Equipping Australia’s armed forces – equipping for future wars by Gregor Ferguson






Our editorial series – Equipping Australia’s armed forces – asks what war are we preparing for, are we buying the right equipment, is Defence agile enough to be making the right decisions, and is it communicating its strategies with the public. Dr Gregor Ferguson asks the hard questions.

So let’s start with the headline figure: Defence plans to spend $270 billion over about 10 years to begin replacing everything the ADF operates that’s more than about a decade old today.

The Australian taxpayer will become the proud owner of fleets of new armoured vehicles, submarines and frigates, new long-range precision guided missiles, new attack helicopters and a whole bunch of other things.

We already have one of the youngest air forces in the world, one that’s capable of supporting coalition operations anywhere in the world.

And next year the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will stand up a new Space Division.

But what does it all mean? Are we actually going to use this stuff? Is it actually the equipment we need?

You’d never know from listening to Defence, because Defence has been told firmly by its new Minister to say nothing – or, at least, as little as possible.

Which is a shame, because it means the narrative around Defence will be dominated by its critics and they will create and nurture what becomes the conventional wisdom around defence capabilities and defence projects – especially the contentious ones.

What does Australia’snext war look like? Arguably, we’re fighting it already, in the so-called ‘Grey Zone’: this is a war of cyber attacks, deep fakes and propaganda that’s designed to reduce a nation’s will and capacity to resist an enemy hell-bent on regional, or even world, domination.

It’s designed to break up a national consensus, reduce the population’s trust in its elected leaders, fragment the community. We’re starting to develop the tools, techniques and workforce to fight back.

If war is already under way, what about wars that follow that?

They won’t be like any conflict we’ve seen before, we are told.

The armchair experts reckon we haven’t got the right equipment, we’re not planning to buy the right equipment and nothing we’re buying will arrive in time anyway. And we won’t have enough of it.

That’s all debatable, but Defence has decided to keep silent and not engage in debate.

Australia faces a couple of problems. Firstly, our strategic circumstances are changing faster now than they have since World War 2 – the ADF needs to be able to identify threats and respond to them faster.

Secondly, Defence’s bureaucracy needs to be able to keep up.

Defence says we’re actually getting most of what it thinks we’ll need. Maybe, but its decision-making and acquisition processes aren’t fast enough.

We need both structural change, to speed up those internal processes, and a cultural change to enable faster decisions with the devolved responsibility and higher risk tolerance characteristic of fast-moving organisations.

Defence’s under-heralded 2020 Transformation Strategy acknowledges this. But lasting cultural change will take years.

Anyway, potential threats won’t evaporate magically 10 years from now, so stuff we’re ordering today like cyber security equipment, smart, high-speed, long-range missiles, ships, submarines and armoured vehicles still need to be relevant and effective in 30 or 40 years’ time.

And the imperatives of self-reliance and independence from fragile global supply chains won’t change, so we need to do more in-country – not just today, but forever.

Social media is full of quick, simple solutions to Defence’s problems. But in reality there aren’t any.

And that’s why Defence needs to engage – to explain, defend and justify what it does, or it will lose the narrative entirely: the conventional wisdom about Defence, about its ability to protect Australians and spend their money wisely, will be created and nurtured by the critics, haters and ratbags.

Defence’s leadership shouldn’t be leaving this space uncontested.

Gregor Ferguson is director of Project Alpha Plus, a defence and innovation analyst, consultant and communicator who has worked in the defence media and industry for more than 30 years. His Ph.D is in defence industry innovation.

@AuManufacturing’s editorial series – equipping Australia’s armed forces – is brought to you with the support of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Picture: Dr Gregor Ferguson

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