Page 84 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2021

82 LAND FORCES TANKS
JUNE 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
necessary in the conflicts we’ve chosen to fight over the last few decades. Those are hardly ‘questionable assertions’.
Yes, Australian Special Forces fought alongside USMC tanks in Afghanistan and the ADF placed Leop- ard tanks on notice during the East Timor intervention in 1999. So why didn’t Australia take our own tanks to Afghanistan? And why exactly are Boxers, IFVs and other joint force assets insufficient for a situation like East Timor? And yes, other countries in the Indo-Pacific
ful enough for deterrence theory to apply would almost undoubtedly be verging on an exchange of nuclear war- heads – a scenario in which 59 tanks become redundant.
Finally, there is the argument that Australia cannot simply contribute forces of choice to wars of choice, and that believing we can ‘opt out’ of conflict is ‘naïve and dangerous’.
On the contrary, contributing forces of choice to wars of choice is almost exactly what Australia has done since WWII. And the suggestion that Australia cannot opt-out of conflict is arguably the most dangerous assertion to make in strategic affairs: it contradicts the basic maxim of choosing when and where to fight; it prevents critical as- sessments of political decisions to go to war; and it suggests that we do not have the sovereignty to decide for ourselves. Should Australia really have fought in Vietnam or Iraq? That’s a question all Australians have the right to ask.
To sum up: tanks have tactical utility but raise questions about the necessity of other armoured vehicles and are in- sufficiently justified in the context of the joint force; tanks appear to be ‘operationally unsuitable’ to the conflicts of the future and arguments for the operational utility of Australia’s tank fleet rely solely on evidence from other militaries; and the strategic defence for Australian tanks is weakened by deterrence theory in a nuclear-armed world and the troublesome assertion that the choice to go to war is a ‘luxury’ rather than a sovereign political and human decision.
So why do we need tanks? It’s a billion-dollar question. ■
ABOVE: Tanks still have a role to play in a combined arms environment but are they worth it?
“THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY, OF COURSE, IS NOT THE USMC AND CAN’T SIMPLY RELY ON THE US ARMY OR INDEED OTHER COALITION PARTNERS FOR OCCASIONS WHERE IT DOES NEED TANKS.”
have tanks; but they have different strategic outlooks and cannot form an ipso facto justification for an Australian tank fleet.
Third, if tanks are ‘necessary as part of combat operations regionally and globally’, why hasn’t the ADF used them on operations regionally and globally? The implication is that they are useful but not necessary.
Fourth, the claim that tanks are the foundation of credible land deter- rence for Australia raises the ques- tion of who exactly we’re deterring, what we’re deterring them from, and
how that deterrence is best achieved. Are we deterring China? If so, the ADF has 59 tanks; China has around 6,900. Are we deterring an invasion of Australia? If so, 59 tanks won’t cut it against any force powerful enough to mount amphibious operations this far south. In any case, isn’t deterrence best achieved through capabilities that prevent an adversary force from landing in the first place?
And if deterrence fails, any conflict of a scale that might see Australian tanks fighting an adversary power-
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