As Operation Epic Fury enters its second week, it is manifestly obvious that Donald Trump’s ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ is running low.
The United States, Iran and Israel appear to be locked in a race to the bottom of their respective missile stockpiles. Last week Israel estimated that Iran held about 2,000–2,500 ballistic missiles. Since the beginning of Epic Fury, Tehran has launched over 800 ballistic missiles at Israel and its neighbouring Gulf nations. In recent days, Iranian launches have fallen some 90 percent as the US effectively targeted Tehran’s missile production and stockpile assets. But the effort to cripple Iran’s strike capability has drained US resources.
Washington’s missile stock is not getting replaced at the pace and scale our global environment demands. The ledger does not look great, with a widening window of opportunity for Chinese strikes on Taiwan—a war certainly much closer to home for Canberra.
Within days of Epic Fury, the limits of the US missile (and interceptor) stockpile were exposed. Indeed, the operation has revealed the true extent of a strained and quite deficient US defence-industrial base.
This should ring alarm bells for Australia: our principal provider and security underwriter is under strain. And in Trump’s world, America comes first.
This is Australia’s opportunity to bolster its strategic utility to Washington and position itself as the US’s ‘missile man’. It is now or never. Canberra must take advantage of this situation and deepen the alliance by enabling diversification of the US’s industrial base. By producing missiles, especially key components such as solid rocket motors and interceptors, Australia can directly support US power.
Washington is moving quickly to redress shortfalls in its munitions-industrial base. Recognising L3Harris as the leading producer of rocket motors for priority missiles and interceptors, the US government has announced it will take an equity position with a US$1 billion (A$1.4 billion) investment in the company’s rocket motor division.
L3Harris manufactures many of the critical components for in-service ADF guided weapons. For example, our government is spending over A$8 billion to acquire both Standard Missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Not a single skilled job will be gained in Australia as this money passes offshore. Moreover, we’re unlikely to receive these missiles until Washington has replenished its rapidly dwindling stockpile.
Through partnership with the very entity the US government has backed, Australia has a low-risk opportunity to bolster its strategic position with Washington.
This would embed into the alliance a robust element of self-sufficiency and offset any future concerns or demands for lifting defence expenditure in Australia. We would simply point to our defence-industrial base as an enabling element of US power.
Australian missile manufacturing would inject true resilience into Washington’s military-industrial footprint. Australia’s geographical proximity to the Indo-Pacific theatre creates a value proposition that is unmatched for Washington—forward-based stores and trusted, scalable, industrial capacity.
Australia’s politically stable environment and skilled workforce make us an obvious choice. Canberra has a golden opportunity to address insufficiencies plaguing US missile inventories, while at the same time fortifying itself as an indispensable ally. To do this, Canberra must evolve from its modest ambitions and move beyond the aspirations of an assembler to that of producer.
Supply chains and stockpiles have long determined who wins wars. Diversified and resilient industrial bases will ultimately set competitors apart in future wars. Yet Australia’s missile course remains more of a framework of a plan.
The government celebrates plans to manufacture up to 4,000 missiles a year by 2029. The new Port Wakefield facility is the first outside the US to produce Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. The government has been quick to produce media releases patting itself on the back, lauding the facilities role in supporting defence resilience and ‘reducing supply chain dependence’.
More recent operations in Gaza, the Red Sea and Iran have also illustrated that Washington’s most immediate replenishment needs have moved beyond shorter-range, ground-based rocket systems to the higher-end, interceptor munitions. But, again, we are not manufacturing missiles, Australia is assembling them. There is a monumental difference. The government’s grand plan is merely a slight of hand with crafty wordplay.
Signals of deeper integration between the Australian and US defence-industrial bases are not being seized by Canberra with the tempo that our strategic environment demands. For example, take the Precision Strike Missile. The US has just confirmed the first combat use of PrSM occurred during Operation Epic Fury, and it certainly performed.
Australia has an agreement with Washington to work towards the ‘co-development, co-production and co-sustainment’ of PrSM, but the government appears averse to deviating from the established plan: PrSM is simply not the priority it should now be.
Australia should learn the right lessons from Operation Epic Fury, and do so quickly. Billy Hughes often stated ‘the price of vigilance is readiness’. In the late-1930s, Essington Lewis urged government to partner with Australian industry to prepare and stockpile for war. The true strength of a nation is its ability to sustain an industrial base in days of war.
Progress might be under way to move us from missile assemblers to missile producers, but it simply must accelerate. The Albanese government should be positioning Australia to strike, ready for the next war.
This article was originally published in The Australian.
Source:
www.aspistrategist.org.au