The defence strategic review - Implications for space

By Dr Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

The findings of the Albanese government’s Defence Strategic Review (hereafter ‘the DSR’) are yet to be released to the general public, with government suggesting that the key findings from the classified review will be announced ‘before the May budget’. Some clear hints though, particularly in relation to new capability choices, such as a focus on ‘impactful projection’ suggests a much greater emphasis on long-range strike, and perhaps less emphasis on acquiring the types of capabilities for a traditional close-in ‘Defence of Australia’ strategy that has dominated Australian defence thinking since the late 1980s, are prominent in public discussion. The role of space capability has to be a very significant and expanding component in the future of the ADF, and the DSR needs to address this important domain, or fall short in being credible policy guidance for Australia’s future defence requirements. More significantly, Government needs to support any defence vision of future space capability by promptly completing a coherent National Space Policy.

Certainly, there are other issues besides new capability choices, including whether the ADF’s force posture will be re-orientated northwards, with a consequent hardening of northern defence facilities, and greater emphasis on national resilience against multi-domain threats. And any discussion of capability and posture are meaningless unless resources –money and people – are available, so it’s inconceivable that the DSR will recommend a defence spending cut. The May 2023 budget has to reflect the rapidly worsening strategic outlook by funding capability decisions emerging from the DSR adequately, and a priority must be growing the ADF in terms of highly trained personnel.

Above all else, time is not on our side, and the DSR must reflect an urgency in addressing readiness, mobilisation, sustainment and capability gaps. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update made clear that the traditional and comfortable assumption of ‘ten years strategic warning time’ is no longer fit for purpose as a basis for defence policy. It’s clear with growing tensions in Europe as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as concerns over China’s rapidly growing military capability and potential intent towards Taiwan later this decade, that a happy and relaxed coast forward based on multi-decade acquisition cycles simply is no longer appropriate. We need to be thinking about what steps we can take in the next three to five years.

With these key issues – new capability, enhancements to force posture, investment and personnel, and national resilience, space capability plays an inextricable role. No longer is the space domain an ‘after-thought’ in which access is simply assumed to be guaranteed. As Defence policy documents and commentators now commonly refrain, space is ‘congested, contested and competitive’. Congested as a result of growing numbers of satellites – a trend which will only sharpen with mega-constellations in LEO – and increasing amounts of space debris. Contested as adversaries develop a full range of counter-space capabilities designed to attack our satellites and deny us crucial access to essential space support. Competitive as the falling cost of accessing space and utilising space through commercial ‘Space 2.0’ business models open up the high frontier to more participants. Add in ‘Complex’ as this new commercial space renaissance allows new types of space activity, such as on-orbit refuel and repair and space mobility; space resource utilisation; and spacebased manufacturing.

This congested, contested, competitive and complex domain is vital for Australia’s security and prosperity. In terms of defence, modern warfare depends on sustained and uninterrupted access to space capabilities for joint and integrated multi-domain operations, and to facilitate network-centric approaches such as that implicit in the United States’ ‘JADC2’ command and control system, or that which underpins the establishment of capabilities emerging from AIR 6500 that will form the basis of ADF Integrated Air and Missile Defence. Take out our access to space, using counter-space capabilities, and our ability to fight war in a manner consistent with principles of Jus in Bello and the Laws of Armed Conflict falls apart quickly, as our knowledge edge erodes, connectivity fails, and our understanding of the battlespace diminishes. Our adversaries understand the importance of space, which underlines China’s and Russia’s emphasis on developing both hard kill and soft kill ASAT capabilities that are increasingly threatening to our assured access to space.

The 2022 Defence Space Strategy emphasizes the importance of that assured access to space, and strongly promotes space resilience including through sovereign space capability that encompasses both satellite development and sovereign launch. That should be a strong hint to the authors of the DSR on how space needs to be developed for Australia. The DSR needs to reinforce and support the 2022 Defence Space Strategy’s call for assured access to space and space resilience as a starting point as an overarching principle. That opens the door to many possibilities going forward.

Firstly, if we are to truly develop sovereign space capability as a basis for assured space access and space resilience, then government needs to look at space not just in defence terms, but as a ‘whole of nation’ capability. Australia has a vibrant and growing commercial space sector, which is moving far more rapidly in the ‘Space 2.0’ context than traditional state-run taxpayer funded space activities of the past. ‘NewSpace’ is the future for the nation’s space enterprise, and the government must fully support it. A good place to start would be to fully support the completion of a National Space Policy that began with the former Morrison Government’s ‘Space Strategic Update’ which was announced in 2022, but which appears to be only making limited progress under the Albanese government. The National Space Policy is key to bringing together Australia’s commercial space sector with Defence, under the guidance of the Australian Space Agency, and to provide focus and direction for national space endeavours going forward. A failure to support the National Space Policy sends a signal of lack of government interest in building national space capabilities that serve both civil and commercial roles, as well as defence and national security requirements. Companies will simply relocate overseas, jobs will be lost, dreams are shattered. We go backwards, not forwards. That would be a loss to the nation which has made such tremendous progress since 2017.

Secondly, with a National Space Policy in hand, Defence would then be better placed to update its 2022 Defence Space Strategy post-DSR to reflect the importance of supporting ADF long-range strike capability and to respond to the challenge posed by a more contested space domain. What might this mean in practical terms? Both the 2020 Defence Strategic Update, and its accompanying Force Structure Plan, as well as the 2022 Defence Space Strategy, briefly mention ‘space control’ but provide little detail on just what this means for Australia. There’s reference to the importance of Space Domain Awareness, and certainly Australia is playing a really important role in that mission under Operation Dyurra with a space surveillance telescope being operated at Exmouth, Western Australia, and with Defence Project JP-9360 set to expand ADF space surveillance in coming years. But if we are serious about assured access to space and space resilience, that are front and centre in the 2022 Defence Space Strategy, then we need to do more than simply Space Domain Awareness. More discussion is needed on just what Space Control actually means for the ADF. Australia has quite correctly signed up to a unilateral ban on the testing of kinetic kill ASATs that produce space debris (a ban opposed by China and Russia), but we need to start considering how we can defend crucial space capability. Defence Project 9358 on ground-based Space Electronic Warfare is one path forward, but the answer lies in pursuing space resilience through augmentation and reconstitution, via the establishment of sovereign space launch and satellite manufacturing. We are back to national space capabilities and integration of commercial space capabilities with Defence requirements – and an absence of a National Space Policy to guide such a capability. The future is there – government simply has to open the door to it, by finishing the Space Policy to guide our path into it.

The DSR does present the opportunity for the Albanese government to show forward thinking and ambitious vision on how Australia’s commercial and civil space sector works more closely with Defence in coming years. Start by finishing a National Space Policy that considers the DSR’s findings and which provide a path forward to update the 2022 Defence Space Strategy. In capability terms what’s crucial is sovereign space capability that builds space resilience through national space launch and satellite manufacturing. That opens all sorts of intriguing possibilities. Look beyond projects such as JP-9102 and DEF-799 Phase 2, to ask what Australia can do which is ambitious and bold, and that allows us to not only assure our access to space, but burden share directly in space with key allies. If the DSR is focused on ‘impactful projection’ then developing innovative types of sovereign space based ISR and targeting for long-range strike capabilities might be a good step forward that opens opportunities for SMEs in Australia to bid as prime contractors for small-satellite technologies that can be launched from Australia, using Australian launch vehicles. How can those launch services leverage new technologies, such as reusability and rocket logistics as well as space mobility, to enhance ADF space capability and space survivability? We are witnessing a new renaissance in human activity in space as a result of these technologies. Defence needs to expand its vision, gaze skywards and be bold in its plans. Government needs to get behind that enterprise if it is to avoid wasting such amazing progress by Australia’s space sector in recent years.