Recent conflicts have exposed the extraordinary rate at which modern warfare consumes missiles and munitions, placing pressure on global production capacity and challenging assumptions about the reliability of international supply chains during prolonged conflict. For Australia, these lessons sharpen questions around sovereign manufacturing, stockpile depth and whether current defence industrial capacity can provide the resilience needed to sustain the Australian Defence Force in an increasingly contested strategic environment.
This week Russia launched a massive strike on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Hundreds of drones were intercepted by Ukraine’s world leading air defence capability. But the ballistic and hypersonic missiles hit their mark, and the streets of Kyiv were once again filled with flames. Ukraine’s stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles have run dry – a critical consumable of combat that the West simply can’t manufacture quickly enough to meet demand.
Few if any militaries in the world have more experience in integrated air and missile defence than Ukraine. Despite the challenge from China, no military matches the might of the United States of America. Yet not even the might and experience of these two militaries have not been able to stop scourge of missiles and drone strikes on vital infrastructure and exquisite military equipment.
Even before the United States became entangled in conflict with Iran, it was clear that Arsenal of Democracy was struggling to surge and scale. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the Western way of war has been optimised for wars of choice against insurgents and inferior forces. As precise mass proliferates and the West’s combat competitive advantage erodes, the free world’s industrial base is struggling to react and respond. Artisan assembly lines that are designed to deliver small batches for peacetime procurement are proving to be a limiting factor for the forces of the free.
Australia needs a Plan B for munitions supply
This crisis of supply has clear ramifications for Australia. We manufacture virtually none of the missiles and munitions that the Australian Defence Force depends on to defend our nation. US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that it will take four years to replenish the Precision Strike Missiles fired in the Iran conflict as just one example. These are the exact missiles Australia plans to obtain for our HIMARS launchers. The situation is even worse in the air and missile defence missiles we rely on to defend our forces on land, air and sea.
Given this clear and present warning, it would be inexcusable if nations like Australia fail to take heed and develop a Plan B. We cannot base our supply chain on the hope that we somehow get preference in the long queue that will form for every key missile and munition the United States manufactures should the war drums start to beat. Amazon can deliver almost anything but as Iran and Ukraine shows, an offshore just in time logistics chain cannot supply the consumables of combat that large and long war demand.
The Defence Strategic Review commissioned by the then newly elected Albanese Labor Government in 2023 named a layered Integrated Air and Missile Defence capability as an urgent priority. The geopolitical circumstances have only deteriorated since the review was completed, and the advances and expansion of missile and drone arsenals has significantly accelerated. Australia’s capability gap in Integrated Air and Missile Defence is still largely unaddressed. But even the best system will quickly be reduced to a battle bystander if we don’t have surety of supply for our missiles and munitions.
As it stands, Australia is dependent on munitions supplied by a limited number of multi-national Prime suppliers manufactured mainly in the United States of America. We are waiting patiently in a long queue of fellow dependent allies for our allocation from an inadequate arsenal. Many of these critical missiles are controlled by single company, which can lead to a perverse incentive to constrain supply to maximise profit. Even President Trump’s plan for Ukraine to manufacture Patriot interceptors has run into the reality of Defence Industrial base that just isn’t ready to rapidly transfer intellectual property and establish federated sources of supply across the free world.
Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordinance Enterprise was announced in 2021 to address the clear need to revitalise Australia’s supply of munitions. Since that time there is no doubt that Australia has selected several cutting-edge missiles and munitions but as conflict in the Middle East and large and long war in Ukraine has shown, the peace time magazine depth we maintain would be exhausted in weeks or months at best in a period of high intensity conflict. Progress has been made with onshore assembly of Lockheed Martin’s Guided Multiple Rocket Launch System missiles and Kongsberg will soon be manufacturing Naval Strike Missiles and Joint Strike Missiles in Newcastle. But as for interceptors – well, join the queue.
Building Australia’s sovereign arsenal
If Australia wants to be truly ready to defend our homeland we need to accelerate efforts to design and build onshore drone and missile defences. Lessons learned from Iran and Ukraine show that this needs to be layered system with battlefield economy built in. Million dollar missiles cannot be used to shoot down thousand dollar drones – we need cheap kills and contingencies to ensure the right countermeasure is employed. But as Ukraine shows, to be ready to defeat the high-end threat that long range ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles we must have a deep magazine of interceptor missiles.
As the Australia Defence Force considers acquisitions to form part of a layered Integrated Air and Missile Defence system, we need to consider carefully if these choices will allow onshore and or sovereign supply of the munitions and missiles these platforms will need. The last time war came to the Pacific we built an Arsenal so large were able to supply our own needs and that of the American military – the largest force this region has ever seen.
Rather than simply partner with another Multinational Prime, we should seek to leverage Australia’s sovereign strengths. Companies like Black Sky Industries and Gilmour Space are already pushing towards the cutting edge. Unleash the best and brightest in the CSIRO, the University sector and the Defence Science and Technology Group. Sovereign counter strike to protect Australia and support our allies and partners suffering at the hands of Autocrats.
It is well past time to reconsider our just in time ‘unipolar moment’ supply chain. Australia needs to revitalise our Arsenal and build onshore manufacturing capacity for missiles and munitions. To deter our adversaries and be ready should the worst occur, we need to develop a Plan B. Let’s play our part in renewing the Arsenal of Democracy.
