#Auspol #AUKUS #DefenceSpending
Saturday Paper June 14 2025
Hugh White
Can Albanese fix Australia’s defence?
(Hugh White is emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University. He is a former deputy secretary of the Department of Defence and wrote Australia’s 2000 Defence White Paper.)
<<The news that Washington is reviewing the AUKUS submarine deal puts a bombshell under Australia’s defence policy and sharpens the debate of recent weeks about defence spending. In that debate, suddenly 3 per cent is the new 2 per cent. For 30 years, 2 per cent of gross domestic product has been widely accepted as the benchmark for responsible defence spending. Recently, the number has drifted up towards 2.5 per cent. Now, under pressure from United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, people, including the Coalition, are seriously considering 3 per cent.
This is real money. Each per cent of GDP means about $28 billion, every year. Defence is important, but it is a big mistake to spend more on it than necessary, because every dollar taken from other priorities for defence makes us a less educated, less healthy and less productive society.
We will never discover how much we need to spend on defence by bandying GDP percentages. In this debate they are close to meaningless, as Anthony Albanese has, to his credit, made clear. The only sensible way to set the defence budget is to build the case step by step. What broad strategic objectives do we want our armed forces to be able to achieve? What operations do they therefore need to be able to perform? What capabilities would perform those operations most cost-effectively? How much do those capabilities cost?>>
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<<We will have to spend [our defence budget] much more wisely, by rigorously applying the logic of defence policy – defining strategic objectives, setting operational priorities, selecting the most cost-effective capabilities, and delivering them as cheaply and efficiently as possible. It is a long time since our defence policy was subjected to this kind of ruthless analysis.>>
sharing a “gift” link to the article here. if you are interested and it is still behind a pay wall, please let me know.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/20932/2O7NSBG1
