Australia yesterday announced an assertive new defense strategy, beefing up its long-range strike capabilities and cyberwarfare efforts amid escalating tensions with China.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison earmarked A$270 billion (US$187 billion) for new and upgraded defense capabilities over the next decade — a nearly 40 percent increase — saying that the defense force would significantly shift its focus to projecting military power across the Indo-Pacific region.
“We must face the reality that we have moved into a new and less benign strategic era,” Morrison said in a major policy speech, eyeing the end of unquestioned US hegemony and the rise of an increasingly assertive China.
“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,” he said.
The Australian government has committed to spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense — as US President Donald Trump has angrily demanded of allies — and plans to spend almost 40 percent more on weapons systems over the previous defense review in 2016.
The nation would acquire a more powerful strike capability that can hit targets thousands of kilometers from Australia, starting with the US’ AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile.
It would also invest in newer platforms such as drones, and boost research into hypersonic and direct energy weapons, such as lasers.
While acknowledging that the nation of 25 million people cannot match its rivals in the region — China officially plans to spend US$178 billion on defense this year alone — Morrison framed Australia as a regional power committed to an “open, sovereign Indo-Pacific, free from coercion and hegemony.”
Although Morrison said that Australia remains prepared to send troops farther afield “where it is in our national interest to do so,” he underscored that such actions could come at the cost of the nation’s ability to respond to threats in its own backyard.
Australia would significantly increase investment in defense space capabilities, including a network of satellites to create an independent communications network, Morrison said, calling it a “whole new theater” for the country, which recently launched its own space agency.
Cybersecurity is also critical to Australia’s defense strategy, he said, a day after announcing the “largest-ever” increase in cybersecurity spending — about a 10 percent hike that takes the budget for the next decade to A$15 billion.
The Australian government has said that the nation has been targeted in a wave of state-sponsored attacks suspected to have been carried out by China.
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