The federal government has increasingly called on the Defence Force for help in fire and flood disasters. Stretched between traditional battles and the war on climate change, there’s increasing debate about the appropriate materiel (military materials and equipment) they require.

Political responses range from sensible to silly, to stupid. Taking them in reverse order.

Submarines are stupid

The LNP federal government cancelled the French submarines at $80bn to go nuclear with $171bn subs from USUKA (correct spelling, pronounced ‘you sucker’). Now twenty (instead of ten) years away, they will be technologically obsolete by the time they hit the water. This week’s announcement was $10bn to house the nuclear subs in one of three locations. Unconsulted, each one said they aren’t suitable and don't want them.

Nuclear subs are a poor design. Conventional and nuclear submarines use hybrid technology: diesel or nuclear reactor power an electric motor. You can turn a diesel engine off for ‘silent running’, but a nuclear reactor must run continuously, or it melts down: it needs to pump cooling water and dump heat back into the ocean. The enemy can hear those pumps on their sonar; and the hot water leaves a thermal plume that can spotted with thermal imaging. China already has 60 submarines - you’re not getting anywhere near the South China Sea before being spotted.

Submarines as a poor design choice for anything but an all-out aggressive war. As I wrote in ‘Anzac Daze’, they are solely an offensive weapon – hence the submariners motto: “There are only two kinds of vessels: submarines and targets”. That they play no part in local disasters is highlighted by Cathy Wilcox in the SMH.

Silly ideas on recruitment vs materiel

In aid of its desire for a khaki election, the PM announced a proposed increase in military personnel from 60,000 to 80,000 over 20 years. This is highly unlikely. Defense has failed to meet recruitment targets since John Howard was PM. And it shows failure to understand the work of defence, as if the failures owe somehow to a shortage of personnel.

If Dutton’s sabre rattling for nuclear submarines is stupid, advocating for tanks on an island continent seems foolhardy, particularly as the Ukraine invasion unfolds. The Defence Minister forgets that the Australian Army and Navy have distinguished themselves far more away from the battlefield than on it.

Think INTERFET, a multinational non-UN peacemaking force, organised and led by Australia to address the humanitarian and security crisis in Timor Leste in 1999–2000. (Pity the good work was sullied by the LNP’s grubby shenanigans to spy and cheat them out of the oil reserves, and now continues the insult by chasing the whistleblower).

Think the Navy’s great work in Darwin after the cyclone (when the Melbourne, moored at the wharf, provided self-sufficiency for an ordered work force - pun intended). Or their work evacuating people during the black summer fires. In fire, flood and cyclone, whenever we need high levels of organization, hierarchical training and orders followed, we call for the military.

The failure is not in the personnel, but in the materiel that is being proposed for their use.

A sensible idea for civil defense

This week a well-reasoned suggestion came from retired Admiral Chris Barrie, a key member of Australian Security Leaders Climate Group who published the ‘Missing in Action’ report last year. In an interview on ABC RN Barrie argued it is not a good use of the military to be increasingly called in on climate change issues, but rather the military should concentrate on its traditional defence role, whilst a ‘civil defense force’ could be established to address issues in climate change.

Others have argued for such an organisation to be broadened to help in social issues such as health, aged care the NDIS. Privately, I’ve even heard it suggested as a form of ‘national service’, training young people, similar to Switzerland and Israel. Barrie doesn’t go that far, but a Peace Corps, similar to that established by USA President John F. Kennedy, has its attractions, as I discussed in the ToT article ‘Piece Corps’ (a lamentable pun).

In any event we have a great need of a ‘standing army’ to address climate change issues, and turn our attention to the security of our region. Regardless of whether its conventional or ‘civil’ we must ask “what materiel they will need?”.

Climate change materiel: helicopters and landing craft

Firstly, let’s rule out submarines, nuclear or not. And tanks. The ever-reliable ‘Bushmaster’ personnel carrier, part designed and wholly built in South Australia, and regarded as far superior to the Hummer in Afghanistan, is inappropriate and unneeded across our vast continent. Likewise, top gun-style jets, not used in combat for 50 years; unlikely in the next 50.

Two pieces of equipment are vital in fighting climate change: helicopters and landing craft.

We need to design (and build) a multipurpose helicopter. In bushfires it is a water bomber. In floods it delivers food and supplies. In both it would help in evacuations. It must be large but nimble, capable of being a small personnel carrier or having a large payload of water. It might even help in a traditional war on our coastline.

It would be a perfect complement to the C-130 Hercules troop and equipment carriers used so successfully in bushfires by the Rural Fire Service. In the vein of ‘turning swords into plough-shares’, I am advocating that we turn bomb-bombers into water-bombers.

Given that 85% of Australians live within 50kms of the edge of our continent, we need naval vessels that can both defend that stretched occupation, but moreover in times of flood and fire can evacuate them. The template for the successful design was the evacuation from Mallacoota during the black summer bushfires.

I expect, and hope, that the Defense Department is forced into transparency by the new federal government (with the new defense minister Brendan O’Connor, who has already foreshadowed a civilian natural disaster agency). If they want the vastly expensive equipment that they are currently demanding, they need to explain how it assists in confronting our enemies, who they are, and how the multi-billion-dollar investment will be used, immediately, not 20 years. I suspect the enemy of climate change will loom large

I won’t hold my breath for that to happen, but it would be good to design and build some helicopters and landing craft in Australia to meet the challenge.

Tone Wheeler is principal architect at Environa Studio, Adjunct Professor at UNSW and is President of the Australian Architecture Association. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and are not held or endorsed by A+D, the AAA or UNSW. Tone does not read Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Linked In. Sanity is preserved by reading and replying only to comments addressed to toneontuesday@gmail.com

Tone Wheeler

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