The Lessons of Ukraine’s Strike’s on Russian Air Bases for Defence Bureaucrats
How the Australian Department of Defence has missed the bus on modern drone warfare, and the revolution in cheap, massed precision.
Today, a short piece I wrote was published by the Sydney Morning Herald. In this article, I explore two big lessons from Ukraine’s audacious Operation Spiderweb for the Australian Department of Defence.
Over the weekend, Ukraine provided a demonstration of something that has been largely misinterpreted by the many “pop-up” war experts that have emerged here and elsewhere in the past three years. What the audacious Ukrainian strikes showed was not a new way of war nor new drone capabilities. Both have been on display for more than three years – for those who have noticed.
What the Ukrainians actually provided on the weekend was a lesson that has two sides: On one side, they showed what can be done when politicians and military leaders take risk and free up their people to exercise creativity. The other side of the lesson is that Ukraine showed what happens to those who do not pay sufficient attention to the lessons of war, and whose learning and adaptation culture and systems are inadequate.
Unfortunately, the Australian defence department and its part-time minister have shown no indication they have learned the first lesson but have demonstrated a full measure of the second.
Australia’s defence force is slowly but surely being degraded in size and capacity by being denied funding, due to a focus on submarines that will arrive too late to deter China’s rapid military build-up and aggression. The 2 per cent of GDP being spent on defence has been recognised by every credible defence expert in this country as insufficient for normal defence needs, let along running a defence force and paying down the nuclear submarines as well as paying the exorbitant salaries of the hundreds of AUKUS bureaucrats who are travelling the world, writing briefs and producing nothing.
The Ukrainian drone strikes on the weekend are another “foot-stomp” moment for Australia. They demonstrated that taking risks and being innovative can result in the development of a long-range strike capability that does not just have to build on the small number of exquisite and expensive systems Australia is procuring. And unlike these big expensive systems, which once lost are gone forever, drones can be produced in mass quantities by Australian industry in case we are involved in a sustained war.
The expensive and exquisitely “focused” defence force we are building is designed for 20th century war. It will also take decades to deliver because of the zero-risk procurement policy of the defence department. We need to shift to a balanced force that balances crewed and uncrewed systems, expensive and cheap systems – designed for 21st century war. And we need to speed up and delegate down authorities to procure more relevant equipment that can be upgraded regularly.
You can read the full piece at this link.
You are entirely correct; the DOD and ODIS are unable to support Australian low-cost drone technology, as it is all supposed to come out of the US.
Australia is not supposed to have advanced technology. When the technology is far more advanced than anything the US can offer, it is requested that Australia move it to the US so that the Australian government can finance it under AUKUS in the US.
That is correct, Australian technology will not be supported unless it moves to the US.
You are also correct in your observation on Richard Marles. The officers and support staff recognise that the Australian industry has the top technology. However, they are not allowed to support or assist Australia's defence industry because Richard Marles still believes the AUKUS wonder weapon will arrive shortly.
It is a case where everyone can see the King has no clothes and they will never be delivered, but no one will tell the King so. When China attacks, the King will still be standing there naked with no credible indigenous defense capability.
I think the capability required might be more on the defence industry capability. This includes the raft of additive manufacturing and CAD/CAM that leads towards fast prototyping. The systems integration of Arduino/Raspberry PI control systems, electric motors and payloads is a benchtop activity. The process is the rapid iteration and prototyping and then scaling of a cheap solution. Boresight and Sypaq provide an example of Australian success at the cheap low coast end.