Australia muscles up as China’s shadow looms over region

SEOUL, South Korea — Australian officials, keeping a wary eye on China, announced Wednesday that they were accelerating the domestic production of long-range missiles, two days after unveiling a comprehensive defense strategic review that puts a new emphasis on strike-forward capabilities.

Like Japan, which recently committed to buying U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, Australia is set on acquiring over-the-horizon assets to bolster its defenses. Canberra in March outlined a plan for massive spending on nuclear-propelled submarines under the “AUKUS” framework linking Australia, the U.S. and Britain in a security alliance.

Australia and Japan — U.S. allies in the Pacific and members of the Quad grouping with the U.S. and India — are deeply skeptical of a rising China’s regional ambitions. Both are also almost certainly influenced by the Ukraine war, where Russia’s difficulties have made clear the vulnerability of traditional platforms such as warships, tanks and jets to unmanned weapons and high-tech defense systems.

Australian officials said Wednesday that they planned to extend the range of the army’s artillery from 24 miles out to more than 300 miles, according to a report by the defense publication Janes. Officials have allotted some $2.7 billion for new domestically produced guided munitions and for other long-range strike capabilities.

That is “radically” accelerating Australian arms programs, Defense Minister Richard Marles told reporters. Canberra is in discussions with American defense giants Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to set up manufacturing sites inside the country, reports said.

The government’s Defense Strategic Review, or DSR, released Monday points to the need for greater self-sufficiency for Australia to defend itself. It was a reference to the rise of China, which is massively investing in expeditionary capabilities.

“No longer is our alliance partner, the United States, the unipolar leader of the Indo-Pacific,” the review notes. “Intense China-United States competition is the defining feature of our region and our time.”

The document calls for more powerful long-range missiles, the extension of bases across northern Australia and a focus on building up naval surface and subsurface capabilities.

The strategy blueprint closely tracks the 2021 AUKUS formula, under which Canberra will acquire, with U.S. and British help, nuclear-powered submarines. Nuclear propellant will extend the patrol range of the boats, which are to be armed with torpedoes and cruise missiles but not nuclear missiles. The pricing of the deal was fleshed out last month, causing some gasps.

“At [$243 billion] out to 2055, there is no other Australian endeavor with which to compare this undertaking,” retired Australian Gen. Mick Ryan wrote in a commentary for the country’s ABC News. “Given the eye-watering expense, it is probable that the Australian Defense Force will need to be reshaped and restructured to afford it.

“The Australian Defense Force will probably have to stop doing some things that are core to war-fighting,” the general added. “Therefore, because of a narrow focus on an exquisite maritime capability, our nation may possess a less capable and less ready air force and army in the coming decades.”

Some belt-tightening is already evident. Although the Australian army’s artillery will gain greater punch, the infantry’s supply of armored fighting vehicles will be cut by two-thirds under the DSR.

“Acquiring nuclear-powered submarines is a massive undertaking, and there is also a focus on investing in the surface fleet, so the navy will obviously continue to be the priority,” said Joel Atkinson, an Australian who teaches international relations at Hankuk University in Seoul. “Other clear winners are cyber and space. … It is clear about the air force getting more — and more expensive — missiles, as well as expeditionary capability. The army is likely to be the only net loser.”*

New focus or old strategy?

Even if Australia’s defense orientation is shifting from defending the homeland to power projection at sea, that needs to be seen through Australia’s special defense challenges and geopolitical challenges.

“There is not as much division as in the U.K. or U.S. The three forces in Australia are more closely combined,” said Jeffrey Robertson, a regional relations expert at Seoul’s Yonsei University. “Australia is becoming a more maritime-centered force like the U.S. Marine Corps, not the U.S. Army.”

Indeed, the U.S. Marine Corps is undergoing a similar transformation as it adjusts to the challenges of China and the Pacific theater by adding missile and light artillery units for coastal defenses. That is a shift away from its customary focus on beach-storming and offensive inland operations.

The overall approach set out in Canberra’s defense review looks more like a continuation from the previous government of conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison, which took a hard line against China rather than a U-turn by the center-left government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which took office last year.

The Biden administration, which has worked hard to rally allies on China’s periphery to challenge recent Beijing aggression, quickly signaled its approval of the new Australian approach.

“The DSR demonstrates Australia’s commitment to being at the forefront of incorporating new capabilities for the Australian Defense Force to better enable Australia to meet regional and global challenges, as well as to our unbreakable alliance, which has never been stronger,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “The DSR and the U.S. National Defense Strategy are strongly aligned, with a shared vision for maintaining a stable and open international system, rooted in our enduring alliance and our collaboration with other like-minded allies and partners.”

In its initial response to the Australian defense policy shift, Beijing said the DSR gets it half-right. The U.S. is no longer the region’s “unipolar” power, according to Chen Hong, president of the Chinese Association of Australian Studies and director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University, but Australia’s response to that is seriously “misguided.”

“Instead of accurately acknowledging China as Australia’s comprehensive strategic partner,” Mr. Chen wrote this week in an op-ed for the Chinese state-controlled Global Times, “the report maintains the platitudinal hype of the ‘China threat theory,’ which serves as the keystone for the alarming militaristic course Australia is about to take with the stockpiling of its military arsenal and the build-up of its armed forces.”

Regional democracies, nervous about China’s rising assertiveness, will likely be heartened.

“I think other regional countries, in particular India and Japan, will be happy,” said Mr. Atkinson. The security blueprint “clearly signals that Australia shares their concerns with China and will build a force capable of cooperating with them in collective security.”

While some commentary has suggested that this week’s DSR is the most significant shift in defense policy since World War II, others say the changes should not be overstated. They note that Australian forces fought in Europe in World War I, in North Africa and Singapore in World War II, in Korea and Vietnam and in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led global war on terror.

“Australia has previously swung between having an expeditionary force and defending the approaches to the Australian region,” Mr. Robertson said. “Throughout Australian history, there has been a swing between the two.”

*The original version of this story included a slightly garbled version of this quote. It has been corrected.