Red alert! ADF unable to cope with increasingly likely conflict

Let me begin this piece by saying unequivocally, I am not attacking the men and women who step forward to serve and protect this great nation we call home.

Much like many comparable Western nations, Australia is finding it increasingly difficult to generate the manpower necessary to meet the basic requirements of national security in an increasingly precarious time and region in international affairs.

We have, in recent months, heard a number of times that even formally great powers like the United Kingdom and Germany are struggling to generate the military power necessary to sustain tactical and strategic supremacy over potential peer competitors, like Russia.

Meanwhile, the United States, the foundation stone of much of the Western World’s strategic posture, is showing signs of increasing frailty both at home and abroad, as the once unassailable hyperpower is torn between a growing number of global hotspots, increasingly capable peer competitors, and mounting domestic division.

In stark contrast to the malaise that now characterises Western military planning, ambitious, autocratic powers – namely Russia, China, Iran, and a myriad of supporting “counter-post Second World War order” nations – are redoubling their efforts and their capacity to exercise military might in order to achieve their objectives and secure their interests.

For Australia, a nation and a people uniquely isolated in many ways from the harsh reality of devastating conflagration, particularly those that have shaped much of modern history and the current global geostrategic and geopolitical morass, this spells danger.

Highlighting this, Charles Miranda of The Daily Telegraph, in a piece titled, Australian Defence Force losing more people than it is recruiting, detailed the continued deterioration of Australia’s defence capabilities.

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Like a frog slowly boiling away

It is safe to say that in many ways, Australia is the proverbial frog that is happily sitting in a pot of water that is slowly boiling, completely oblivious to its inevitable demise.

Highlighting this, Miranda established an important basis for understanding this predicament, stating, “More men and women are marching out of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) than targets to recruit, despite ‘critical’ need to swell the ranks to their biggest levels since the Vietnam War...

“On Wednesday it will be 12 months since the release of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) that warned our defences were not fit for purpose as the nation faced its most challenging security outlook in 80 years. Just how we got here spans several governments, but never has the Defence establishment been more at loggerheads with the government over the strategic outlook than now.

“And that leaves Australia’s defence mired in delays, indecision and endless reviews,” Miranda explained.

Now true, none of this is new to anybody even remotely initiated in the intricacies, eccentricities, and inherent chaos that seemingly characterises Australia’s defence decision-making apparatus and the policymakers elected to set the policy agenda and direction of the nation and its national interests.

Yet, content like this is important for the “normies” in Australian society who, through no fault of their own, are removed from the rapidly devolving geopolitical and strategic situation we now find ourselves in.

One can hardly blame average Australians for being disconnected from these issues, particularly when they face mounting cost-of-living pressures, the day-to-day challenges of balancing work, family and all of the other things that take up our time.

This only reinforced by an understanding that for many Australians, they expect that our elected policymakers and our public servants will do what is necessary to deliver what is required to defend the nation and its interests, and most importantly, take it seriously.

However, as Miranda stated, this couldn’t be further from the truth, “Month on month more troops are quitting than are being recruited, personnel shortages are seeing ships going less out to sea, outdated army armoured vehicles are not fit for conflict and continued delays in signing off new weapons purchases is seeing the local defence manufacture and supply industry in free fall.

“Despite this and contrary to the military’s own dictum, the collective lack of any sense of urgency is putting the nation at risk; Marles has conceded, ‘We do need to be moving at a faster pace and we will’. This year Australia was ranked 16 in the top 50 strongest militaries in the world and 13th in military spending with an annual budget of about AU$53 billion,” Miranda explained.

Yet despite this immense spending, the needle appears to have moved little in the way of generating actual tangible capability for the Australian Defence Force.

Posing an important question to Marcus Hellyer, Miranda asked if Australia could actually cope with the realities of a modern conflict, with Hellyer painting a sobering picture, “The short answer is no.”

Wars of choice v Wars of necessity

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Australia has primarily been engaged in what is colloquially known as “wars of choice”, that is campaigns like the first and second Gulf Wars, the invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, peacekeeping operations throughout our immediate region, and other such missions.

However, now, our capacity to engage even in these “wars of choice” have left a question mark over the Australian Defence Force.

Highlighting this, Hellyer explained, “We can’t even send a small contribution away to wars of choice, like to the Red Sea for the Houthis, can’t send a warship because we either don’t have anything available or they are not equipped to deal with the kind of threats that they would be facing. A couple of years ago, we might have been able to but it is getting worse.

“I think we are really in a very bad situation. The Air Force isn’t too bad certainly in its platform but in terms of munitions, it is going to run short of munitions very quickly because we have only started to get (long-range missiles), Navy is an ageing fleet and we are one serious accident away from the Collins (submarine) capability being shelved … the Army is a bit all over the place and it is still not entirely clear what is the role of the Army, and if you don’t really know that, how do you plan for it?” Hellyer explained to Miranda.

Adding further colour to this predicament is Dr Matthew Sussex of the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, who explained to Miranda, “I don’t think there is any question that a determined adversary would easily triumph over Australia if it wanted to invade us but that would be true regardless whether we are well equipped or not.

Going further, Dr Sussex added, “The ADF is simply not big enough so anything we do has to be in partnership with other countries. It’s whether or not we can provide the kind of capabilities they need to put together a package like securing the South China Sea, securing the Straits of Malacca or whether it’s securing our own borders.”

For the aforementioned “normies” across Australia, these details should send shivers down spines, particularly as we shift from the era of “wars of choice” to an era of “wars of necessity” where the outcome will dictate the direction, stability, and prosperity of our nation and our daily lives.

Final thoughts

The rapidly deteriorating geopolitical and strategic environment that is transforming the global and regional security paradigm requires a realistic analysis and assessment by Australia’s policymakers.

Equally, while taking shortcuts to end up with 50 per cent of something, as opposed to 100 per cent of nothing, as proposed by the government is an admirable goal. However, ultimately, it will only prove more costly in the long run as we scramble to rapidly develop high-end warfighting capability.

Equally, both the Australian government and the Australian public have to accept and understand that we will need to dramatically increase spending in our national defence and do so over the long term, rather than short-term sugar hits or sleight of hand that push money out over the forward estimates and allow inflation to account for “increases” in spending, despite there being little-to-no new money in real terms.

Ultimately, all of this comes back to the government’s shift away from a “Balanced Force” towards “Focused Force” as championed in the Defence Strategic Review and the foundational problem that is our lack of clearly defined role and objectives for our own defence capabilities and the nation more broadly.

This reality equally fails to account for the planned increase in ADF personnel by 2040 and places ultimate hope in a series of as yet to be developed “wunderwaffe” or wonder weapons, like autonomous systems, cyber or tactical weapons like HIMARs and others that are being shoehorned into fulfilling “strategic” roles to provide both “impactful projection” and deterrence against “any potential adversary”.

Importantly, no one has said that defending the nation in this era of renewed and increasingly capable great power competition will be cheap or easy and we have to accept that uncomfortable reality.

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..