The Ukraine invasion has thrown into sharp focus the massive failure of successive Australian government’s defence procurement programs to strengthen our military capability.

A repost from March 11, 2022

With the Russian invasion in full swing and the collateral havoc of civilian casualties and mass evacuations before our eyes on TV it is premature to try to draw many firm conclusions about the longer term global implications of the Ukraine situation – let alone for Australia. But there are immediate lessons which should not be buried by the increasingly blatant khaki election campaign by the Coalition already descending on Australia.

Foremost, of course, Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine has destabilised the old global order on which successive Australian governments have based our strategic defence planning. Not that there had not been a growing realisation prior to Putin’s move that Australian defence thinking had not kept pace with the significant changes occurring in our part of the world – namely the rise of China and its inevitable challenge to US influence in the Indo Pacific. The Coalition’s response to the erratic and damaging approach former President Trump took to the region locked us in even more tightly to the hip with the US. A trend which has continued under the Biden administration’s emerging policy towards China.

The Ukraine invasion has served to demonstrate the very real limits of US military support and influence in the........

© Pearls and Irritations