By Robbin Laird

During my time in Canberra during August 2018, one key point of conversation was the question of the impact of the evolution of Europe on Australian policies, and policy flexibility.

The uncertainty hanging over Europe with regard to Brexit and the UK’s role in Europe, plus the centripetal forces operating on Europe, raised fundamental questions of the nature of European policies and defense capabilities going forward in the decade ahead.

It is clear that the Australians are looking to diversify their alliance relationships, even while maintaining the central relationship with the United States, clearly Japan and Europe are more important but the dynamics of change affecting Europe is a key variable affecting Australian options.

The presentation by Air Marshal S D Atha, Deputy Commander of Operations for the RAF, avoided a discussion of Brexit or Europe more generally.

What he focused on was the strategic shift from the land wars to engaging with peer competitors.

He underscored how the flexibility demonstrated by Western airpower over the past decade and a half in the counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East actually has led to a de-emphasis on the core function from a national point of view, which is deterrence of a peer competitor, and in the British case this was clearly Russia.

He noted that with the celebration of the 100^thanniversary of the RAF, the refocus on the deterrence mission was central to British thinking.

The RAF is engaged in a number of Article V activities such as air policing in the Baltics and most recently in Romania.

He underscored that the ability to forward deploy and support allies provided for a key deterrent function, mainly, to deflect adversary actions.

He argued that deterrence obviously required have a punishment capability associated with it, and although he did not use the term crisis management, he clearly had in mind the key role of an ability to deny adversary objectives.

Airpower plays a crucial role in this function because of its ability to operate rapidly and over distance.

He argued that the RAF and the RAAF now flying common platforms, notably the F-35 and the P-8, could enhance their interoperability.  The two Air Forces had much in common, including historically.

But moving forward they shared some common approaches to deterrence as well.

He did distinguish between the two air forces with regard to the question of building a fifth-generation force.

The Aussies are clearly moving from 4^thto 5^thgeneration and rebuilding their force around the new F-35 capabilities; according to the Air Marshal, they thought this put too much emphasis on a single platform and they will be flying Typhoons for several years as well as working on building a new air platform as well.

The Air Marshal emphasized a number of key capabilities which needed to be enhanced in the period ahead to have a more effective deterrent structure.

First was an ability to have much more effective mobile basing.  With the coming of the F-35B as well as the Queen Elizabeth carriers, a new approach to mobility was being injected into the RAF.

Second, how best to interconnect 5^thgeneration aircraft with 4^thgeneration aircraft?

The RAF clearly has an approach evolving between Typhoon and F-35 but the overall challenge will be to shape ways for overall force capabilities to be enhanced as the new air system is introduced.

Third, from a deterrent perspective, how best to ensure that coalition forces can work together in a networked environment?

He did not put it quite this way but the question on the table certainly with regard to crisis management is how does C2 work with a coalition force of variant possibilities?

Personally, I think this question is a key one, but I also think that the fifth generation forces will do operations separate from those allies which simply do not have those capabilities, not the least of which such a force can deliver much more lethal impact with significantly less deployed force than can a legacy one.

At the last seminar, Air Chief Marshal Stephen Hillier provided an overview of how the RAF sees the way ahead with which Air Marshal Atha provided a very helpful update.

But then as I said right at the start, I don’t believe that what I’ve described can be bracketed within a particular geography.

“The challenges I’ve described are truly global and truly common to us all. I believe that airpower’s inherent characteristics and capabilities make it especially able to respond effectively to those challenges.”

A clear driver of the shift is that airpower advantage will have to be fought for and not assumed. 

And his way ahead focused very much on leveraging what new platforms we are acquiring but to build out from them to shape new ways ahead to regain strategic advantage.

“But the asymmetric advantage airpower has given us for the last three decades at least, is narrowing.

“The integration into our air forces of fifth generation capabilities such as the F-35 Lighting will only redress the delta to a degree.

“Of equal importance in maintaining our combat edge is this ability to manage vast amounts of information, and make decisions more quickly and more accurately.

“Technological developments will be a key element in ensuring that the lever of the best possible output from our air and space platforms, but our C2 structures, processes, and approach to information sharing will be a decisive factor.”

https://sldinfo.com/2018/04/shaping-a-way-ahead-the-perspective-of-air-chief-marshal-stephen-john-hillier-the-royal-air-force/

Despite the similarities between the RAF and the RAAF, there is a clear difference with regard to their approach to fifth generation aircraft, at least in terms of how policy is stated.

For the RAAF, the F-35 is being leveraged to configure a very different force and they are not looking to the next generation tactical aircraft.  They may well consider ways to deploy longer range strike on a new platform, whether it be a bomber or something like an A400M.  There focus is clearly on fifth generation enablement of an offensive-defensive strike enterprise.

For the RAF, the government is already shaping a new air combat strategy built around building another tactical fighter.  This will be challenging on several dimensions, but the Aussies prefer to invest in ADF force integration and development rather than a next generation fighter.

Put in stark terms, the Aussies are retiring their fourth generation aircraft; the RAF is modernizing them.

The RAF and RAAF are on complimentary path in some dimensions but a divergent one on others.

Britain is a nuclear power; Australia is not and this has an impact as well on approaches to deterrence of an authoritarian adversary.

It is clear that the British contribution to the Williams Foundation seminars has been a steady and important one over the past few years and will provide an important input to Australian thinking about the way ahead with regard to their own approach to deterrence.

By Robbin Laird

On August 23, 2018, the Williams Foundation held its latest seminar, this one on independent strike. The seminar represents a next phase of examination of the way ahead for the ADF.

Over the past five years, the seminars have focused on the introduction of the F-35 and the generation of new opportunities to shape a fifth-generation combat force.

And the seminars have built out the concept and approach to crafting such a force.

A key question addressed in these seminars was how best to build an integrated force which could go beyond a platform centric approach?

How best to shape a multi-domain force capable of operating throughout the spectrum of warfare?

During the 2018 seminars, the focus shifted from building the force to the conditions in which that force would operate in the period ahead.

How to shape an effective deterrent strategy for higher end conflict and crisis management?

Put in other words, the focus shifted from the acquisition of new platforms and to the process of shaping a more integrated force, to the environment in which that force will operate and shape demands for enhanced deterrent effects from the force.

The seminar in March 2018 addressed the strategic shift and its consequences for the warfighting approach for the ADF and the core allies for Australia.

And with the August seminar, the question broadened to begin an examination of new means to enhance sovereign options as part of an evolving deterrent strategy.

As such, the August seminar began a process of looking at the evolution of Australian defense capabilities through a sovereign lens.

The seminar provided a series of snapshots of how best to understand the challenge and how to shape a way ahead to provide for enhanced sovereign options.

The morning session broadly looked at the question of deterrence in the period of the strategic shift and how the ADF might operate effectively to provide for deterrent options. Several questions were framed as tasks to be worked in the period ahead, notably in terms of nuclear threats, and evolving capabilities and strategies of competitors as well as evolving approaches and interests of key allies.

The afternoon sessions addressed the evolving environment within which strike systems themselves were evolving. Notably, with a fifth-generation force fundamentally changing the sensor-shooter relationship how best to incorporate new strike capabilities?

How best to leverage diverse platforms or capabilities within which strike could be more effective in playing a deterrent function?

A key question on the table was how best for Australia to shape its strike portfolio, lethal and non-lethal, as well as the question of how best to deliver such strike, from land, sea and the air.

What are the best ways to deliver effective deterrent strike for an evolving fifth generation force and how best to do so to ensure the defense of Australia within an effective alliance structure?

Next year’s seminars will continue to focus on the question of how best to evolve Australian defense capabilities from the standpoint of enhanced Australian sovereignty, undoubtedly a key element to be addressed in any future Australian defense white paper as well.

Certainly, a key question facing Australia is how best to build out its strike capabilities and within this effort, how might a missile industry might well be developed to enhance the sustainability and capability of the force.

And as geography returns as a key element in the defense of Australia, how might basing and mobility be introduced as key capabilities in the North and West of Australia?

While a work in progress, clearly considering sovereign options and building them into the evolving force is a key consideration for Australia and the ADF going forward.

In my interview with the Chairman of the Williams Foundation after the seminar, he highlighted a number of the key issues raised by the seminar which will inform the discussion about the way ahead.

Question: How do you view the way ahead with regard to the evolution of the ADF to provide a wider range of sovereign options?

Air Marshal (Retired) Brown: The Defence White Paper of 2016 guides the current modernization effort. It provided a coherent framework for force modernization.

But a lot has changed since then and we need to rethink the strategic guidance and the shape some additional force modernization elements.

The future is much more unpredictable. With Trump, we have seen a honest statement of the priority of American interests.  We need to take account of the priority, which America will place, on its interests when we go forward. And to be clear, this is not simply Trump, but the reality of what powers will do in an Alliance as well.

We need a much more sovereign approach to defense.

That’s not saying we should walk away, or not contribute to or benefit from the American alliance. But, we’ve got to be much more prepared to be able to act on our own in certain circumstances.

And by being able to do so, we will be a better Alliance partner as well,

Question: There clearly is the nature of the changing threat to Australia as well, notably in terms of North Korean nuclear weapons and the Chinese pushing their capabilities out into the Pacific and expanding their regional presence as well.

 How do you view this part of the equation of the need for greater sovereignty?

Air Marshal (Retired) Brown: We need to have a greater capability to hold competitors at risk at greater range and distance.

The North Korean case shows that nuclear weapons are not going away any time soon. The Chinese have clearly focused on significant investments in longer range strike.

This means as we do the next defense review, we need to focus on options which can allow us to deal directly wit these challenges and to shape how we do so within the reworking of the relationship with our allies going forward.

We need a major reset building upon the force integration process which we have set in motion.

Do Japan or South Korea go nuclear?

We need to have a realistic discussion of the nuclear impact on our defense policy as well.

What makes sense to do?

And how to do it?

Question: The question of the reach of Australian forces in a conventional sense also raises the question of the relationship between Australian territory, notably NW and Western Australia and the evolution of your defense forces?

 How does the territorial dimension come back into play?

Air Marshal (Retired) Brown: Clearly, we need to look at ways to enhance our force mobility and to build out both active defense and long range conventional strike in our territories closest to the areas of operational interest, both ours and the competitors.

The Australian Army is focusing in part in the evolution of fires both defensive and offensive, but we need a bigger commitment on this side of the force and with longer range, which could operate from our own territory as well as being projected forward outside of Australia.

Question: How does the strategic shift in Australian industry fit into this calculus of enhanced sovereignty?

 Air Marshal (Retired) Brown: It is crucial.

As you noted, the shipbuilding side of industry is clearly about sovereignty and we need to look to expand sovereignty in the strike domain as well.

A key area going forward clearly should be in the missile development, build and sustainment area, where we can clearly build out our own capabilities in relationship with core allies also interested in this process.

And by flying the F-35 with a number of partner nations, there clearly is an opportunity to build out this capability as well.

Question: I assume if you are interested in longer range strike you would be looking to something in the range of a 2,000 mile missile but given the focus on industry and working with allies, wouldn’t a modular build process make the most sense, where you can build various ranges into your missile production based on modularity?

Air Marshal (Retired) Brown: That would make sense.

But I think we need a serious look within our focus on shaping industry that both meets Australia’s needs as well as those of key allies in the missile or strike areas.

We build ammunition and general purpose bombs in Australia but we have never taken that forward into a 21^stcentury approach to missiles and related systems. We should rethink this aspect of our approach.

There are plenty examples of success in arms exports; there is no reason we can not do so in the weapons area, for example.

The featured photo shows the Aussie F-111 which provided a longer range strike capability which the Aussies may well build into their evolving force with longer range weapons as part of the fifth generation sensor-shooter relationship. Those weapons could be on the ground, in the air or at sea.

According to an article in Code One, the F-111 played a key role for the Australians.

Australia ordered twenty-four of the swing-wing F-111s in November 1963, thirteen months before the aircraft was first flown. Picking the F-111 was seen by many as a bold move by the RAAF, but the Australian government viewed the aircraft as the right solution for its need for a long-range strike aircraft.

Delivery to the RAAF was delayed by a series of mishaps during the US Air Force’s first combat deployment with the F-111 in Vietnam in 1968. It was also delayed by structural problems. The first six F-111Cs arrived at RAAF Amberley on 1 June 1973, making Australia the first—and, as history showed, the only—international operator to ever fly the aircraft. The US retired its F-111s in 1996.

The Australian F-111Cs were unique to the RAAF. They had the longer wings, sturdier undercarriage, and bigger brakes of the FB-111 nuclear-capable bomber version of the aircraft ordered by the US Air Force. But the F-111C retained the inlets, engines, and avionics installed in the F-111A. The RAAF also opted for the self-protection system equipment of the later F-111Es. Air Combat Officers—weapons systems officers who sat in the right seat—had a control stick on their side of the cockpit and were taught to land the aircraft in case of emergency.

Four F-111As were added to the RAAF fleet in 1982. These aircraft, all veterans of Vietnam operations, were modified with the longer wingtips and heavier landing gear of the F-111Cs.

The RAAF acquired another fifteen US Air Force F-111s beginning in 1993. These aircraft, called F-111Gs, were all former FB-111s operated by Strategic Air Command and modified in the late 1980s with digital avionics for tactical duties. The aircraft were used by the Australians mostly for conversion training and spare parts. The F-111Gs were retired by the RAAF in 2007.

The F-111—affectionately and universally known in Australia as Pig for its ability to conduct missions at night with its nose in the weeds, thanks to the terrain-following radar—was continuously updated during its service.

Four aircraft were modified for reconnaissance in the early 1980s. These versions, designated RF-111Cs, used a wet film-based camera suite with high- and low-scanning cameras and an infrared line scanner. The film cameras were later converted to digital imaging equipment.

The Pave Tack infrared and laser targeting systems were added to the aircraft in the mid-1980s, along with the capability of launching the AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship standoff missile. In the mid-1990s, the Avionics Upgrade Program incorporated digital flight controls, digital mission computers, multifunction displays, and a new terrain-following radar. In its last decade, the aircraft received electronic warfare updates, including a new jamming pod. They were also modified for using night-vision goggles and for firing the AGM-142 Popeye TV-guided standoff weapon.

The last RAAF unit to operate the F-111 was 6 Squadron at Amberley. The squadron flew the aircraft for the entire thirty-seven years the aircraft served in the RAAF.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=65

Leveraging the F-111 heritage was highlighted in the background statement published by the Williams Foundation when the seminar was announced earlier in the year by Williams:

We have focused for some time on the question of the return of the nuclear issue for US and allied defense.

Our colleague, Paul Bracken, has forcefully focused on this issue in his work on the second nuclear age, and his work has certainly underscored the forceful return of the nuclear factor in great power considerations as well as for states which may well find the acquisition of nuclear capabilities to be an effective way to gain financial and diplomatic advantage.

But is clear that the great power conflict we are now focused upon involves powers which possess nuclear weapons.  How then does the return of the nuclear dimension affect allies of the United States who do not posses them but rely upon the United States to possess an effective arsenal and strategy to deal with return of the nuclear dimension.

Certainly, the last Administration clearly did not want to think about his and the President pursued a nuclear free world, which certainly does not seem to be any more realistic than his Syrian red line.

Now we have a new Administration which has focused on the return of the nuclear dimension and in its recent nuclear posture review looked at options and discussed the need to reintroduce nuclear cruise missiles as part of the effective combat force.

But how does the return of the nuclear dimension and evolving US policy affect Australian options and ways ahead?

At the recent Williams Foundation seminar on independent strike, one of the speakers, Dr. Stephen Fruehling from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University, provided an insightful look at the options and impacts upon Australia of the new strategic situation.

His presentation follows:

Australian Strike Capability and Nuclear Deterrence

It’s certainly remarkable that nuclear weapons have made a return to Australia’s defence debate, if you can call this what’s going on in the relevant blogosphere, not least following more or less subtle hints by Hugh White, Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith that Australia might need to consider looking at relevant lead-times again, in the way the Defence Committee recommended to Governments from the late 1950s to the last Strategic Basis Paper of 1983.

Australian nuclear weapons is not what I will discuss today, however, although I might point you to an upcoming edition of Australian Foreign Policy, available in your well-stocked neighbourhood bookstore, for more on that issue.

That said, the question of what circumstances and to what end Australia might acquire nuclear weapons is an interesting one, since it really draws us to think about when not just our current force and posture, but also credible increases and a conventional posture in general would stretched to breaking point – and that certainly is of relevance to discussing the future of Australian independent strike.

But the current revival of interest in nuclear weapons is real, and it goes far beyond Australia – if anything, I would say the debate here as usual lags that of the northern hemisphere by several years.

At the heart of this is the return of great power conflict to the centre of Western security concerns, and this is something where nuclear weapons simply cannot be ignored as an integral part of the problem, and how we will manage it.

NATO’s re-focus on collective defence since 2014 has brought with it a revival of institutional and governmental interest in, and engagement with the practical and political aspects of the Alliance’s nuclear posture and deterrence, in a way we have last seen during the Cold War 30 years ago.

At its recent Brussels summit, the alliance reiterated that “If the fundamental security of any of its members were to be threatened, NATO has the capabilities and resolve to impose costs on an adversary that would be unacceptable and far outweigh the benefits that any adversary could hope to achieve”.

As the Alliance re-examines the role of nuclear weapons in a coherent deterrence posture, it re-discovers old realizations such as that nuclear use by NATO should be remote, but should also not be left to the point where it ceases to be a choice; and that if there is not to be an option for conventional victory over NATO, NATO does need a credible nuclear option.

In Asia, the return of nuclear weapons is less obvious since there is no nuclear alliance in the way that NATO is.  Interest in nuclear deterrence, and possibly a domestic capability, in Japan and South Korea has now been part of the regional security landscape for quite some time.

What is different today however is that we have in Washington an administration, if one looks beyond the tweets, that has stopped pretending that business as usual would be enough to deal with the shifting conventional balance in Asia; that dealing with that balance is a genuine challenge in which the United States cannot assume it will by some natural right succeed; and that it is a challenge they are determined to take on within the constraints that competing fiscal demands in DC place up the US defence effort.

We’ve been there before.  65 years ago President Eisenhower was in essentially the same situation, and he looked to nuclear weapons as the great equalizer.  I don’t propose that we are about to return to the heady days of the early atomic age, but I will put it to you that the United States will face a choice between increasing once again the role of nuclear weapons in regional deterrence, or reducing its role as a security guarantor.

The proposal to develop a new generation of submarine-launched nuclear cruise missiles in the last Nuclear Posture Review demonstrates where the current defence leadership wants to come down on that choice.

Any of those who argue that nuclear weapons are essentially useless will, sooner or later, be confronted with some basic facts of physics, such as that nuclear weapons remain the only way to stop an amphibious invasion of a defended island by delivering a single piece of ordnance.

What does all of this mean for Australia though?

First, in a world in which we are concerned primarily about conflict with and between nuclear great powers, and the role of Australian strike in such a situation, we need to think seriously about war termination. When we look at long range and precision strike in a defence force that has some of the most shiny kit available in its inventory, there is always a danger of tactical enthusiasm trumping strategic logic.

This isn’t a completely new problem, in that strategic guidance during the 1970s and 1980s was always somewhat cautious about the role of strategic strike in a conflict with Indonesia.  But that was a question not about what Australia could do in a war with Jakarta, but what would be prudent to do, given that war is ultimately about the nature of the peace that follows.

Now, however, we also need to acknowledge the operational limits of a conventional force.  At the time of the 2009 White Paper, which mentioned land-attack cruise missiles for our submarines, there was certainly some rather silly debate, I think, which ignored the rather large delta between the damage that a few dozen of half-ton warheads can do to a nation of a billion people, and what might be required to force an end to hostilities on Australia’s terms.

Some gaps are simply too big to fill with powerpoints on Effects Based Operations.

When we contemplate conflict with a nuclear armed great power, we face an adversary that will always be able to take greater losses, and inflict more pain, on us than we are able to on them.  Conflict will end not because of Australia could force an end to it, but because of the outcome of campaigns elsewhere, or because the cost-benefit calculation of the adversary shifts to make continuing conflict with Australia not worth the bother.

This means we need to think about strike in a way that does not reinforce the adversary’s emotional investment in the conflict with Australia, while still increasing the cost of any offensive operations they might choose to undertake against us.  In that sense, I think the geographic limits of Australian independent strike, given the range of F-111 and current airborne systems, up to the Northern ends, but not much beyond the Indonesian archipelago, still make a lot of sense, even if the adversary’s main base areas are located further to the North.

But it means that within that geographic envelope, the volume and intensity of strike we can deliver will be particularly important, as the adversary will be able to concentrate at a time and place of their choosing.  And when Australia’s theory of victory has to rest on exhausting the adversary, attrition will be the name of the game, including attrition of ADF strike assets.

Where do nuclear weapons play into this?

It is useful to think about the role of nuclear weapons in three different ways:

• First, as a complement to conventional forces, bypassing the force-on-force battle to deliver a level of societal damage sufficient to induce war termination on their own.

• Second, as a tactical substitute for conventional forces, which thanks to their yield-to weight ratios are able to deliver physical damage to major units and installations with an incomparably smaller number of ordnances than could ever be achieved with conventional means.

• And third, in a strategy of flexible response, though use or threat of limited use, to deter or to bring about an escalation of conflict, so that we can manage the perception of cost and benefit for an adversary in the hope of forcing an end of hostilities, with an endstate that manages to avoid the two perils of defeat as well as of a general nuclear war.

It is a complement to conventional forces that nuclear weapons are sometimes referred to as “the deterrent”.  But to be deterred is a choice by the adversary, there is nothing mechanical about it and we need to be very careful in how we use that term in relation to Australia’s strike capability.

Deterrence works by making threats of unacceptable counteraction in advance of bad things happening, which is not even necessarily a kind of relationship we would want to have with our neighbours even if where we might be able to inflict that level of punishment.

Therefore, the formulation in some earlier strategic guidance documents of the ADF needing to be of a size and capability to always command respect and induce caution in adversaries is a more modest, but politically more appropriate, and strategically more credible way of thinking about ADF strike, unless and until we swap the explosive end of our ordnance for something a bit more powerful.

Thinking about nuclear weapons as a substitute for conventional forces on the other hand brings us to that stress-test of a purely conventional ADF that I mentioned earlier.  Given what we know already about Chinese interest in developing potential base facilities abroad, and as we are talking about the long timespans relevant to the acquisition of major capability, we need to assume that the adversary will already have established air or naval bases in Australia’s approaches at the outset of a conflict.

Given the size of Chinese armed forces and the nature of its installation already existing in Djibouti, we need to assume that these will be garrisoned to a size that will preclude amphibious operations as a means to destroy such bases.  Hence, we’re back to a replay of the Rabaul campaign under modern conditions, which will require sustained strike against an adversary that will be prepared, hardened, dispersed, and able to inflict attrition on Australian forces.

Even before we take into account the need to also meet adversary manoeuvre forces, I think it is very doubtful whether we could ever acquire cruise missile stocks large enough for such a campaign.  While we might in future buy enough fighter-bombers to afford attrition over time, the question is how many tankers could we afford to lose before such a campaign unravels.  If we think about stress-testing our current force mix in that way, I think we thus need to come to three conclusions:

First, we will in coming decades have a need for a survivable long-range bomb truck, of a kind where the new US long-range bomber is probably the only airframe currently on the horizon that approximates our requirements.

Second, when push comes to shove, there may well be targets in Southeast Asia where the unrivalled yield-weight advantages of nuclear weapons would provide significant military benefit to an allied campaign.

Third, the archipelago of Southeast Asia is the one area in the broader Indo-Pacific area where the most opportune targets for initial allied nuclear strikes will be located if the United States looks to escalate a conflict to the nuclear level.

This third point may seem like a bit of a leap, but a logical conclusion if one eliminates the alternatives.  Like their Soviet predecessors, Chinese bases in the Indian Ocean are so exposed to US forces from the Atlantic that they are unlikely to remain in play for very long.  If we and the Americans roll-up Chinese forces in Southeast Asia the war doesn’t seem to be going so badly that the US and its allies would look to nuclear use. And Northeast Asia is so proximate to major population centres of both sides, and unlikely to feature adversary bases outside the Chinese homeland itself, so that any nuclear use up there would make for far more challenging escalation control.

Given that Australia has most to lose from enduring adversary presence in our approaches – Japan’s control of the German mandate islands after World War One comes to mind as something worth remembering – we might not actually be that unhappy about such a development.

Hence, if we are looking at the effectiveness and role of strike in general in our region, there are reasons why I think it behoves on us to study the tactical as well as strategic and political considerations of nuclear use in our approaches in much greater detail than we have done since the 1950s.

The first is that we probably understand the limits of conventional forces in a contemporary maritime context far better than the potential advantages of nuclear use, whether that is Australian or more likely US use.  The earliest influence of nuclear weapons on the conduct of naval operations was during the Korean War, when the US fleet at Pusan was spaced so as to minimize the damage from airborne Soviet nuclear attack.  For reasons of effectiveness, low collateral damage and relative ease of escalation control, tactical nuclear weapons remained fundamental to naval concepts of operation in the Atlantic until the end of the Cold War.

But while it is easy to see how nuclear weapons they remain effective against fixed installations, are they as effective in a naval context today as they were then, given the extent to which modern air and naval forces can disperse in a networked environment anyway?

Without understanding the tactical benefit of nuclear weapons we cannot have an informed discussion of the relevance to the defence of Australia or the defence of Southeast Asia, or what a ‘militarily meaningful’ initial use of nuclear weapons by the United States might look like, which Australia would have to look to if conventional strike capabilities are exhausted.

And if the history of the debates between Australian, US and UK planners in SEATO days is any guide, our assessment of their benefit in our particular circumstances does not necessarily align with that of our allies.

Second, well short of those considerations of actual use, we do have to ask how Australian independent strike capabilities relate to the need for demonstrating a credible US capacity for nuclear escalation and intra-war deterrence in our region.  Nuclear signalling, coercion, and the dispersion of nuclear forces to maintain credible options for limited use have been part of major crises between peer great powers throughout the atomic age, and will remain so in the future.

In any major crisis with China, the United States will look to Australia as a dispersal area for long-range air assets, and that will bring with it nuclear connotations whether we like it or not.

If our strategic circumstances continue to deteriorate, we may well welcome this and even seek greater physical linkage with US nuclear forces in the way that exist in NATO, and Japan and South Korea have explored for some time.  But Australian strike forces will be of relevance to nuclear signalling well short of nuclear sharing.  In contemplating Australian independent strike in a conflict with a nuclear power, we will be operating aircraft or weapons systems that might be very difficult if not impossible for the other side to distinguish from US nuclear capable systems, and the question of whether and how Australian forces might be called upon to support US nuclear operations from and in our region, if only for signalling, will pose difficult political questions that we have not had to deal with in our alliance yet.

In conclusion, nuclear warfare and strategy are about the ability to deliver massed violence, but exactly for that reason they always also induce a measure and need for restraint.  In those scenarios that will seriously test our force, and our defence posture and policy overall—in other words, those scenarios where independent strike really counts—we will not be able to escape the shadow of nuclear deterrence.  Hence, when thinking about the future of Australian strike in the shadow of nuclear weapons, we will need to be able to deliver a far greater volume of massed violence at range than we are able to at present – we will also have to think a lot harder about when and where it would be more prudent to exercise restraint when we come to heads with nuclear powers.