Reuters
Australia said it will boost its missile defense capabilities amid “significant concerns” about the Chinese Communist Party’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the South Pacific. Australia will also bolster its weapons stockpiles and exports to security partners as the region enters a new “missile age.”
Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said in an October 2024 speech that Australia was increasing its missile defense and long-range strike capability and would cooperate with security partners Japan, South Korea and the United States to contribute to regional stability.
“Why do we need more missiles? Strategic competition between the United States and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra.
China test fired an ICBM in September 2024 that traveled more than 11,000 kilometers to land in the Pacific Ocean to Australia’s northeast. Conroy said the Indo-Pacific was on the cusp of a new missile age, where missiles are also “tools of coercion.”
“We expressed significant concern about that ballistic missile test, especially its entry into the South Pacific given the Treaty of Rarotonga that says the Pacific should be a nuclear weapons free zone,” he told reporters in response to a question.
Australia was deploying SM-6 missiles on its Navy destroyer fleet to provide ballistic missile defense, he added. Earlier in October, Australia announced a multibillion-dollar deal with the U.S. to acquire SM-2 IIIC and Raytheon RTX.N SM-6 long-range missiles for its Navy.
Australia has previously said it would spend $49 billion on missile acquisition and missile defense over the next decade, including nearly $14 billion to fund the Australian Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise, a new domestic manufacturing capability.
“We must show potential adversaries that hostile acts against Australia would not succeed and could not be sustained if conflict were protracted,” Conroy said in the speech.
In August, Australia said it would jointly manufacture long-range Naval Strike Missiles and Joint Strike Missiles with Norway’s Kongsberg Defence in the city of Newcastle on Australia’s eastern coast, the only site outside of Norway. “In a world marked by supply chain disruption and strategic fragility, Australia needs not only to acquire more missiles, but to make more here at home,” Conroy said.
Australia’s Navy will also have Tomahawk missiles, with a range of 2,500 kilometers, by the end of 2024, increasing the fleet’s weapons range 10-fold.