I dislike it, but also confess to having issues with Dibb still being around and the fact that most of these "great" strategic thinkers recently have just written - meh. We are still picking up the pieces across the force 30 years on....
I love northern Australia. I've been posted up there before and would go again in a heartbeat. This includes the family - they love Darwin. But having said that, it has one big problem, 3422 of them actually. It's a long way away. That's before we hit Exmouth, Broome or Kununurra. This distance becomes key for blue and red.
Red: There are two ways of hitting northern Australia, via strike or as an invasion. Both have advantages in that there is little ADF assets there to stop us. There may be a submarine, there is a fighter squadron at Tindal (still 2 800 km away) and there are some Patrol Boats / OPVs. There is also a P-8 operating out of Darwin (that may be near the NW coast), Jindalee and anything on Christmas Island. Using fixed wing is slow - but the first strike may avoid the RAAF deployment of E-7 / KC-30 and go in unscathed. It can't really do anything east of Kununurra, although Darwin is a slim chance. Using missiles is obviously better, but is a political risk.
And...?
You hit some industry around the NW shelf (which is a strike that will hurt the economy a little, but not much compared to the war that red has just started and Australia cannot defend that no matter the investment put in there). But fundamental Australian industry, war making capability or...anything? Nope. In fact, to do this you have had to do something to Indonesia, meaning there is a really good chance your strike has just forced Indonesia into a formal alliance with Australia - which is kinda not good for you. You may have hit Darwin, which would kill a small naval base, some logistics, part of a Brigade (including most of our attack helicopters) and some C2 nodes. That will hurt a little, but honestly, not really (it'll become clear why in Blue)
So. Invade. Let's go bonkers and assume you can put a reinforced Division ashore without the ADF noticing (and can anyone actually do that?). And...? You have to advance 1 500 km to hit Perth, which still hasn't dramatically effected Australia's warfighting potential (although the loss of Stirling will have some operational level impacts), but the Australian centre of gravity is in the south east - the Brisbane-Adelaide-Melbourne triangle. That's more than 4 000 km away - what military can do that on the end of a supply chain open to interdiction through littorals and open ocean? Against an ADF that you cannot hit their bases of operations or supply chains, as they are 1000's of kilometres in front of you. Not even the US! Moving the invasion point from the NW to Darwin still has an impossibly large force advancing more than 3 500 km....
So there is no feasible red option that means anything because it's so far away.
Blue: We have to defence against a red strike. Missile defence is a joke (and I firmly believe it's a bottomless money pit that the ADF should be avoiding) and for us to put any reasonable assets in the north will demand similar assets already be placed in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne as a minimum. That's a huge, huge chunk of money.
To defend against a fixed wing strike or invasion, you need forces up there. So lets place the E-7s, more F-35, some KC-30 add 9 FSB, get 1 Bde complete back up there and you get what? Well, first is a massive retention problem, second is a vulnerable target to that missile strike and thirdly, you get a bunch of resources on the end of a long, thin supply chain. And that right there is the killer - supporting a warfighting force in north Australia when all the industry, ports, people and infrastructure is in the south east is idiocy. Perhaps for a few weeks, but for months? Permanently? Catastrophically stupid. It takes, at best, four days for big materiel (AFV parts, helicopter parts, ammunition, fuel) to get from Brisbane to Darwin. Maintaining sufficient supplies up there for peacetime op's can be...sporting; in a war is going to be Herculean.
Overall, there is a whole big lot of nothing in Australia. Dibb ignores this. It's funny, because lesson #1 for RMC cadets in DefOps is don't chase ground. That applies strategically and tactically. Why dangle our forces out there, when we can let red do that and destroy their supply chains, and let the emus and kangaroos feast?
Putting some elements in the north is essential for acclimatisation and political reasons. An ADF element in Darwin is vital for military and civil reasons (the latter being more important - there is a need to publicly show Darwin locals are as important to Canberra as Brisbane or Sydney locals) and honestly, is a ball of fun. But just like in 1942 - 1945, the main centres of military power will lie in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. There will be secondary nodes in Perth/Fremantle and Townsville. This works offensively and defensively with modern forces as well as 1940s forces. There are few in this country who have actually conceptualised what a modern military chews through in terms of logistics and how that needs to be sustained. It'll be hard doing that when fighting in Dalby, let alone 4 500 km away.
