Australia and Integrated Missile Defense: Key Elements for the Strategic Quadrangle

By SLD Team

In our book on Pacific strategy and Pacific defense, we focused on ways the allies might work together to shape more common capabilities in the strategic quadrangle to deal with the outward push of the PLA and the Chinese leadership into the Pacific.

The strategic quadrangle— is a key area into which such power needs to be projected. The Korean peninsula is a key part of this quadrangle, and the festering threat from North Korea reaches out significantly farther than the peninsula itself.

The continent of Australia anchors the western Pacific and provides a key ally for the United States in shaping ways to deal with various threats in the Pacific, including the PRC reach deeper into the Pacific with PRC forces.

Strategic Quadrangle

Singapore is a key element of the quadrangle and provides a key ally for the United States and others in the region.

A central pressure in the region is that each of the key allies in the region works more effectively with the United States than they do with each other. This is why the United States is a key lynchpin in providing cross linkages and cross capabilities within the region. But it is clear that over time a thickening of these regional linkages will be essential to an effective 21st-century Pacific strategy.

But the United States with its strategic depth can be the only counter to the PRC pushing out from the mainland into the Pacific. The only other ally in the region with any strategic depth is Australia. As one senior Australian policy maker put it to us: “There are 400,000 people in the Western territories. If you want to invade Australia, you have to cross more than 2,000 miles of crocodiles and snakes to get the major metropolitan areas of Australia.”

Laird, Robbin; Timperlake, Edward; Weitz, Richard (2013-10-28). Rebuilding American Military Power in the Pacific: A 21st-Century Strategy: A 21st-Century Strategy (Praeger Security International) (pp. 19-20). ABC-CLIO. Kindle Edition.

In a recent piece by the head of the MDAA, Riki Ellison, the role of Australia in crafting a broader missile defense network was highlighted following a trip “Down Under.”

“Down under in the Southern Hemisphere is a continent and country the size of America that is strategically placed between the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Malayka and the Tasman Sea.

It has a population of over 23 million, one-fourteenth the population of America, but with a geographic territory similar in size to the United States.

Australia is a democracy that has fought for freedoms beyond themselves and sacrificed alongside the United States of America in every major conflict of the past century. Australians continue to display this staunch national characteristic today with the United States in Afghanistan against the Taliban and in Syria and Iraq against ISIS.

They are a vast rugged country with abundant natural resources and a diverse population that is a significant player and power in the southern hemisphere.

Australian national interests in the region involve humanitarian aid and defense security to stabilize and prevent conflict in a world around them that has become increasingly complex. Australia’s commitment around the world in allied missions and in their national security interests remains intertwined and solidly aligned with the United States.

China is both the regional hegemonic military power and the dominate consumer for Australian resource commodities that requires a sensitivity, friendly trade policies and overt statements by Prime Ministers and Parliaments.

With this challenging balance, Australia and its new government led by Prime Minster Turnbull stands strongly behind the strategic underpinning of established global rules. It is of note that Australia has been the loudest international critic other than the United States with statements condemning China’s recent aggressive actions in the South China Sea and Spratly Islands.

Each year Australia’s government in power and their department of defense releases a annual White Paper on their national security, budget, status and vision. The recently released 2016 Australian white paper last month called for an increase to the defense budget, swelling defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2020-21, which equates to a $195 Billion over ten years.

Most importantly this White Paper is the first time that Australia has addressed its needs and reasons for Missile Defense.

Excerpt from Australia’s 2016 White Paper:

Missile Defence

4.47 The Government is concerned by the growing threat posed by ballistic and cruise missile capability and their proliferation in the Indo-Pacific and Middle East regions. While the threat of an intercontinental ballistic missile attack on Australia is low, longer-range and submarine-launched ballistic and cruise missiles could threaten Australian territory, and shorter-range ballistic and cruise missiles pose a threat to our deployed forces.

4.48 Australia is committed to working with the United States to counter the ballistic missile threat. Australia and the United States have established a bilateral working group to examine options for potential Australian contributions to integrated air and missile defence in the region. Australia’s priorities for the working group are to develop a more detailed understanding of options to protect our forces which are deployed in the region from ballistic missile attack.

4.49 The Government will upgrade the ADF’s existing air defence surveillance system, including command, control and communications systems, sensors and targeting systems, which could be used as a foundation for development of deployed, in-theatre missile defence capabilities, should future strategic circumstances require it. The Government will also acquire new ground-based radars from around 2020 and will expand Australia’s access to situational awareness information, including space-based systems.

Amongst the many options the Australians are considering to increase integrated air and missile defense  with the United States are with their three new Hobart Class Destroyers and 9 Frigates.

This would encompass both baseline 9 and future baseline 10 systems that would enable linkage and intercept capabilities such as SM6s and SM3s similar to U.S. Ships that would exponentially increase expansion of defended areas with launch and or engage on remote from these ships from both nations.

In alignment with sharing the burden and responsibility of strengthening the underpinning of strategic deterrence in the Pacific, Australia would join the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea on integrated air and missile defense leveraging sea based ship platforms and common interoperable capabilities they provide.

It is the best practice solution with the most efficiency to produce and deploy joint capability requirements to defend against rouge nations like North Korea that disrupt the region and help underpin strategic deterrence in the Pacific.”

 

 

 

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