When Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles launched his country’s inaugural National Defense Strategy on Wednesday, he had an important message for partners and potential adversaries alike that tracks with Japan’s own stance: Australia’s defense activities will no longer be confined to its national borders.
"The geography of our national security ... does not lie on the coastline of our continent, it lies much farther afield,” Marles said in a speech, making Australia the latest U.S. ally to formally adopt a national security approach based on a “denial strategy” to address threats faster, farther away and alongside regional partners amid concerns over China’s assertiveness and rapid military build-up.
"An invasion of Australia is an unlikely prospect in any scenario precisely because so much damage can be done by an adversary without ever having to step foot on Australian soil,” Marles emphasized, highlighting the importance of safeguarding “the rules of the road at sea” to protect the country’s economic lifelines to the region and world.
To make sure that the “global rules-based order” is “preeminent and respected,” the minister said that Canberra’s top objective will be to transform the Australian military from a force with many missions to one that is integrated and focused on deterrence and amphibious warfighting in the Indo-Pacific amid an increased risk of crises or conflict in the Taiwan Strait, at the Sino-Indian border as well as in the East and South China seas.
The strategy’s main goal, which involves working with the U.S. and key partners such as Japan, is to change a potential adversary’s belief that it could achieve its ambitions with military force at an acceptable cost. In addition, by signaling “a credible ability” to hold potential adversary forces at risk, Canberra hopes to deter attempts to coerce Australia through force.
To achieve this, the new strategy lays out six immediate priorities: advancing acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, buying and manufacturing long-range missiles, building up military bases in the country’s north, improving workforce pay and conditions, boosting innovation and prioritizing regional partnerships.
Key to the new effort will be a planned defense spending increase of 50 billion Australian dollars ($31.9 billion) over the next decade to ensure that the country can project military power farther from its shores.
According to a second document released Wednesday, the Integrated Investment Program — the increase — will see the defense budget grow to more than AU$100 billion by 2033-34 and includes AU$1 billion for autonomous drones, long-range missiles and targeting systems.
At the same time, the government plans to cut, delay or change the scope of some existing defense programs, including postponing the possible acquisition of a fourth squadron of F-35 fighter aircraft.
The aim is to redirect about AU$73 billion over the same period to make the Australian Defence Force more mobile and amphibious as it places a greater emphasis on maritime capabilities.
This includes fielding an army optimized for littoral operations, a more capable air force, stronger cyber and space capabilities as well as larger and more lethal navy. For instance, Canberra plans to spend AU$53 billion to $63 billion over the next decade on the AUKUS submarine program (including supporting infrastructure) and AU$28 billion to $35 billion on new long-range munitions, including Tomahawk missiles.
The strategy also envisages Australia working even more closely with its ally, the United States, as well as key strategic partners such as New Zealand, South Korea, India, Britain and Japan.
When it comes to ties with Tokyo, there are plans to expand both bilateral and multilateral cooperation, deepen consultation on regional contingencies and boost collaboration on defense innovation, science and technology.
Furthermore, Canberra aims to enhance high-end interoperability between the Australian Defence Force and the Self-Defense Forces, including by advancing cooperation in key areas such as integrated air and missile defense, counterstrike and undersea warfare, and by increasing Japan’s participation in joint exercises and other military initiatives in Australia.
Canberra’s new defense strategy was welcomed by Tokyo, with the SDF’s top uniformed officer, Chief of Staff Yoshihide Yoshida, noting it comes at a time “when the forces that seek to change the status quo by force and the forces that seek to maintain the rules-based international order are competing against each other.”
Yoshida said the strategic partners’ similar understanding of the current security environment means that Tokyo and Canberra will be moving “very much in step” as they look to deepen interoperability, and expand joint training and surveillance missions.
“I think that such opportunities will increase in the future, whether it is Japan-Australia, Japan-U.S., or even ones involving third countries,” Yoshida added.
The general’s remarks indicate that both countries — each of which sits at the end of international supply lines — have come to realize that national security can no longer focus merely on defending the geographic homeland, but instead needs to reach well beyond territorial waters.
“As military technology advances and China’s security posture presses further into both the maritime space of the nations of Asia and the Pacific, Tokyo and Canberra see their long supply lines challenged,” said Rodger Baker, head of the Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at intelligence firm RANE.
This explains why the countries’ strategic assessments of the regional environment are nearly identical, with Australia calling the security situation the “most dangerous seen since the end of World War II.”
“Both partners agree that only through collective efforts across all vectors of statecraft, including defense, can a favorable regional order be preserved, and that deterrence by denial — making the costs of potential Chinese military action too great for Beijing to consider — is the best strategy for achieving this,” said Tom Corben, a defense and foreign policy expert at the United States Studies Center in Sydney.
According to Corben, Australia-Japan bilateral joint statements frequently cast their cooperation in the broader context of multilateral defense activities, which he said highlights an evolving “denial strategy” to better expose, track and, potentially, hold at-risk Chinese maritime assets.
As a result, there is also much symmetry between Tokyo and Canberra in terms of plans for multidomain operations, the acquisition of drones, long-range missiles and other asymmetric capabilities to offset certain Chinese military advantages.
The partners have also found themselves on the same page in terms of the need to bolster individual and collective deterrence and, in particular, their commitment to trilateral cooperation with the U.S.
“As close bilateral strategic partners, Australia and Japan remain staunch American allies, with their fates intertwined in the face of a shared threat environment,” said Thomas Wilkins, a security expert and associate professor at The University of Sydney.
Wilkins says both countries feel they have no other option but to increase their respective national efforts to buttress the U.S. position in the Indo-Pacific and insure against any future reduction or refocus of American assets in the region, as only through coordinated action can they hope to uphold the current international order.
As a result, many of the capabilities being developed by Canberra and Tokyo contribute to their alliance with Washington, either in terms of supporting the projection of American military power, or assuming tasks that U.S. forces were originally responsible for, thus freeing up American capabilities for use elsewhere, he said.
“These two countries recognize that Chinese military power is growing while U.S. military power in Asia is in relative decline, but they do not consider the Indo-Pacific power balance equation to be a binary between Beijing and Washington,” Corben said.
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