Aiming higher: Accelerating US-Australia cooperation on precision-guided weapons

Modern high-intensity wars increasingly involve long-range conventional missile duels, with great volumes of strike weapons trying to get past surface-to-air missiles designed to intercept them. The global demand for precision-guided weapons (PGMs) continues to climb, while existing stockpiles dwindle and defence production atrophies. Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise, created in recognition of these shortfalls and of mounting regional security challenges, aims to procure weapons to fill capability gaps in the short term while developing Australia’s indigenous capabilities to build, maintain and repair its own weapons in the medium-to-long term. Thus far, GWEO has fallen short of expectations. Defence is yet to articulate its overarching GWEO strategy or plan, nor has it delivered on two of the most important ambitions for the initiative: co-production and sustainment.

GWEO could become a missed opportunity for Australia and the United States to deepen their partnership and deter aggression. Both countries need to rapidly acquire more maritime strike and air defence missiles to strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Partnering on GWEO will serve this objective, improve interoperability and create opportunities for deeper logistics and sustainment cooperation. Demonstrating Australia-US resolve through co-production efforts would discourage aggression from China. The United States and Australia have an opportunity to deepen their industrial base integration and strengthen combined supply chains if they act quickly and take the following steps:

• Australia should focus its co-production of PGMs on weapons that have a large international market so that its industry can maintain a continuous build and keep production lines hot, while the United States should allow Canberra to export the American weapons that it domestically manufactures.
• Australia should co-develop and purchase sophisticated and long-range PGMs — the maritime strike and air defence weapons that are needed to deter China — from the United States instead of trying to domestically manufacture them.
• Australian companies should seek to produce sub-components that currently are in short supply in the United States, such as solid rocket motors, to strengthen combined supply chains.
• The United States should provide Australia with the requisite technology and information to sustain key PGMs and consider how to integrate PGM sustainment and maintenance into Australia-US force posture initiatives.
• The United States should prioritise foreign military sales to nations that advance its defence strategy, including Australia.

This multifaceted level of collaboration would increase Australia’s ability to defend itself, strengthen the crucial Australia-US relationship and bolster deterrence even in the face of growing uncertainty.

Read the full report originally published by The United States Studies Centre.