Australia Must Increase its de
As we enter the 21st century we can see that countries all over the world spend large amounts of money on their defence. The United States of America alone spends around $450 billion annually on defence (pg 49, Defence Review 2000). This essay examines the three Australian armed forces, namely the navy, the air force and the military to see what improvements they require, in order to protect themselves in the new century. It also discusses countries that could be potential threats to it in the future and steps required to be taken by the Australian government to overcome these threats. The Australian maritime forces include submarines, aircraft, surface ships and their helicopters. In all there are nine major warships, out of which seven ships are usually available for operations and two of them are generally in maintenance on a circulation basis (Pg 40, Defence Review 2000). These ships have very limited defences against the new anti-ship missiles that have been acquired in neighbouring countries such as China and Japan, the defensive capabilities on these ships were designed in the late 80's and are no longer very effective against modern technologies (Pg 40,Defence Review 2
Compared to other countries occupying big land masses such as China and America the Australian defence expenditure is negligible. As mentioned earlier the United States spends around $450 billion on its defence annually, where as China spends approximately about $50 billion (www.chinfo.mil). China and Singapore spend about 4% of their gross domestic product on defence, where as Australia spends only 1.8% of its GDP on defence (Xinhua News Agency). Japan spends over $40 billion on its defence as compared to the $10 billion that Australia spends (Aviation Week and Space Technology). China has a population of approximately 2 billion and India of over a billion (www.globalstatistics.com) A large population density in Asian countries puts more pressure upon the land for resources, and there is a rise in poverty. This draws the attention of the people elsewhere in order to fulfil their basic needs. Australia is a highly inviting place for such countries because of the low population density; to ensure safety from high population countries such as these Australia needs to maintain a strong military force. The Australian army mainly consists of two infantry brigades with about three thousand personnel (Pg 43 Defence Review 2000). Despite of good training an army that is so small cannot possibly take on a larger conventional army, armed with heavy firepower. With a small defence budget it is hard to sustain an army. The Australian land force also has tanks, armoured reconnaissance, mechanised infantry but these are in limited numbers. The Australian air force is primarily made up of two integral parts, namely air combat and the strike force (Pg 36 Defence Review 2000). The air combat is based on a fleet of 71 F/A-18 aircraft with radars, missiles and other weapons systems, supported by a number of air bases across northern Australia (Pg 36 Defence Review 2000). In any air combat the key strengths are the skills of the pilots and other personnel who operate and support the aircraft, however the aircrew is
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Approximate Word count = 1357
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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