Potential missile consumption prompts urgent need for Indo-Pacific defence initiative

Few nations truly embraced the post-Cold War concept of a “Peace Dividend” and economic globalisation quite like Australia, with now well-documented and major implications on the nation’s industrial base, economic vitality and the corresponding implications on our national defence.

We have seen the major implications of this play out in other sectors of the national economy, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing’s trade tariffs and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, each of which have had marked impacts on the security and openness of the global economy and supply chains.

In particular, the ongoing Western support for Ukraine and the ongoing war in the Middle East has seen a rapid and dramatic constriction of critical supply chains for critical munitions, resulting in a dramatic depletion of “war stocks”, presenting significant challenges for security in the global context.

For Australia, there has been a recognition that the nation requires a rapid acceleration of our own multibillion dollar Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise, designed to see the transfer of critical knowledge, skills and manufacturing capacity to Australia to ensure that the Australian Defence Force has what it needs to win in a conflict.

While part of a broader modernisation and recapitalisation of our national defence capabilities and the nation’s defence industrial base, the GWEO program provides a foundation for establishing Australia as an “Arsenal of Democracy” in the Indo-Pacific, but it has to be implemented just right.

Bringing us conveniently to the concept of the Indo-Pacific Defence Initiative, or what was previously known as the Pacific Defence Initiative, a program modelled on the highly successful European Defense Initiative which emphasises the stockpiling of key consumables at tactical and strategic locations across the region to support US and allied combat operations.

Highlighting the opportunity posed by Adam Kozloski, non-resident senior fellow at the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, in a piece titled In a war against China, the US could quickly exhaust its weapons. A new Indo-Pacific defense initiative might be the answer, paving the way for broader conversation and consideration for developing an Indo-Pacific Defence Initiative and Australia’s own role in this opportunity.

VIEW ALL

Kozloski established the need for an Indo-Pacific Defense Initiative by setting the scene, saying, “What would happen if China launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at US forces in the Indo-Pacific? China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has invested extensively in its standoff capabilities and in a high-intensity conflict would be capable of inflicting severe damage on US and allied forces. Even if the United States is successful in winning such a war, this scenario runs the risk of a Pyrrhic victory for US forces, in which they are victorious but at the cost of being unable to contest a future conflict.”

Building and storing key consumables, maintenance and repair hubs in theatre

Both the Ukrainian and Middle East conflicts, particularly in the Red Sea, have highlighted just how rapidly key war stock consumables, like defensive and offensive precision guided munitions, will be consumed in any modern conflict, let alone the rate at which stocks would be consumed in a conflict with a near-peer, or in the case of China, peer competitor.

For Kozloski, this presents a significant challenge for both the US and allied forces that may be engaged in a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, which he explained, saying, “The most significant reason for this risk is sustainment – specifically, the speed at which US capabilities are replaced after use. This vulnerability is apparent across all theatres of conflict, however the Pacific Ocean makes timely resupply exceptionally difficult.”

Enter Australia, an island nation with the resources of a continent tactically and strategically located at the crossroads of both the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the gateway to sustainable, high-intensity combat and deterrence operations across the Indo-Pacific and throughout the western Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Importantly, this builds on Australia’s long-recognised position of tactical and strategic importance in the region, dating back to the Second World War when General Douglas MacArthur established his Pacific Theatre Headquarters in Melbourne and utilised Australia as a key linchpin in the campaign against Imperial Japan.

So in some ways, this becomes a case of “everything old, is new again”, as the saying goes.

Importantly for Australia, we have the opportunity to establish the nation as an anchor nation for the continuing economic, political and strategic security of the region, with truly transformative implications for the nation’s economy.

This becomes more important when we recognise the significance of the US industrial base, particularly when it relates to the manufacture of key war stock consumables, something Kozloski highlighted, saying, “The US Department of Defense has proposed to cease production on the workhorse block of these missiles (SM-3 missiles) in fiscal year 2025, while output on the more advanced variant remains stagnant at a dozen missiles per year.

“It is possible that with this single engagement, the United States exhausted a significant portion of its global stockpile of advanced interceptors. This poses an alarming reality of how munition depletion impacts not only the prosecution of war but overall allied deterrence against opportunistic actors such as China, North Korea, or Russia in starting a conflict.”

This unfortunate predicament stems from the overwhelming dependence of both the US and its allies on establishing and maintaining a qualitative edge over peer and near-peer adversaries, which contrasts with the balance between quality and quantity that the Chinese seem to have pursued in their own defence preparedness.

But how does Australia fill this role?

Building the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience

For Kozloski, this is where the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) comes into play, with Australia able to play a crucial role in the development of critical industrial scale and scope, with immense first, second and third order economic opportunities for Australia.

Kozloski explained this, saying, “For the United States, PIPIR also provides a unique benefit, as many Indo-Pacific partners are US military hardware and software customers and regularly train with US forces, ensuring familiarity with variants of US systems. The effort could also be a valuable forum to coordinate the various bilateral co-production efforts emerging across the region. These include possible co-production of artillery pieces with South Korea; missile and rocket systems, including Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, with Australia; hypersonic missile interceptors with Japan; and drones with Taiwan.”

This also builds on the work following the principles for Indo-Pacific Defense Industrial Base Collaboration and opens significant doors for Australia, particularly if we can get the ball rolling on the licensing agreements for critical munitions of all technical levels to provide a dependable and secure resupply point.

Critically, for Kozloski, this enhances the impact of pre-positioning critical consumables, saying, “While pre-positioned stockpiles are a critical unilateral way of reducing the burden of resupply in a hot conflict, they are not a cure-all for INDOPACOM’s logistical challenges. Pre-positioned stockpiles are targetable by adversaries and cannot, in a truly distributed force posture, be of sufficient size for the duration of a hot conflict. Moreover, the larger the stockpiles and a force’s reliance on them, the more damage their destruction would cause to its readiness.”

Here in lies the opportunity for Australia to leverage its abundance of raw resources, geographic proximity and our educational institutions which underpin the national workforce to deliver enhanced industrial capabilities and opportunities for Australian workers, whilst significantly increasing the nation’s deterrence capacity.

Kozloski hinted at this saying, “Here, co-production and the possible value of PIPIR to coordinate can genuinely shine by providing supplies that US forces could be capable of using beyond their existing regional stockpiles. Further, co-production in the region could reduce the lag time from production to delivery from weeks to days. Such cooperation would significantly mitigate the United States’ tyranny of distance challenge in parts of the Indo-Pacific and offset China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) advantages.”

Securing the success of this approach is of paramount importance for Kozloski, who emphasised, “To be effective, PIPIR should next focus on three important objectives: account for current capabilities and shortfalls, standardise critical weapon systems among participants, and receive assurances or private commitments for using such produced systems in a crisis.”

To leverage these opportunities, particularly the capacity to build a viable export industry, capable of supporting the demands of Australian and regional allies, we need to get the policy settings right, because if we don’t, we can wave goodbye to a truly transformative opportunity for our national economy and industrial base.

Final thoughts

Without sounding like a broken record, it is important to both understand and accept that Australians are going to be asked to confront and accept a number of uncomfortable realities in the coming years.

First and foremost, Australians will have to accept that while the world is increasingly becoming “multipolar”, the Indo-Pacific, in particular, is rapidly becoming the most hotly contested region in the world, and this will fundamentally reshape the position, role and security of the nation.

This period of multipolarity competition has been underpinned by the emerging economic, political, and strategic might of powers like China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the established and re-emerging capability of both South Korea and Japan, in particular, are serving to create a hotbed of competition on our doorstep.

Second, both the Australian public and our policymakers will have to accept that without a period of considered effort, investment and reform, or as I like to colloquially refer to it, our “Rocky montage” moment, current and future generations of Australians will be increasingly impoverished, living a nation pushed around by the region’s now rising powers.

Recognising this array of challenges and opportunities, both the Australian public and its policymakers need to look beyond the myopic lens of short-termism that has traditionally dominated our diplomatic, strategic, and economic policy making since Federation.

Again, as I have said multiple times before, we need to see Australia begin to play the long game to fully capitalise on the opportunities that are transforming the Indo-Pacific and working with our cross-ditch cousins provides an opportunity to really aggregate and combine our capabilities to maximise the outcomes for both nations.

The most important question now becomes, when will we see a more detailed analysis and response to the challenges and opportunities facing Australia, and when will we see both a narrative and strategy that better helps industry and the Australian public understand the challenges faced and opportunities we have presented before us?

As events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political, and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?

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..