Fear of China, US Isolationism, Drive Up Australian Defence Budget

So what is Australian Prime Minister Morrison's very long public speech, delivered on July 1, 2020, all about?

A. Basically the increasing fear of China, a China playing hardball:

-   in Hong Kong, in China's near (East China and South China) seas and on the China-India border
-   increased Chinese cyber hacking/sigint efforts
-   increased Chinese pressure on nations to accept such Chinese power projection products as
     Huawei 5G, and
-   more recently increased Chinese Wolf-warrior hard "diplomacy". No more Mr Nice Guy.
    No carrots, just stick.

B.  Australia signalling the US that Australia is no longer confident that the Trump Administralion's
     alliance defence "policy" (or lack thereof) can be trusted to support Australia. But Australia is
     willing to foot more of the defence bill (2+% GDP) as an argument for greater (or restored) US
     support.

The more formal description of Morrison's speech is the "2020 Defence Strategic Update and 2020 Force Structure Plan"
---------------------------------------------------------

France24, July 1, 2020 describes the B. aspect of the speech well
 https://www.france24.com/en/20200701-chinese-threats-weaker-us-alliance-spur-australian-military-overhaul :

“...beyond real concerns about Chinese hacking, territorial seizures, economic coercion and "grey-zone" operations just short of open warfare lay an unspoken [Australian] acknowledgement: America's defence umbrella -- which had long offered protection from these threats -- is looking very leaky.

"Australia is losing faith in the United States," Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official and expert on Asian security policy told Agency France Press (AFP).

Policy officials cannot publicly admit it, he said, "but that's clearly what this is all about".

"It's not just that China's more aggressive in this region. It's China fears combined with US unreliability and strategic incompetence."

For much of the last century, Australian security relied on the United States.

After independence from Britain, Australia actively supported the US-led rules-based order and its forces fought in wars from Vietnam to Iraq. In return, it got the protection of the world's preeminent nuclear power.

But even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office and threatened to set fire to decades-old security treaties, Washington had shown an increased reluctance to play security guard for countries rich enough to afford their own defence.

There is no guarantee the United States can continue to be a global policeman, even if it wanted to, observers note."

US Stars and Stripes, July 1, understandably avoided the Australian lack of faith in US support theme, but it set out the cost and some hardware details of Australia's increased 10 year wish list well https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/australia-to-boost-military-spending-amid-most-challenging-times-in-indo-pacific-region-1.635800 :

"Australia will spend US$186 billion [equivalent to A$270 billion] to build a bigger and more aggressive military equipped with long-range and hypersonic missiles, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Wednesday.

A 10-year plan [2020-2030], outlined during a livestreamed speech at the Australian Defence Force Academy, includes working with the United States to develop missile defense for deployed forces and acquiring long-range missiles to protect shipping lanes.

It also calls for Australian military satellites, new drones, enhanced cyber capabilities and an underwater surveillance system.

The plan will take annual defense spending beyond 2% of GDP, Morrison said.

Morrison said his nation faces “the most challenging times since the 1930s and early 1940s.”

The nation must prepare for a post-pandemic world that is poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly, he said.

“The Indo-Pacific is the epicenter of rising strategic competition,” Morrison said. “It is the focus of the dominant global contest of our age.”

Tensions over territorial claims are rising across the region from the South China Sea to the East China Sea and the border between China and India, he said.

Meanwhile, military capabilities are expanding, coercive activities are rife, and technology is enabling more disinformation and foreign interference, Morrison added.

“The rest of the world and Australia are not just bystanders to this,” he said. “We are undertaking the biggest regeneration of our navy since the second World War and have chartered the transition to a fifth-generation air force.”

Morrison promised to boost the military’s ability to deal with “gray zone” activity against Australia’s interests that falls below the threshold of traditional armed conflict.

Australia will purchase the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile from the U.S. Navy at a cost of US$553 million, The Australian newspaper reported Tuesday. The missile has a range of more than 230 miles compared to the 77-mile range of Australia’s 1980s-era AGM-84 air-launched Harpoon anti-ship missile.

Up to US$6.42 billion will also be spent on research and development into high-speed, long-range weapons, including hypersonic weapons, the newspaper reported.

A further US$6.91 billion to US$11.75 billion will be spent on fighter aircraft, suggesting Australia may expand its Joint Strike Fighter program involving the F-35 Lightning II, according to the newspaper.

Australia is also looking at acquiring the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, a light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s for the U.S. Army, the newspaper reported.

A massive underwater surveillance system using high-tech sensors costing between US$3.45 billion and US$4.83 billion is one of the biggest new purchases that could eventually also include unmanned submarines, the newspaper reported. [we already have a system that needs upgrading and are a part beneficiary of a Japan-US-Australia-(with a new India leg) sensor array, further out.]

The plan is a hardening of Australia’s strategic position and mirrors a hardening of the U.S. position, Paul Buchanan, an American security analyst based in Auckland, New Zealand, said in an email Wednesday.

“The US makes no bones about the fact that China is considered to be the prime adversary in the Western Pacific,” he said. “The Australians feel the same.”

Australia and other states in the region are reacting to China’s actions, Buchanan said.

“[The Chinese] have been very provocative and have really pushed the envelope of toleration amongst their neighbors,” he said.

The Australian defense boost puts the Chinese on notice that they will not be able to project power unimpeded, Buchanan added.

“They are going to ring fence China as much as possible,” he said. “At least the Australians will have the assets to make it very costly for China to do military progression in the Southwest Pacific.”"

PETE COMMENT

Note much of the US$186 billion (equivalent) is for a timeframe so far out (ie. 2026 to 2030)  Australia had not budgeted for it previously. Put another way, the Coalition Government of Prime Minister Morrison will not (and expects not) to need to keep a promise now regarding military spending in six years time (2026 onwards).

Australia is very unstable in terms of peak governance. In the last ten years Australia has experienced six Prime Ministers and seven Elections (scroll down a bit at elections link). In that turmoil Australia often alternates between Coalition and Labor Governments who don't keep the other's promises or maintain each other's Defence Budgets projections.

For example 6 years from today
is 2 (and possibly 3) elections away.

As political poetry goes.

By the time Australia's COVID-19 pandemic ends the Australian Government will have spent around US$200 billion extra in stimulus socio-economic programs to keep things ticking over. Given the unexpectedly high Government stimulus deficit resulting, embarking on a major increase in defence spending within Australia's limited GDP, is unaffordable. Something's got to give. Social welfare spending and tax reductions win more elections than defence spending.