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Amid the recent political deliberations surrounding the B-21, Hugh White weighs up whether Australia should invest in the long-range strike program.
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With the B-21 expected to achieve operational capability between the mid-2020s and 2030s, some defence commentators have looked to the long-range stealth bomber as a fundamental tool in Australia’s deterrent arsenal. Perhaps an easy shortcut when some worst-case scenarios indicate that Australia would not receive nuclear submarines until the 2060s.
The fanfare surrounding the capability is understandable. Indeed, the B-21’s website bills the long-range strike capability “as the future of deterrence”.
Enter stage Professor Hugh White.
Writing in Lowy’s The Interpreter this week, Professor White cast doubt on whether the acquisition would be the most impactful way to achieve the Commonwealth’s strategic objectives.
While the opposition has openly supported the acquisition of such capabilities, the government has yet to rule a potential acquisition out. This has prompted Professor White to suggest that “the chances seem high” that the program might feature in the Defence Strategic Review.
In White’s hypothesis, the long-range strike capabilities will either be used to strike an adversary’s home — or alternatively destroy naval assets — both of which are insufficient justifications to support the acquisition of the B-21.
“One [use] is that we want the B-21s to be able to launch bombing attacks on China itself. That might be what Hastie is hinting at when he talks of holding an adversary at risk ‘beyond the archipelago to our north’,” Professor White observed.
This application of the B-21 to strike an enemy’s mainland — including one as big as China — would fail on two essential fronts.
“First, because the scale of attacks we could deliver with a small fleet of bombers against China itself would have little impact on a country of China’s size. It would not decisively degrade China’s military capacity, nor disrupt its society,” he argues.
“The prospect of such attacks would do little if anything to deter Chinese aggression. They would, however, be sure to provoke Chinese retaliation. That’s the second reason why buying B-21s to bomb China is a dumb idea. China will always be able to hit us a lot harder than we can hit them.”
Alternatively, Professor White observes that B-21s could be harnessed to destroy naval capabilities on the approach to Australia.
Though, if this is the strategic application of the B-21, it fails to pass budgetary constraints.
“Its highly specialised and very expensive capabilities are not needed to penetrate the much weaker air defences of a fleet at sea, or a forward operating base located somewhere such as in Solomon Islands,” he observes.
In this case, Professor White argues that Australia could alternatively expand its fleet of P-8s or acquire long-range land-based missiles.
Here, Professor White’s argument is simple — larger fleet of cheaper aircraft would be more cost effective than a limited fleet of B-21s.
“So why the sudden interest in the B-21? The answer is that the Australian defence community has fallen into the habit of thinking about our military forces not as practical tools to fight real wars, but as symbols of strategic intent,” Professor White observed.
In his analysis, this would thus send poor signals to the world. Rather than Australia making necessary changes to force capability or fundamental acquisitions, Australia opted to acquire a leading capability in smaller quantities as a statement piece.
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