Australia hikes arms budget
Canberra allots $185 billion for long-range missiles, space assets
BRISBANE—AUSTRALIA announced on Wednesday an assertive new defense strategy, beefing up its long-range strike capabilities and cyberwarfare efforts amid escalating tensions with China.
“We must face the reality that we have moved into a new and less benign strategic era,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a major policy speech at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra. “Even as we stare down the COVID pandemic at home, we need to also prepare for a POST-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous and that is more disorderly.”
Canberra has committed to spending at least two percent of gross domestic product on defense and plans to spend almost 40 percent more on weapons systems over the last defense review in 2016.
Morrison’s government has earmarked A$270 billion ($185 billion) for new and upgraded defense capabilities over the next decade, saying the defense force would significantly shift its focus to projecting military power across the Indo-pacific.
In February, the United States approved the sale of 200 Lockheed Martin Long Range Anti-ship Missiles to equip Australia’s fleet of 24 Boeing F/A18F Super Hornet jets for an estimated cost of $990 million.
It will also invest in newer platforms like drones, and boost research into hypersonic and direct energy weapons like lasers.
While acknowledging that Australia could not match the spending of its rivals in the region—china officially plans to spend $178 billion on defense in 2020 alone—morrison framed Australia as a regional power committed to an “open, sovereign Indo-pacific, free from coercion and hegemony.”
Though Morrison said Australia remains prepared to send troops further afield “where it is in our national interest to do so,” he underscored that could come at the cost of the country’s ability to respond to threats from and in its own backyard.
Policy shift
The announcement marks a significant shift in Australia’s defense posture and is expected to be interpreted as an effort to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the region.
Canberra’s new defense strategy follows Morrison’s “Pacific Step-up” policy—announced in 2018 to rebuild support among regional allies drifting toward Beijing—which has seen his government ramp up diplomatic engagement and offer greater financial aid to its developing neighbors.
“We want a region where all countries, large and small, can engage freely with each other, guided by international rules and norms,” he said Wednesday.
Morrison said Australia would also increase its spending on space capabilities—including a network of satellites to create an independent communications network—calling it a “whole new theatre” for the country, which recently launched its own space agency.
He also pinpointed cybersecurity as key to Australia’s defense strategy, a day after announcing the “largest-ever” boost in cybersecurity spending—a roughly 10 percent hike that takes the budget for the next decade to A$15 billion.
The government says Australia has been targeted in a wave of state-sponsored attacks, which are suspected to have been carried out by China.