Kim Beazley, a former Defence Minister (1984-1990), leader of the Australian Labor Party (1996-2001) and Australian ambassador to the United States (2010-2016), has penned a
for ASPI about the decline of Australia's surface combatant inventory:
The [1987] white paper called for a force of three guided missile destroyers (DDGs) and six guided missile frigates (FFGs). With them, though still to be selected, were eight Anzac class frigates which entered service between 1994 and 2005. That made a force of 17 surface combatants.
This was not an ad hoc decision. It was a calculation of the force needed to work in the various points of entry through the archipelago to Australia’s north. Studies suggested we needed 20 ships but there was not the money. It was hoped New Zealand would acquire four frigates and that might fill the gap. Critically, as the white paper mentioned repeatedly, the whole force structure was not Cold War related. It was about the character of our region in the medium term. The paper argued that we should relieve the US of the burden of interposing its own forces in the defence of our approaches. Our maritime defence was central to that self-reliance.
Of the 17 vessels planned for those chokepoints, the subsequent 30 years saw the three DDGs and then the six FFGs retired. The Navy’s three Hobart class air warfare destroyers (AWDs) were to replace the three DDGs. Instead, the three AWDs replace the six FFGs as well, nine ships in all. If we built six more AWDs, experience and efficiencies would make them relatively cheap, and our force would look quite formidable. Some could be optimised for anti-submarine warfare which would mean that the current defence minister, who bears no responsibility for any of this, would not be faced with his most troubling decision, the future of the Hunter Class frigate program.
The Australian has reported that consideration is being given to withdrawing HMAS Anzac and two of its sisters from the order of battle. This would reducing costs and help relieve chronic crew shortages for the remainder of the fleet. Instead of 17 ships, we would have eight.
A few thoughts:
This is the first I have heard of consideration being given to early retirement of any of the ANZAC frigates. If this were to occur it would restore something like the original retirement schedule, which had HMAS
Anzac retiring in ~2025 at around thirty years of age. This original schedule was discarded around 2018 and a life-extension program approved instead in the context of the selection of the
Hunter-class frigate to serve as their ultimate replacements. If an "early" retirement of one or more of these ships were to now occur, this saga of life-extensions owing to a failure to acquire timely replacements, followed by cancellation of that life-extension program some ~6 years later owing (one assumes) to cost and personnel challenges, leading to a
reduction in the fleet inventory at the same time the national security establishment is hyperventilating about these being the darkest days since WW2, etc. would demonstrate a level of ongoing incompetence that would be shocking if we had not already become numbed to such.
Kim Beazley was Defence Minister at the time the 1987 Defence White Paper that he references was issued. One of the major contributing authors to that paper is a figure that some here may be familiar with, perhaps owing to my having linked to his contributions on several occasions: Hugh White. These two persons are therefore almost certainly known to each other and acquainted in the exchange of ideas. White has long advocated a major expansion in Australia's submarine capabilities (I believe he suggests a force of 24 SSKs), this coming partly at the expense of investment in surface combatants. When the then-Labor government first initiated the
Collins-replacement program, it committed to double the submarine inventory from the six units of the
Collins-class (and six units of the
Oberon-class before them) to 12 SSKs, reflecting the ongoing salience of that particular school of thought. As we all know this has now been revised to "at least eight" nuclear-powered submarines.
Beazley correctly identifies that the failure to acquire more than three Hobart AWDs was a major blunder. What he does not explicitly note is that the option in the original contract to acquire a fourth AWD expired under a Labor government, at a time when defence outlays as a proportion of GDP hit record lows. Clearly, that AWD option should've been taken up and a new contract engaged to extend production to at least six ships. The Liberal Party has been in power here for most of the period that defines out present and near-future capabilities (1996-2007, 2013-2022) and is responsible for most of the worst decisions that have been taken, nonetheless the record of failure is a bipartisan one, in large part of course because both parties are fundamentally drinking from the same ideological and institutional wells.
