By Robbin Laird

I have been coming to Australia since 2014 to participate in and write the seminar reports for the Sir Richard Williams Foundation.

What started out as a Foundation focusing primarily on airpower has transitioned over that period to focusing on shaping the ADF as an integrated force, increasingly focused on their region.

The latest report focused on the core conference theme which was entitled: THE MULTI-DOMAIN REQUIREMENTS OF AN AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE STRATEGY.

I have included a e-book version of the book below.

But unique in my work has been providing a detailed look at the ADF transition since 2014, which I have provided in a series of books which I highlight below as well.

I am the only American who is a fellow with the Foundation, and find the recent surge of American expertise on Australia associated with AUKUS to be of some concern.

AUKUS is a Rorschach test. You can see in it what you want.

It is loaded with ambiguity, the kind that can lead to serious conflict in the United States, the UK and in Australia about who is supposed to do what.

Our alliance is too important to be reduced to chanting AUKUS, rather than frankly discussing our common interests and our differences.

And the domestic divergencies in our societies are very significant and has clear implications for the future.

An AUKUS totem doesn’t solve this.

When the past government and the current one underscored that the warning time for the defence of Australia has been dramatically reduced because of Chinese behavior and lack of commitment to the “rules-based order”, it seemed like a critical turning point.

Only it really is not.

The current government has cut significantly current and already planned ADF capability, such as the eliminating the 4^th F-35 squadron in favor of a new SSN and new surface ships in the future decade.

Not only is this not only a Paul Revere moment, it looks punting the ball moment.

And the shift being planned is dramatic.

Marcus Hellyer has carefully gone through the figures in the defence industrial plan and concluded that there is indeed a dramatic shift.

As he concluded about the plan:

It’s clear we’ve moved on from a balanced force. But what have we moved on to? The NDS states that the ADF is now becoming a focused force. However, it’s not quite clear what it is focused on doing since the NDS states (page 7) that the ADF still needs the capacity to:

• defend Australia and our immediate region;
• deter through denial any potential adversary’s attempt to project power against Australia through our northern approaches;
• protect Australia’s economic connection to our region and the world;
• contribute with our partners to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific; and
• contribute with our partners to the maintenance of the global rules-based order.

That pretty much covers every task in every part of the world which doesn’t sound very focused. The NDS also says that the ADF force structure is focused on deterrence and supporting a ‘Strategy of Denial’. It doesn’t really say who it is trying to deny or deter from doing what. One can assume it’s China, but from doing what exactly is not quite clear. Whatever it is, we seem to need significant maritime capabilities to deter China from doing it—but only at some point in the distant future.

We’ve noted that Maritime capabilities absorb an unprecedented 38% of the acquisition budget over the coming decade. Those are split into two main categories: Undersea warfare at $63-76 billion and Maritime capabilities for sea denial and localised sea control operations (when somebody comes up with as clunky a title as that, you know we are in the realm of deep conceptual confusion) at $51-69 billion. Those total to $114-145 billion with a mid-point at $129.5 billion.

However, only two projects dominate that spending: the SSN enterprise at $53-63 billion and the Hunter-class frigate at $22-32 billion. Again those two figures sum to $75-95 billion with a mid-point at $85 billion. Two capabilities alone consume $85 billion (remember those figures are just the spend over the decade, not the total acquisition cost). That’s 65.6% of the Maritime spend. If we multiply 38% by 65.6% we can see that 25% of Defence’s acquisition spend over the decade goes on just two capabilities.

But it gets worse because those projects—all going well—will only have just started to deliver actual capability by the end of the decade. The first Hunter is due to be delivered in 2032 and enter service in 2034. The first SSN is scheduled to be handed over to the RAN around 2032—all going well in Defence’s most complex megaproject ever. And even then, one submarine or frigate does not a capability make.

In summary, we get virtually no in service, sovereign capability in return for 25% of Defence’s acquisition spend over the coming decade—and Defence has had to give up or defer a lot of planned capability to achieve that result. Whatever the balanced force is moving on to, it’s going to take a lot of time and money to get there with little medium-term return on that investment.

I would add to his argument that the actual role of the Royal Australian Navy within the Australian defence strategy is not at all clear.

When one has what is in the future the force which is programmed, just what is the con-ops of that force in the defence of Australia?

I had a chance to continue my discussion with Peter Jennings during my April visit to Australia.

And he explained why it is so difficult for an Australian government to surge rather than to plan.

As he noted: “Our professional military discuss with their counterparts, joint operations and the challenges to be met. But no government wants to discuss in public what we would actually do in a crisis. In fact, officials in government do not even wish to discuss such issues.”

The government is reluctant, according to Jennings, to discuss openly realistic scenarios for joint operations. Discussing military contingencies at the political level is not an Australian political art.

I would add that failure of the political class in the West to spend time in training in crisis management is a major one. During the Cold War, I personally participated in a number of exercises with actual political leaders honing crisis management skills. This is certainly evident today.

Jennings added that for a Labour Government there is little interest in discussing military contingencies for another reason.

Australia’s sovereignty will be “compromised” by working in a coalition where Australia is clearly a subordinate partner.

And with the prospect of Trump returning to the U.S. presidency and demanding “where is the beef” in current ADF capability, such a prospect is not one which the Labour Government would look forward to.

We then discussed acquisition reform difficulties.

Jennings noted that the so-called AUKUS 2 basket whereby Australia would gain access to technology which could rapidly be inserted into the ADF will not be if the traditional acquisition system holds sway. A prototype is not a capability until someone actually embeds it into the operating force.

I was quite struck by the difference between the activity of the Nordics whom I have visited over the same time as the Aussies and the activity of the current government.

This quote from the Swedish Chief of Staff says it all:

“We look at Ukraine, they are masters in using already developed civil technology to solve military problems. This is an area I look very carefully into because this is very interesting and very promising — if you also have the courage of sitting together in rooms and making sure that we understand each other, that this is what we need to solve this problem. Do you have it? Can we adjust it to something? If we start from the very beginning on a sophisticated system, it takes like 10 years. The time is not there.

“We have been working in a situation for decades, with a lot of time, no money. Now it’s opposite: there is finance, but the time is limited. So for my generation of officers, it’s a mental transition and change right now where we need to find a way ahead where we speed up.”

And that is the challenge facing Australia but where the plan for the future is funded by cutting currently capability.

By Robbin Laird

As the United States faces a global overload of strategic challenges and the concomitant challenge of shaping an effective and capable force to deal with these challenges but having serious budget stringencies, leveraging the unique capabilities which the United States already possesses is crucial.

It is nice to think of 6th generation aircraft, new AI autonomous systems, new weapons, and the like, but adapting what you have and leveraging unique capabilities which you possess is a key part of the way forward.

Whether it be the Aegis global enterprise, or the F-35 global enterprise or the tiltrotor enterprise, the United States has shaped unique warfighting capabilities which it can leverage as it shapes effective forces moving forward for today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

I have written extensively about the Aegis global enterprise and the F-35 global enterprise, but we should also focus on a core capability which the United States has crafted and evolved since its introduction into Iraq in 2007, namely the tiltrotor enterprise.

If the Chinese had developed this capability and had built on its use since 2007 and its proliferation in the joint force, I guarantee there would be a robust literature on this threat and how do deal with it.

But since we have done it, we spend as much time criticizing it as understanding how the tiltrotor enterprise has transformed the capabilities of the USMC, the USAF and now the U.S. Navy with the U.S. Army next up.

This is a story of a unique capability which has reshaped the USMC in ways that are unimaginable without it. It has given the USAF special operational capabilities and now the U.S. Navy will experience a very different capability and approach to sustaining its distributed fleet.

And as the U.S. Army focuses on how to distribute its force, the new tiltrotor capability will become a backbone for an effort to leverage speed and range which no rotorcraft possesses.

When I worked for SECAF, he decided to implement a day without space for the USAF. It was not a pleasant experience. And we have now experienced what it is like to operate without an Osprey across the services. This has simply meant that core missions have not been met. Full stop.

When I went to visit MAWTS-1 earlier this month, I talked with the outgoing commander of this key training command, and discussed the recent WTI course. Unfortunately, the Osprey was not available due to the grounding of the aircraft by the three services.

This is what I learned from that discussion:

Col Purcell started by underscoring that the grounding of the Ospreys by the services after the accident last year with an Air Force Osprey, created a challenge for them. Not having Ospreys – which frankly are a bedrock platform in the transformation of their concept of operations – caused a problem in the WTI. There were some missions they simply could not do, and shifted assets around to do missions which was not their primary mission focus….

One mission which has been identified and which MAWTS-1 has been training for is the TRAP mission associated with a maritime strike mission. The need to recover rapidly any personnel downed in a maritime assault mission is something the Osprey is uniquely positioned to do. Only you can’t do it if it is not there. Fortunately, the ban on Osprey use was lifted in time for them to be able to use the Osprey in the maritime strike event within FINEX.

But it does not stop there.

If you want to deliver an engine to a large deck carrier for the F-35C and don’t have an Osprey, well you are out of Schlitz.

Or if the USAF is tasked with what President Carter asked the military to do in Iran in 1979, how would that work out? I remember specifically talking with my former professor Dr. Brzezinski about that mission failure and how the Osprey would have led to a different outcome, at least in his view.

You have heard of mission creep: but what missions missing in action?

That is what happens when you ground the tiltrotor enterprise.

Featured Image: Overview of the wreckage at the Desert One base in Iran. Credit: Wikipedia

As the Australian government shifts the direction on building out the ADF future force, having an effective distributed ISR enterprise is a crucial element in enabling such a force.

The investments the Australian government is making in the future future force underscores the need to have accurate ISR indispensable for a distributed force. Providing coverage for the distributed operations of the ADF and in a coalition context, powerful and accurate ISR capabilities, within that distributed force, is a vital element for their survival and operations.

Fortunately, the way ahead for ISR for a distributed force is getting better due to the innovations in sensors and transmission capabilities among sensors due to progress in both commercial and defence industry.

And the coming of autonomous systems allows for the operation of ISR nests within an embedded force and the emergence of airborne AI to help shape parsimony in the distribution of relevant data to a distributed force.

I had a chance to discuss this topic with James Lawless, a former Royal Australian Officer and now with Northrop Grumman. Lawless provided a presentation at the 11 April 2024 Williams Foundation seminar focused on how autonomous systems could contribute in a major way in the near to midterm for ADF efforts to shape a distributed ISR enterprise.

It should be noted that the new capability coming to the ADF is the Triton Remotely Piloted or RPA. In my view, this platform has been viewed as simply an additive to the ADF in pursuit of advanced ASW capabilities.

But is much more than that.

It is a very high altitude aircraft with a multitude of payloads and because the Triton can operate outside of the primary weapons engagement zone, it can function as quarterback to deliver ISR throughout a very large swath of the battlespace. And, in this sense, could relay information to various types of air and maritime autonomous systems operating in support of a distributed force.

It could relay information to a loyal wingman UAV in which the wingman is supporting the attack and defense force operating in the weapons engagement zone. This RPAS could deliver and receive information to/from autonomous USVs or in certain conditions to autonomous UUVs.

These systems could, with their own AI and edge processing capabilities, mix the Triton data with their own and deliver a focused package of ISR to the combat force. The aim would be to minimize or reduce the workload of the joint force commander without any reduction in ISR data.

This is how Lawless explained the approach to me in a meeting I had with him following his presentation during my April 2024 stay in Australia.

“With the evolution of software on the Triton, there is no reason Triton can’t make its own decisions about tasking other ISR assets. If we integrate autonomous AI data management capabilities on the aircraft, there is no reason Triton could not function as a quarterback for distribution of ISR data packages to autonomous platforms deployed with the distributed force.”

In my work on maritime autonomous systems, I highlighted that such systems are being used to perform specific mission threads. If one focused on innovation in the ISR mission thread to build an enterprise which leveraged such systems, a key enabler for an effective distributed force is created. Because of the fifth-generation revolution built around disaggregating sensor from shooter where appropriate, this revolution continues but by using RPAs and autonomous systems in a combined arm operation.

But for this to happen, the ADF has to train differently, and procure differently. It is about culture as much it is about technology.

The example I often provide is comparing how the Americans did this with the introduction of radar in World War II with the British. The U.S. had radar at pearl harbor and even saw incoming Japanese planes. But that situation did not work out so well.

In contrast, Air Marshal Dowding put together a different type of organization into which radar was inserted and creating this air threat identification ISR and C2 system made the difference in the Battle of Britain.

We are at a similar point whereby we could create a new and effective ISR service for a distributed force. But buying bits of kit will not do it. We need full up a different organizational and training approach to grasp the future and insert it into the combat force.