Australia to spend billions upgrading its armed forces

AUSTRALIA will boost its defence forces by some 30 per cent by 2040, its prime minister said yesterday, describing it as the country’s largest military build-up in peacetime.

Its forces would grow by 18,500 personnel to 80,000, at a cost of A$38billion (£21billion), Scott Morrison said at an army barracks in Brisbane.

Mr Morrison, who is expected to call a general election in May, told a news conference the build-up was a recognition of the “threats and the environment that we face as a country, as a liberal democracy in the Indo-pacific”.

He said some of the new troops would support a future nuclear-powered submarine fleet armed with conventional weapons.

Peter Dutton, the defence minister, said the build-up, to be focused on uniformed troops, would provide a credible deterrent to expansionist threats.

Beyond submarines, the new forces would be deployed in areas including space, cyber operations, naval assets, and land and sea-based autonomous vehicles, Mr Dutton said.

“People who believe that President Putin’s only ambition is for Ukraine don’t understand the history that our military leaders understand.”

The defence minister reiterated warnings about the strategic threat to Australia in the Asia-pacific region, where China is flexing its increased power.

“If people think that the ambitions within the Indo-pacific are restricted just to Taiwan and there won’t be knock-on impacts if we don’t provide a deterrent effect and work closely with our colleagues and with our allies, then they don’t understand the lessons of history,” Mr Dutton said.