I fully understand that it is an election year.
And with my limited knowledge I am very happy with the professionalism, skills and equipment of the ADF.
I have absolutely no idea on where extra funds could be obtained. Wrt drumbeat for all the services upcoming or existing builds, put on a night shift, is the best I've got I'm afraid.
So we are all lucky I am not involved in any of the above
I've said this a few times before - I don't think funding will be the limiting factor it was in the past. During an interbellum (like the one we've largely had for the past 30 years) it's appropriate to ration defence spending and make sure we preserve and build on core capabilities, but don't go overboard. What we should have been doing, and I presume have been doing, is planning contingencies to mobilise the broader resources of the nation to augment those core capabilities quickly and efficiently when things go south. Then the fiscal gloves should come off. Both sides of politics seem to be coming around to this.
Put it this way - when the COVID outbreak presented what was truly a national emergency in 2020, we happened to just find $125bn lying down the back of the lounge. We can do this if we need to. We are a very, very wealthy nation by global standards.
The challenge is what can we throw money at that would meaningfully enhance our capability and resilience in the space of a couple of years?
A couple of ideas:
1) Accelerating and enhancing upgrades of basing infrastructure (Manus, Port of Darwin, northern airbases, Cocos & Keeling).
2) Increased investment in sovereign munitions production. We already doing this, but we could do more. One of the things the current conflict in Ukraine seems to have shown us is that you can never have enough PGMs.
3) Buying more P-8s and possibly an extra squadron of F-35s - if we can find crews for them.
4) Buying more Abrams - if we can find crews for them.
5) Buying more MH-60Rs - if we can find crews for them.
6) Buying more Hawkeis. That production line is a major national asset and needs to be kept open indefinitely. As others have observed in the Australian Army thread we can generate light infantry in relatively short order, but Australia is a big place. We need to give them protection and something to ride around in. Build them and put them in a shed if needed.
7) Making a decision on LCH/LSTs and getting on with procurement. Compared to major combatants I would have thought this is something we could make good progress on quickly.
8) Fuel security. More tank farms like the one being built in Darwin, in more places. Probably a merchant marine to provide tanker support. We are vulnerable to having our supply of refined fuels disrupted. Is this inefficient? Yes. Is it necessary? Also yes.
9) Establish a national disaster response agency. Let the ADF focus on warfighting rather than cleaning up after floods.
There's 9 ideas off the top of my head. Some of them are non starters for reasons I don't appreciate (and I'm sure others will quickly point out to me) but if you were to increase the Defence budget by a relatively modest $5bn to $10bn p.a. (in the context of a c.$600bn p.a. budget) you could see a material improvement in capability over the next 3-5 years.
www.aspistrategist.org.au
The shipbuilding was devised to avoid a valley of death but senate concerns were that nuclear submarines may in fact now change this
www.aumanufacturing.com.au
