Australia is no longer a safe-space from air attack. In a Pacific war, Australia will be hit — early, often, and hard. By Cdr Salamanader.
Australia has almost no defenses from aerial attack, because until recently we were so far away from potential attackers. From The West Australian newspaper:
Privately, US officials are also alarmed at the protection levels of Australian bases, including HMAS Stirling and RAAF Base Darwin, where significant numbers of US personnel and military assets will be operating.
Earlier this month a conservative and influential Trump-aligned think tank urged Australia to spend billions buying US-made missile interceptors to defend key bases from Chinese military attack. …
U.S. bases in Australia:
From the Australian United States Study Centre (USSC) report:
Currently, the Australian Army has very limited GBAD [ground based air defense] capabilities, with only two batteries of modern mid-tier National Advanced Surface-to-air Missile Systems (NASAMS) being brought into service. …
Australia’s ground-based ballistic missile capabilities are, however, basically non-existent.
Salamander:
That will wake you up. Well, I hope it does. What is one of the greatest lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 and the ongoing conflict between Israel and the U.S. and Iran and her proxies? Simple: the normalization of the use of conventionally armed ballistic missiles with precision warheads. …
There is already a line out the door for PAC-3, SM-3, SM-6, THAAD, and a pony for Christmas. …
The U.S. Navy had some great plans for their navalized version of the PAC-3 to fill the gap due to limited production capability of the SM-3 and SM-6, but I think history has other plans. The Free World’s demand for PAC-3 is simply too great.
The executive summary:
The PRC [China] has an answer for AUKUS, and AUKUS has to think about more weapons systems than just submarines.
Australia is not a safe-space. She needs serious defense. Should war come to the Pacific, Australia will be hit — early, often, and hard.
Australia needs to get in the air defense business as soon as practical, with the best around Perth. Want to knock Australia out of the war quickly or at a minimum cause internal unrest? In strangely anti-nuclear Australia, sink a SSN pierside with a hypersonic missile and crack open the reactor…that would do it. …
From my seat, there cannot be enough integration of U.S., Australian, and Japanese defense concerns. They are both superb militaries and good friends, and our interests in the Western Pacific have 90% overlap.