Well shock horror surprise, Hugh White believes that LAND 400 is a waste of money, or more to the point that its opportunity cost is too high. Here's hoping that not too many agree with him and that the government in particular ignores him and his ilk and actually follows through with the plan.
I notice that he is as out of date as I was in the numbers and vehicle types he is discussing, maybe someone in the know needs to put him straight. I just love the fact that he and others like him ignore regional rearmament and equipment decisions, ignore the inconvenient facts that demonstrate that the light Infantry they love so much needs to be supported and protected when deployed, ignore the fact that just about every other government in the world has learnt the lessons of conflicts since the end of WWII and actually listen to their military leaders.
_________________________________________________________________
Bigger doesn’t mean better with combat vehicles
HUGH WHITE |
The Australian |
May 30, 2014 12:00AM
WHAT Defence calls Land 400 — Land Combat Vehicle System — is a big project in every way. It aims to buy very big vehicles, in quite big numbers at a very big cost. It has big implications for the kind of ADF we are building and what we want it to be able to do in coming decades.
And if it goes ahead, as the army apparently intends, it will prove to be a big waste of money and a big strategic mistake.
As it stands, Land 400 proposes to acquire 1100 combat vehicles to replace the army’s fleets of Bushmasters, ASLAVs and M113s. The cost is estimated at $19 billion, which is a lot even by Defence standards. The price of combat vehicles depends mainly on their weight, so the imposing price tag suggests the army wants to buy very big vehicles indeed.
And so it transpires. In the project’s first phase, the army apparently intends to replace the old ASLAVs, which weigh about 13 tonnes each, with new vehicles weighing up to 45 tonnes. This tells us that Land 400 is not simply about replacing the army’s fleet of combat vehicles. It aims to re-equip the army with completely different kinds of vehicles, and in the process create a completely new kind of army.
Of course, any kind of army needs armoured fighting vehicles, and the heavier they are the more protection, mobility and firepower they can provide. So all other things being equal, heavier is better. But in the real world of defence policy the other things never are equal. Everything has a cost, *especially an opportunity cost.
Heavier vehicles cost more, so there will be fewer of them, and they are harder to deploy and sustain. This means they will be available less often than cheaper, lighter vehicles.
In many situations our soldiers would be better off with less *capable vehicles that are there when they are needed, than with the biggest and best that are not in the fight. And every dollar spent on building and maintaining *heavier vehicles means less of everything else, including soldiers.
So a decision to move to a much heavier army only makes sense if you really need the army to undertake the kinds of operations for which the combat power of the heaviest vehicles is essential. That means large-scale, high-intensity operations against highly sophisticated adversaries. It means major wars against continental great powers.
And this is indeed exactly the kind of war the army wants to be equipped to fight. The Concept of Operations paper prepared for Land 400 specifically includes major powers among potential adversaries, and everything about the project implies that army is being redesigned specifically to take part in large-scale conflicts against major powers.
One can perhaps understand why this is the kind of army that our generals would like to command. But is it the kind of army Australia needs?
Well, no Australian government has thought so since World War II. Indeed, ever since Australia first raised a full-time professional army in the late 1940s it has been designed primarily as a light, readily deployable, highly mobile force. This army has served Australia well both during the demands of the Forward *Defence era and in many operations since. It has never been built for high-intensity continental *operations.
But what of the future? Might Australia need a much heavier army in the different and perhaps more demanding strategic circumstances of the Asian century? This is a very important question. The army thinks we do. In a more contested Asia, they believe, Australia needs to be able to provide much more support to our allies in any conflict with a great power such as China.
And they think the best way to do that is by deploying land forces equipped for high-intensity continental warfare.
We are already investing heavily in the army’s vision of Australia’s strategic future. The big LHD amphibious ships and the Air Warfare Destroyers to protect them are being built to take this kind of army to war.
They only make sense if the army is right that this is what we want our army to be able to do. And if they are right, Land 400 makes good sense, too.
But there are three good reasons to think they are wrong. First, it is very unlikely that the US would ever fight a major land war in Asia. Avoiding such wars has been a primary principle of US strategic policy for generations, reinforced by its experiences in Korea and Vietnam. If the US fights in Asia it will fight primarily at sea. And it has plenty of marines to do any fighting on land that might be needed.
Second, it is very unlikely that, even with US help, we could deploy and sustain our army by sea against the sea-denial forces of a major-power adversary. The risk of our amphibious ships being sunk would prevent them ever being put to sea.
The loss of Western powers’ traditional sea-control in the western Pacific is the major operational-level development of our age. The army’s plans ignore it.
Third, even if the US did need our land forces, and even if we could deploy them, they would be too small to make any difference. Even the army’s most ambitious plans would not create land forces big enough to make any real difference to the military outcomes of any *coalition operation.
And they would be quite unable to independently achieve any strategic objectives in a major-power conflict.
The same money spent in other ways would offer much better strategic dividends.
Whether we are operating with allies or independently, Australia’s strategic weight will always be greater in maritime than land *operations. Our money would therefore be much better spent on critical maritime forces — submarines and aircraft — which would do more to both help our allies and to look after ourselves.
And a lighter army, with lighter, more readily deployable vehicles and more soldiers, like the army that has served us well till now, would be much better suited to the demands they are most likely to face in our immediate neighbourhood.
So Tony Abbott and his ministers face a tough choice when Land 400 goes up for their approval.
It is always hard to say “no” to a general who just wants to buy the best for the troops.
But faced with this argument the Prime Minister and his ministers have a duty to ask the hard questions. Is what the generals want necessarily best for the troops? And is it necessarily best for the country?
Hugh White is professor of strategic studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU.
