Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge has explained Australia may decline a United States request for support in the Red Sea due to a significant shortfall in its naval capability.
The US Navy made the request last week amid heightened tensions in one of the world’s most important shipping lanes caused by attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militants.
Almost one week on, it appears unlikely the Albanese government will provide support to a US-led effort to protect against that aggression, with no new details offered to explain Australia’s stance.
Speaking to Sky News Australia on Monday, Mr Shoebridge claimed there were two factors at play, including a major capability gap affecting the nation’s primary warships.
“One reason is that we’ve got a very small, ageing navy and under the Albanese government and current Defence Department leadership Australia won’t get a single new warship for ten years,” he said.
“The other reason, apparently, is that the government hadn’t had a National Security Committee of Cabinet meeting scheduled and you’d think that was an easy problem for them to solve.
“The vessels we do have; we’ve got those three air-warfare destroyers they’re powerful vessels but they’re about to go into a major refit program and our eight ANZAC frigates are getting very old.
“Neither of these classes of ship is really well equipped to deal with armed drones.”
The lack of substantive drone defences is significant, with Houthi militants deliberately targeting US and United Kingdom vessels in the Red Sea with drone attacks over Saturday and Sunday.
Drone attacks have also been launched against commercial shipping in the region, suggesting any vessel Australia might deploy into the region would need to be capable of combatting such strikes.
Mr Shoebridge explained while Australia’s anti-ship capabilities were “very good” they came at a substantial cost which made using them against fairly cheap drones a waste of resources.
“Isn’t it extraordinary for me to be sitting here saying with a defence budget of $52.6 billion this financial year our navy can’t send a ship to help secure this key international sea lane because they’re not equipped to handle armed drones?” he said.
“The anti-ship missiles they have are extremely good, but it’s about a million dollars a missile to shoot down a thousand dollar drone and you don’t have many missiles in the ships.”
While the government appears unlikely to agree to the US’ original request, it is understood that a modified proposal may be put to the Australian Defence Force which could see more personnel deployed to the US-led Combined Maritime Force in Bahrain.
There are already five ADF personnel stationed at the CMF command centre, with any further troops likely to be placed in shore-based coordination roles.
If such a proposal is put to the government it would circumvent concerns over Australia’s naval capabilities as well as provide political cover amid criticisms Australia was not doing enough to meet the needs of a key ally.
(SKY NEWS)
