To a pilot who had trained heavily in a data-rich virtual battlefield, it is like flying blind.As the four near-invisible fighters of the strike struggled their way through the sound barrier, a sudden urgent cry cut through their headsets: “Mayday, Mayday, incoming …”The automated call identifier on the heads up display identifies the voice as belonging to the There was little indication as to what had just happened: Once the converted commercial jetliner had lumbered into range of hostile fighters zeroing-in with their stealthy infra-red sensing sights, it had no chance.The first the tanker and its non-stealth mode F-35 escort knew of the enemy’s presence was when targeted by radar.
With the Indonesian people calling for war and burning the Australian flag it has made me nervous. Rather, one that says: Come, temporarily, we will help you under our umbrella to shelter from the economic rain so you can, within a short time, stand proud in your own shelter.The defence commentary that bloomed in the wake of the publication of Hugh White's How to Defend Australia has largely failed to mention the appalling corollary to White's wise assertion that Australia has to prepare itself for the possibility that the US would not come to Australia's defence if attacked from without. ACN 000 045 170"How to Defend Australia" Is an Important Wake-up Call The skills and capabilities of the former ASC facility in Adelaide have been reduced to simple maintenance and “swap for spares” levels.Then there’s the RAAF Tindal air base: After the submarine-launched missile strike against HMAS STOKER,The order to pull the expensive, but limited, jets back has already been given.Without fighter jets above and submarines below, the destroyers and troop transports needed for any assault to retake Christmas Island are immensely vulnerable.After a long moment of silence, the Prime Minister asks, “what next?”The Chief of Defence’s answer is terrifyingly limited.By now the assembled members of Cabinet are angry: “How did you get us in this position?”Australia’s need to defend its enormous coastline along with far-reaching trade routes and resources offshore has always been an immense challenge.It’s why Darwin, Townsville, Katherine, Wyndham, Derby, Broome and Port Hedland were repeatedly attacked by Japanese forces during World War II, sometimes with forces even more powerful than that used against the United States at Pearl Harbor.The few ships, fighters and anti-aircraft guns we had in place were quickly overwhelmed.Many also proved ineffective: Even the famous Spitfire — a latecomer to the fight — didn’t have the range or appropriate tactics to effectively “mix it” with Japanese fighters.
But that said, the question is not only how much money should be spent, but upon what it should be spent, to address our national security. But their pilots desperately attempt last second, high-G jinks to dodge.
Details gleaned via intelligence sources are even more alarming.As defence aides rush about Canberra’s halls of power, one message whispered urgently into the Prime Minister’s ear carries a significant shock:There are no messages. The war could easily become nuclear, and potentially the worst war in history. We went to war in Korea reaching for what became the formal expression of the alliance—ANZUS. And, clasping the alliance tight, we went to war in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.Australia has balanced the twin fears of entrapment and abandonment, and has luxuriated in the comfort of US power.The new unease confronting Oz strategy is that questions about the US have sharpened as China has loomed ever larger.The alliance discussion shifts from what the US will or won’t want to do for us, to contemplate what the US is able to do for itself, much less for everyone else.
And the F-35 cannot “supercruise” like other modern fighters. Deciding to fight would be nothing like the decision to help invade Iraq or even to fight in Vietnam.
In the First, we were fighting Germany and everything German, and Beethoven was off the menu. But that said, the question is not only how much money should be spent, but upon what it should be spent, to address our national security.In the past two decades we have spent it in precisely the places which have reduced, not increased, our national security: Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. The Prime Minister is being briefed. The answer to this is not to build nuclear weapons or double our spending on the military to meet some misguided concern we will be invaded by a nation state.All that will do is escalate nervousness and suspicion and cause an equivalent reaction among those who see themselves as the object of our concerns - in the past Indonesia.A better way is to make our forces responsive to Australian, not US, needs, as White suggests.But we do not have to spend a vast amount more. It was identified as far back as the 1994 Defence White Paper – at a time Australia’s exports to China were still less than those to (still British) Hong Kong or Taiwan. These days, we do not have open all-out nation-state wars as we did in 1939-45.
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Was there a fault in the network?Whatever the case, it is of little use. It is acknowledged by the US that it cannot nuke Kabul in revenge for the 9/11 attack.As the US acknowledges, its enemy is not the Afghan people, but the evil harbourers of the Taliban.Consequently, despite the overwhelming military strength of the US, it has not and cannot defeat militarily one of the poorest nations on earth.That point was the difference between the First and Second World Wars.In the First, we were fighting Germany and everything German, and Beethoven was off the menu. But in my view it is a wake-up call, alerting Australians about our deteriorating strategic situation, the increasing unreliability of US security assistance and the need to take a greater effort to get on better with our neighbours through diplomatic means.Australia needs a new strategy to direct its foreign policy in order to seize new opportunities and increase its security through strength before the strategic window closes and it runs out of luck.As the holiday season comes to an end, it's a good time to take stock of the books it would have been good to have had on your beach reading list.Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull launched a new Defence Export Strategy this week to catapult Australia into the top 10 defence-exporting countries in the world.