Page 24 - Australian Defence Mag March 2020

24 DEFENCE BUSINESS ADM CONGRESS
MARCH 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
“AIC IS CLEARLY A GOVERNMENT PRIORITY AND IT’S OUR PRIORITY. AND IT’S IN OUR BEST INTERESTS TO CONTINUE TO DO THAT.”
spending but certainly at a higher level of GDP than the US, although the US was spending more overall. Challeng- es remained in recruitment and in operational experience, but logistics and strategic mobility was improving.
Australia needed to consider how to defend against the threat of advanced long-range bombers and long-range stand-off weapons. China was also very advanced in the development of a full suite of soft-kill and hard-kill counter-space capabilities.
“They’re continuing to prepare for informatised war and I don’t think they’ll wait for ever to take Taiwan,” Dr Davis commented. “We need to prepare for the possibility that US- China competition will ultimately evolve into conflict and that could involve prolonged inter-state war.
“And that means that a steady-as-she goes approach in
terms of our defence planning where we continue to rely on the 2016 White Paper and the Integrated Investment Pro- gram as our basis going forward to the end of this coming decade is insufficient.”
Australia should be looking at shortening the life cycle of some capabilities in order to take advantage of new technolo- gies; considering an increase in defence expenditure, pos- sibly to more than four per cent of GDP; and strengthening defence ties within the region, particularly with Indonesia, to create a regional defence cooperation architecture that would counter-balance China’s rising power.
No ADM Congress would be complete without an enter- taining but informative look at the Defence budget by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and at ADM 2020 this was again delivered by Dr Marcus Hellyer.
Hellyer told delegates that Defence spending was currently at 1.96 per cent of GDP, up from 1.93 per cent when the bud- get was released last May and required another $2.5 billion to reach the Government’s target of two per cent of GDP in the 2020/2021 financial year.
“My view is that we’re going to get there,” he said.
After 2021, spending will need to increase up to 2.2 percent, in order to deliver the capabilities outlined in the 2016 White Paper. However, Hellyer warns that if Government caps Defence spending once it reaches the target in the next financial year a significant funding shortfall will result.