’s only purpose is to avoid a shift to the status quo. In this way, strategic protective did suit very well as the academic foundation of Australia’s protection policy.
Solid reasons for a strategic combative approach
There are also good military and scientific reasons why Australia may framework its security around the tactical defensive.
Second, defence is the normally stronger position in battle, compared to strike.
It is harder to capture ground ( including sea and airspace ) than it is to hold it. All oppressors may strike into the unfamiliar, bringing their help with them. Soldiers, by contrast, is fall back onto a known room and the procedures it can offer.
Martial philosophers generally agree that to succeed in battle, an attacker needs a three-to-one power benefits over the keeper.
And the vast ocean moat surrounding the American continent considerably complicates and increases the cost of any aggressor’s efforts to hurt us.
Australia could also use arms now available to enhance the natural power of being the defending area. Its job needs only to be making any harm excessively cheap, in terms of products and animal life.
Long-range hit missiles and drones, combined with detectors, provide the defending country with the opportunity to build a destructive killing area around it. This is what China has done in the East and South China Seas.
Australia can do the same by connecting weapons, drones and uncrewed sea arteries with a detector system linked to a command-control-targeting program.
Missiles and drones are a better purchase when compared to the nuclear-powered ships Australia hopes to gain from the United States, as well as the vessels – including more ships – the state plans to build in the Osborn and Henderson ships.
And most important, they are available today.
A better approach
A defensive system even makes strategic feeling for Australia, unlike the planned AUKUS nuclear-powered boats. Australia has no need to work in distant lakes, such as those off the coast of China.
In contrast, Australia can afford but some vessels that their deterrence effect is not reliable. Missiles and uavs are considerably cheaper, meaning Australia you get them in the thousands.
Australia is making the mistake of focusing on the platform – cheap boats and planes – rather than the result needed: the death of a possible opponent with crowds of arms.
In reality, the age of massive manned ships, both on and below the water, is coming to an end. Long-range hit technology means the water can now be controlled from the area. Fast improving sensors make it impossible for intruders to conceal on, below or above the surface of the sea.
A better guess would be for Australia to invest in uncrewed area and sub-surface sea vessels to guard its techniques, as well as large numbers of land-based rockets and missiles.
For a small power such as Australia, investing in this makes more sense than a small, bespoke number of extremely expensive and vulnerable warships.
It’s not too late to rethink
It is clear Australian leaders have decided to intensify Australia’s dependence on the US rather than seeking to create a military capable of securing the nation on our own.
The cost is nigh-on ruinous in terms of not just money, but also the entanglement in foreign-led wars and potential reputational loss.
Perhaps worst of all, the nation is making itself into a target – possibly a nuclear target – if war between the US and China was to eventuate.
This need not have been the outcome of the government’s recent defence reviews. But it ’s not too late to rethink.
By adopting a different military philosophy as the guide for its security decision-making, Australia could manage its security largely on its own. This only requires leaders with a willingness to think differently.
Albert Palazzo is adjunct professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
