There are five reasons Australia should be doing more now to support the Ukrainian military fight Putin’s forces. Only one is that helping 44 million people living in freedom resist a murderously brutal invasion is the right thing to do.
The other four are more selfish and should be driving urgent action by our government and its Defence Department. They are about deterring aggressive authoritarians, demonstrating the dominance of Western military technology, gaining invaluable knowledge of our systems’ effectiveness and expanding our domestic defence production capacity.
Putin and his military failing to conquer Ukraine rocks the plans of other authoritarian leaders who have their own aspirations for using their militaries to conquer and coerce others. It’s deterring others from similar adventurism.
Against all expectations, the Russian military has been shown to be flawed and far less capable than Vladimir Putin understood. Other dictators and despots must wonder about whether their own militaries are telling them the truth about their own capacities and vulnerabilities. That’s good news for deterring conflict elsewhere. And it’s only possible because of the continuing success of the Ukrainian military, which depends on partner support to sustain its forces.
The Russian military keeps suffering huge losses. But it’s also adapting using its own surveillance and attack drones, together with mortars, artillery and ground and air-launched missiles. The ground war in Ukraine depends on the air and missile battle. And mobility is essential for Ukrainian ground troops and for the Ukrainian counter missile and drone forces.
Precision is also a key attribute for the systems Australia, the US and NATO supply to Ukraine. That’s because precision systems are by far the most effective way of destroying Russian supply depots, artillery, tanks, drones and missiles. With precision, the Ukrainians need fewer artillery rounds and missiles to counter Russian attacks and to conduct their own. Both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries have been using missiles and ammunition faster than either side can re-supply. Whoever can close this consumption-production gap is likely to win the war.
Unless the Ukrainian forces are equipped and trained to use continually improved vehicles, air defence, drone and counter drone technologies, Russian adaptation and the volume of troops, tanks and weapons the Russians are willing to lose can exhaust the most capable, courageous Ukrainian formations.The whole of NATO and the US are struggling to provide the supplies Ukraine needs, so Australia’s contribution is meaningful. The Ukrainians have been telling us this for months now, grateful for the small number of Bushmaster vehicles they already have and which they have used so well.So, what would a motivated Australian government do right now to stand with Ukraine?
An immediate, obvious step is to open up our stocks of Australian Bushmaster and Hawkei protected vehicles to Ukraine, knowing that any vehicles we provide can be replaced by our production lines for these vehicles in Bendigo. Instead, we’re doing the opposite – paying Thales $168m to make more Bushmasters not for Ukraine but for ourselves, to add to the 1000 we already have. We’ve given Ukraine 9 per cent of our existing Bushmaster stocks and none of our 1000 Hawkei vehicles.
We could give Ukraine our retired F/A-18 fighter jets, instead of putting them on display in museums when they are urgently needed to fight a war.
And Australian manufacturers have highly-respected precision counter drone weapons that can be fitted to these or other vehicles. EOS, for example, makes world-leading precision weapon stations that fire machine gun rounds or small missiles to destroy kamikaze drones, surveillance drones and missiles. These weapons are some of the most effective, economical ways of destroying Russian drones and defending Ukrainian forces against missile and drone attacks.
Hundreds of these weapon stations have been ordered by the Defence Department and they are sitting waiting for vehicles the Army has ordered to turn up. Diverting these to meet urgent Ukrainian needs and ordering more for ourselves will help Ukraine without harming our own defence.
On air defence, we hear a lot about US Patriot anti-missile systems shooting down high end hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. And about the hugely effective NASAMS and IRIS-T systems protecting Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure. The dominance of these Western systems are why the large Russian air force has been confined to Russian territory during the war.
These are now essential systems every credible military must have for force protection and for civil defence. However, they can also be vulnerable to small, cheap drone systems like Russia’s Lancet kamikaze drone. And it makes no sense to use a $1m or $5m missile to destroy a $10,000 drone if you have alternative ways of doing so. Ukraine shows an effective air and missile defence system must be a layered one. It must include cheap and precise counter drone weapons – firing machine gun rounds costing cents per round instead of PAC-3 missiles costing $5m each.
So, Australian military hardware like Bushmaster and Hawkei vehicles, F/A-18 fighter jets and Defendtex, EOS and other companies’ drone and counter drone systems can be provided now by the Australian Government to Ukraine as it fights a ruthless and adaptive Russian military.
300 Bushmasters and 300 Hawkeis and as many remote weapons systems and drones as our companies can provide now would be a good start to new, serious levels of supply. Doing this will help the Ukrainian people and benefit European and global security.
But it will also energise Australian defence industrial production and provide invaluable operational knowledge about the effectiveness of our military systems. That will improve our own military capability.
Australia’s military can also hitchhike on the Ukrainians’ air defence experience in acquiring our own layered air defence system. Over $2 billion is in Defence’s budget for an air and missile defence project the government’s Strategic Review condemned as ‘pursuing a long-term near perfect solution at an unaffordable cost’. $2 billion would buy a lot of the practical systems we see working in Ukraine.
It turns out that standing with Ukraine to help its military and people prevail against Vladimir Putin’s forces isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do for the benefits it will bring to Australia’s own security and to our defence capability.
Mr Albanese tells us he runs an adult government taking adult decisions. It’s time for the adults to act with speed, even if for only selfish reasons.