China's Missile threat

We recently saw China lob a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific, evidently just to send a message.

And what was the message?  We can dance around the diplomatic doublespeak as much as we want, but it was pretty clearly something along the lines of “We can totally destroy any site in any nation in the Pacific any time we choose.”  But surely it wouldn’t actually do such a thing, would it?  Based on observed recent behaviour, the answer can only be that if it assesses such an action to be in its best interests, i.e. where the benefits outweigh the costs, it can and will do so.

At present, such conditions probably don’t exist, but this is a country that constantly pushes the boundaries of its sphere of influence, as it sees it, and there’s no reason to expect it won’t continue to do so.

Hitting a Pacific island nation is one thing, but what about Australia?  Surely an island continent as big as ours can’t be subject to the same threat.  But why not?  Apart from a few big cities, the main characteristic of our Australian continent is that virtually no-one lives here.  No offence intended to those of us who live away from the big cities, but overall Australia’s population is 3.5 people per square kilometre.  We’re ranked number 239 in the world, just above Mongolia and Western Sahara, and just behind Iceland and Namibia.

This concentration of population also applies to the location of our major defence facilities as well, where for the most part, planners have chosen (or simply defaulted to) comfortable proximity to major population centres, rather than strategic need.  There is very limited dispersal of critical defence assets.

Complacency, trusting our good luck and relying on others to protect us is perhaps the central characteristic of our defence policy, and indeed any other policy affecting the national interest. It was first and best articulated by Donald Horne in 1964 and his description of us as “The Lucky Country” was not a compliment.

So…Let’s say you want to take out the Royal Australian Navy.  How would you go about it?

You’d probably need just two missiles: one for Garden Island in Sydney, and one of the other Garden Island in Fremantle, WA.  And that’s it.  If it was timed right, some or just about all our ships (and submarines, if we ever get them (or perhaps a UK or US visitor)) would be alongside, and that would be that.

Then there’s the air force.  That would take another two: one for Williamtown, north of Sydney, and the other for Tindal, NT.  That would take care of pretty much all of our F-35 fighters, and maybe a few visiting B-52s.  If you wanted to be really thorough, you could send another missile to RAAF Amberley outside Brisbane, to take out the F-18 Super Hornets, EA-18 Growlers and air mobility assets, although none of these non-stealthy, older aircraft would be likely to get very far without fighter escort.

The army?  Unfortunately, it really doesn’t count for anything in this scenario.  Our individual soldiers are well-trained and equipped, but the army as a whole is of microscopic size compared to any significant adversaries or allies.  In any case, Australia is an island continent and without a navy or air force, no adversary needs to set foot on the mainland to completely eliminate our ability to either project power or defend ourselves against attack from across the sea.

We couldn’t respond in any meaningful way.  We’d have virtually nothing conquerable to shoot back with.  What would our erstwhile ally, the USA do?  Remember this is a country whose President has just threatened to bomb an ally who doesn’t do what it wants (Oman), and leaves another in the cold (South Korea) to show support instead for his “great friend”, Kim Jong Un?  Sure, the Americans generally like Australians, but do we seriously think would they would really retaliate on our behalf and risk further escalation which might threaten their entire country?  This is surely the case even in a future where the USA once again has a more calm and rational administration.

So that’s the threat which hangs over us.  Now.

Of course, that’s all very well, but what is the actual risk of such a scenario arising?

For risk assessment we need to consider both likelihood and consequence.  And the risks most difficult to assess are those of very low likelihood, but very high consequence.  Clearly the consequence would be catastrophic. 

As for likelihood, it may be sufficient (or just complacent?) at this stage to say it’s very low and leave it at that.  But that may not always be the case.  The risk exists nonetheless.  It’s there.  The likelihood is not zero.

In risk management, the usual test for negligence is when a duty-holder “knows, or ought reasonably to know, about the hazard or risk, and ways of eliminating or minimising the risk” and fails to take actions which are “reasonably practicable”.

Well, we know about the risk.

The question is what is considered “reasonably practicable” to eliminate or at least minimise the risk, when taking into account the consequence [stratospheric!] and the likelihood [admittedly low, for now]?

There are at least two viable options, both American: Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.  Both are in short supply at the moment as the USA is using them up at an unsustainable rate, but perhaps we could at least put in an order.  These things take years to build, and surely it would be better to at least have an order in the pipeline rather than wait until we really need them, but which time it will be too late.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is at least thinking about Ground-Based Air Defence (GBAD), and recently launched a prototype ground-based active missile defence system utilising a Standard Missile-2 at the Woomera test range in South Australia, supported by various Australian and American systems.  The SM-2 has been around for quite a while, though, and does not have a terminal Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capability.  A worthy technology demonstration for sure, but not in itself a solution for this scenario.

The future SM-6 might do better, and apparently we have some on order, but they might be of little use for home defence if they are only deployed on our ships when they away fighting World War III in the Taiwan Strait. 

Either way, it appears we still have a long way to go before we have any kind of credible system deployed and available for the defence of our land bases, and the Government might be well-advised to get on the front foot to address this gap.