New Australian Government Wants to Consider F-22s
Dec 2, 2007
By Bradley Perrett
Australia’s new Labor government is likely to join Japan in seeking to overturn the U.S. ban on exporting the F-22 Raptor, although Canberra is far from deciding it wants to buy the Lockheed Martin stealth fighter.
The government of incoming Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who won a landslide Nov. 24 election victory, is showing a commitment to the armed forces at least as strong as its predecessor’s, with a defense policy that calls for greater readiness for the Australian Defense Force (ADF), not cutbacks.
Australian defense analysts expect Labor to back the main procurement decisions of the former Liberal-National government of John Howard, although the new administration plans a policy review and might face a budget shortfall in a few years.
While in opposition, new Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon repeatedly called for Australia to consider the F-22 instead of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning, the previous government’s preferred next fighter.
Under project Air 6000, the Royal Australian Air Force will next decade replace its 70-odd F/A-18A and B Hornets and, possibly, the 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets that Canberra ordered this year. Up to 100 combat aircraft are planned.
Though Fitzgibbon hasn’t gone as far as saying Australia should buy the Raptor, in the election campaign he said that Labor would ask Washington to lift the ban on sales so Canberra could reconsider its options.
The Australian Defense Dept. strongly prefers the cheaper and more flexible F-35 over the F-22, whose design emphasizes air combat. The department is likely to present Fitzgibbon with the same advice now that he has become its minister.
The U.S. Congress reaffirmed the ban on F-22 exports as recently as July. Japan, which is keen to buy the aircraft, responded by launching development of its own stealth fighter demonstrator (AW&ST Sept. 3, p. 24).
Rudd plans to pull Australian troops out of Iraq, but only after consultation with the Iraqi government and with the U.S. and Britain. He may decide simply to switch emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan, following Britain’s lead.
Moreover, there’s no other sign that the new government lacks commitment to Australia’s U.S. alliance. Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, has always voiced unusually strong support for the alliance, and he lists it first among the three pillars that support his defense policy. (The others are active membership of the United Nations and comprehensive engagement with Australia’s neighbors.)
Any changes in procurement policy are most likely to appear in a planned review expected next year.
“The new defense white paper will address the requirements for the ADF to deploy more units at higher readiness levels, deploy at shorter notice [and] sustain operations for longer periods,” according to the official Labor policy statement.
The defense budget has been expanded by 3% a year above inflation since 2001, and Labor says it will stick to that policy at least until 2016.
But Australia is planning significant new capabilities for its armed forces while renewing old ones. Analyst Mark Thomson notes that the budget is more stretched than generally realized, saying “the new government will find that there is not enough money to do all the things the previous government planned to do.”
Thomson, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says the budget will buy new capabilities but doesn’t have the funds to sustain them. For example, it will pay for six Boeing Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, based on the 737, but there’s no additional money for their running costs.
The same goes for extra NH90 helicopters that Eurocopter will build in Brisbane and a pair of 27,000-ton assault ships to be supplied by Spain’s Navantia.
Thomson expects that the Defense Dept.’s habitual slowness in getting projects to contract might cover the gap. If it doesn’t, he thinks the government, awash with cash amid a strong economy, will probably allocate the extra money.
Labor’s policy largely avoids mentioning specific equipment requirements, but two programs for the Royal Australian Navy are emphasized.
One is that Labor wants to get an early start on preliminary work on replacements for the navy’s six Collins Class submarines, even though none of those boats is due to leave service before 2025. Local construction will be necessary, Labor says, partly because an off-the-shelf design wouldn’t fill future requirements—meaning it wouldn’t be big enough to deliver the necessary range and weapons load.
The new government also describes an order for a fourth air-defense destroyer as a “strong option.” Local contractor ASC has been tapped to build three of the 6,250-ton ships to a design by Navantia. Former Defense Minister Brendan Nelson, now leader of the opposition, says a fourth unit would cost A$1.5 billion ($1.3 billion)—an extraordinarily high figure for a production design, indicating the great premium paid for local development and construction.
The new government doesn’t appear likely to drop support for local industry, however—most notably, shipbuilding.
