The Strategic Defence Review: Lessons from Australia’s National Defence Strategy
The Strategic Defence Review: Lessons from Australia’s National Defence Strategy
The Memorandum | No. 06.2024
In April this year, Australia released its new National Defence Strategy (NDS). The strategy argues that the geopolitical environment around Australia is deteriorating and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) must go through a fundamental rebalance to address the growing threats. It states that the ‘ADF will shift from a balanced force capable of responding to a range of contingencies, to an integrated, focused force designed to address Australia’s most significant strategic risks.’ Given Australia’s island nature and the enormous build up of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) naval power, it is unsurprising that Australia’s new focused force is centred on the maritime domain – although the strategy itself stresses it is not domain-centric. Given that the United Kingdom (UK) is now undertaking a Strategic Defence Review (SDR), there are useful lessons to learn from the Australian approach.
The NDS aims to ensure ‘no country’ (although of course it is the PRC in mind) attempts to achieve its regional objectives through military action. The Royal Australian Navy will be expanded and bring in new capabilities (including nuclear-powered attack submarines through AUKUS), and both the Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force are being refocused to provide what support – with emphasis on ISR (Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and strike roles – they can in the maritime domain.
Despite being located on opposite sides of the planet, there are a lot of geopolitical similarities between Australia and the UK. Most significantly, both are island nations. Nearly all countries in the world depend on the free movement of goods and information on and below the seas, but to island nations it is a matter of national life or death – especially in a more volatile world. Both are also liberal democratic states with a strong interest in maintaining an open international order. Like Australia, Britain should also look to implement an integrated (maritime) focused force, albeit tailored to its own specific strategic needs.
While the UK should draw inspiration from the NDS’ force structure, however, it should not seek to replicate it. The NDS identifies the areas of most strategic concern and outlines how and with what funding the ADF will change in the coming years. Core to this will be the acquisition of nuclear-powered attack submarines and expanding the escort fleet from its current strength of ten to potentially 27 warships (including seven Large Optionally Crewed Vessels). Industrial and personnel strategies are also a prominent feature, something which the SDR would be wise to follow suit on.
In keeping with its maritime perspective, the UK should seek to establish a maritime strategy built on the powerful, and flexible, foundations of an enlarged and more lethal navy as the best way to defend its prosperity and security, both close to and far from home. The potential details of what such a strategy could look like (there are an array of routes it could follow) cannot be explored in this Memorandum, but the Council on Geostrategy released one such potential vision at the First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference 2024. Much like the NDS, a British maritime strategy would require increased investment in defence and cuts to existing capabilities, which are supplemental to such an approach (Australia cut its order of Infantry Fighting Vehicles by 70% for example).
A British maritime strategy would suit the new Labour government’s ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-first’ approach. Connectivity between North America and Europe over the Atlantic is crucial, as is keeping open the strategic choke points at the northern and southern tips of the Red Sea, and the missile threat from the Russian Navy via the Norwegian Sea is of particular concern to the UK. Control over such waters is vital to the alliance. A British maritime strategy would also help ‘future proof’ NATO from the growing United States (US) focus on the Indo-Pacific, where the military needs of the theatre demand American naval and air assets more than land.
Critics will argue that the UK should instead be throwing its efforts into reconstituting large land forces to be deployed in Eastern Europe to deter the Russians, like the old British Army of the Rhine. But this would be a geostrategic mistake.
Firstly, the balance of power on land with Russia has arguably never been more in favour of NATO. Sweden and Finland have joined the alliance, Poland is undergoing an impressive military expansion, and other NATO members are enlarging or modernising their land forces.
These changes will soon see at least 25 additional brigades for NATO’s land forces compared to pre-February 2022 levels: Sweden adds four brigades; Finland adds eight; Poland is constituting an additional two divisions (up to eight brigades); Norway is constituting two new brigades; and the United States (US) has expanded its presence in Europe by a further three (although of course in the future these could be withdrawn). Others are rebuilding existing brigades into more modern and/or deployable formations (for example the Czech plan to modernise two mechanised brigades including transitioning one into a ‘heavy brigade’).
At the same time, Russia has lost over 17,100 pieces of military equipment in Ukraine, including over 3,200 tanks (the equivalent number of tanks to almost 37 US armoured brigade combat teams). The Kremlin is putting significant effort – it could well be spending in excess of 10% of Gross Domestic Product on the war effort – into partially mobilising its people and industrial capacity to reconstitute the Russian armed forces, but equipment and manpower are being destroyed on the frontline at a remarkable rate. Russia has worn through much of its usable Soviet era stockpiles (it will not be able to keep up with the current rate of attrition once these are gone) and it will take years for the armed forces to recover to their pre-war levels of equipment and training. The vast stockpiles of reserve equipment may never be refilled. Russia’s powerful nuclear submarine force meanwhile remains untouched by the fighting and continues to modernise.
It is important to recognise that the Royal Air Force and the British Army would still have crucial roles in a more focused British maritime strategy. The NDS did not disband the Australian Army; it is now focused on how it can contribute to the maritime domain through littoral manoeuvre and long-range fires. For example, maintaining a British Army presence in Eastern Europe strong enough to convince the Kremlin of London’s resolve to extend its nuclear umbrella over its European allies will remain critical for the foreseeable future, particularly in the event of a reduced US presence. But enlarging the Army to deploy a British armoured division in Eastern Europe is not necessary to achieve this credibility, and does not add much to what other allies are providing.
The NDS is not a perfect solution. There are valid criticisms which have emerged since its publication. Some commentary has identified issues in relation to the number of personnel and level of funding needed to realise the NDS, while others have raised questions around the speed at which capabilities can realistically be procured. But there are useful lessons for the SDR to learn from. To an island nation, such as the UK, the sea matters most. Although Britain’s position is not identical to that of Australia’s, maritime power should be front and centre of the emerging British defence review.
William Freer is Research Fellow in National Security at the Council on Geostrategy, where he works on strategic advantage and maritime affairs.
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