The government’s decision to slash orders for Infantry Fighting Vehicles for the Army is as much a response to stem unease within Labor ranks about rising defence spending as it is an attempt to offset the cost of acquiring long-range missile capabilities. It is a call some defence experts warn is fraught with risk.
Costed at between $5-7 billion, an initial requirement for 450 IFVs to replace the Army’s fleet of ageing Vietnam-era M113 armoured personnel carriers has been cut to 129 across two variants. That means enough vehicles to field one full-strength regiment.
The decision was taken in April, in line with the Defence Strategic Review. Plans for a second tranche of South Korean-made self-propelled guns have also been scrapped.
The DSR noted matters were not helped by the previous Morrison government leaving office in 2022 with unfunded defence spending commitments worth more than $42 billion.
While there has been considerable debate in defence circles about the future viability of armoured formations, experience shows that maintaining a robust armoured capability better protects the infantry, says former colonel John Blaxland, professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at ANU and its current Washington-based North American liaison office director.
Endorsing the government’s decision to prioritise acquiring long-range missiles and drones to deter potential aggressors, the decision to preference missiles over armoured capability should not be a binary one, he argues.
Blaxland says there is no reason why the Army can’t have both. The ADF’s experience with the deployment of armour in WWII, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, showed they save lives, he told The Mandarin, adding IFVs are proving their worth in Ukraine.
“The ADF has to be prepared for armed conflict, having the means to defend yourself properly, it has a deterrent effect,” he says.
At this point, I should add a personal disclaimer. More than a decade ago, as defence writer for The Australian, I raised concerns about transportation and mobility constraints affecting the Army’s new 75-tonne Abrams tanks – notably tare limits on Northern Territory bridges and a lack of rolling stock. These concerns raised the ire of then Army chief (and Abrams supporter) Lt-General Peter Leahy.
If tasked, I do accept Abrams tanks can be effectively deployed offshore using modern roll-on-roll-off ships. The Abrams predecessor was the ’60s-designed German-made Leopard 1 tank, several of which were loaded but then inexplicably removed from deployment to East Timor in September 1999 – the only time the ADF seemed ready to deploy main battle tanks overseas since Vietnam.
While much has been said about adopting the Army to changed strategic circumstances, a second factor driving cuts to the Army’s armoured capability is historic – political squeamishness by Labor when it involves stumping up for big-ticket defence acquisitions.
“The government is scared of spending more on defence,” Blaxland says, adding the armoured corps was the “easiest to squeeze” by the DSR’s authors, former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith and former ADF chief Angus Houston. It is a view shared by one senior Labor insider.
“Where the ALP left support significant defence spending is where there are big jobs or union support for job creation,” he says. “If it’s a choice between spending on social security programs or defence, their (left) normal default position would be social security every time.”
Under Land 400, Phase Three, South Korean company Hanwha has been handed a reduced work order to assemble the vehicles at its factory – under construction – in the Victorian port city of Geelong, a contract that will deepen defence ties between the two countries at a time of rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific.
“The selection of the Redback (IFV) for the Australian Army is an exciting milestone not just for soldiers, who will have an IFV specifically designed and built for them, as it also cements the closer ties between Australia and the Republic of Korea.”
“Hanwha’s selection as preferred tenderer for the Land 400, Phase 3 Project, has major implications for Korea-Australia defence and economic cooperation,” said Son Jaeil, president and CEO of Hanwha Aerospace, parent company of Hanwha Defense Australia (HDA).
While the IFV acquisition has been chopped an earlier $3.5 billion order for a replacement fleet of 75 new generation US-made M1-A2 Abrams tanks is going ahead with the first vehicles expected to arrive next year achieving operational capability in 2025.
Cuts to IFV numbers in favour of a fast-tracked long-range missile strike capability including the US-made HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) being used to great effect by Ukraine, is the clearest indication yet of a change in Australia’s strategic priorities – a move away from homeland defence to forward power projection – a less than subtle message for Beijing warning the consequences of its increasing military assertiveness.
The unipolar era is over and the ADF needs a much more focused force that can respond to the risks we face, the DSR warned.
“As a consequence, for the first time in 80 years, we must go back to fundamentals, to take a first-principles approach as to how we manage and seek to avoid the highest level of strategic risk we now face as a nation: the prospect of major conflict in the region that directly threatens our national interest.”
Despite worrying references of potential conflict with China – and questions about Australia’s level of defence preparedness to wage war – Blaxland offered one telling statistic.
In the dark days of 1943, Australia’s population stood at 7.5 million. Yet the ADF’s predecessor, the Australian Imperial Force, was able to muster 14 divisions – roughly 10,000 men per division to meet the then-enemy threat to our north. Japan is now our closest regional ally.
We are a nation of 25 million and Army’s current fighting strength is one regular division and one composite reserve division. Not time yet to ‘cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war’.
