THERE is an almost mathematical elegance to Ross Babbage's vitally important new paper, Australia's Strategic Edge in 2030, to be published on Monday.
The veteran defence analyst wants Australia to do to China what China is doing to the US. China recognises that it could never defeat the US in a full-on, force-on-force conflict. But it can make it incredibly costly and dangerous for the US to operate its military in the western Pacific.
China achieves this by adopting "asymmetric" warfare. Asymmetry simply means big versus small. Asymmetric warfare is a way for the weaker party in a conflict to inflict crippling costs on the strong party.
China is doing this to the US through cyber warfare, space warfare, submarines and missiles. The Chinese strategy is called anti-access area denial. It is aimed at destroying US computer-based capabilities through cyber warfare. It is aimed at destroying US satellites through space warfare.
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Already, Australia is in direct range of many Chinese weapons, so the PLA's expansion directly affects the defence of continental Australia.
While Babbage's report is very sobering, it is hardly as if the Americans are asleep while all this Chinese military activity is going on.
The Americans are developing their own air-sea battle plan that would seek to wipe out many of China's capabilities at the start of a conflict.
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