Page 4 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2022

4 EDITORIAL
NOVEMBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE DEFENCE FORCE
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
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AS I WRITE these words on the eve of the Albanese Government’s first budget, I’m mindful of the pressures on defence spending – both internally and externally.
From an external point of view, rising interest rates and worsening rates of exchange mean the cost of acquiring capability from overseas – and the US in particular – is much less favourable now than when the decision to acquire it was made. This, coupled with insane energy bills and an increasing cost of living, may mean defence spending is looked upon by the general public more critically than it was even a year ago.
Minister Richard Marles has promised that SkyGuardian will be reconsidered as part of the Albanese Government’s forthcoming Defence Strategic Review and he has also promised continued funding for the nuclear-powered submarine.
But Army appears the potential loser here – a fact not lost on its senior lead- ership, which considers 300 IFVs to be wholly inadequate to support its combined arms approach to modern warfare. There has also been debate in public circles about the need for main battle tanks – a capability Australia has not deployed on operations since the Vietnam War.
To put it simply, Army feels threatened.
At ADM’s Congress in June, then-Acting Head Land Capability Brigadier Ian Lang- ford made the point that 450 IFVs were essential for Army to transport a combat force of 3,000 soldiers into battle, while affording them protection.
“As a first-world nation, the acquisition of both tanks and IFVs reflect on a nation that understands it must conduct these inherently dangerous roles but that it also places high value on protecting the lives of the soldiers that it asks so much from in high threat environments,” he said.
This point has been echoed by the current Acting Head Land Capability, Major Gen- eral Jeremy King and you can read excerpts from his interview with ADM at the recent Land Forces 2022 exposition on page 18 of this issue. A full transcript of the conversa- tion is also available on our website.
As we closed for press in late October De- fence announced it is seeking an ‘expanded’ fleet of C-130J airlifters – possibly as many as 24 – to replace the RAAF’s ageing fleet; and the Air Force also wants more F-35As, to take the number up to the 100 originally planned.
Both of these will place additional pressure on the defence budget and Army knows it has to shore up government support if its planned capability acquisitions are to survive.
Watch this space.
Internally too there are pressures. The Morrison Government’s decision in March to carve ten billion dollars from the defence budget over a decade to fund the Australian Signals Directorate’s REDSPICE (Resilience – Effects – Defence – Space – Intelligence – Cyber – Enablers) program has already had a detrimental
“THE REDSPICE FUNDING HAS NEVERTHELESS PUNCHED A LARGE HOLE IN THE BUCKET OF MONEY AVAILABLE FOR DEFENCE”
effect on capability acquisition programs. While the need to properly fund Australia’s cyber defence (and attack) capability is understood – and underscored recently by the criminal cyber attacks on Optus, Medibank Private and EnergyAustralia – the REDSPICE funding has nevertheless punched a large hole in
the bucket of money available for Defence. Already, Air Force has lost its $1.3 billion MQ-9B SkyGuardian armed UAS – a cancellation directly attributable to the need to fund REDSPICE to the tune of $4.4 billion over the forward estimates period. Perhaps unrelated, but Army also has seen the number of Infantry Fighting Vehicles being acquired under Land 400 Phase 3 possibly cut to 300 (albeit with future options
for more vehicles in increments of 50).
To be fair, Deputy PM and Defence