Australia Want Missiles to Protect Offshore Oil and Gas Interests
Portable anti-ship missiles could be sent to Australia’s northern edges to protect vital offshore oil and gas infrastructure under a plan revealed in the Defence White Paper.
But the idea has already been branded “silly” by one of the government’s external expert advisers and “unrealistic” by another.
In the government’s white paper released on Thursday, Defence has committed to buying land-based, anti-ship missiles.
“The government will ensure that our maritime and land forces have improved strike capabilities,” the paper states.
“This will include acquisition of new deployable, land-based, anti-ship missiles to support operations to protect deployed forces and vital offshore assets such as oil and natural gas platforms.”
The missiles in question would be truck-mounted and could be deployed along the coast in areas such as Western Australia, covering the vast north-west shelf oil and gas facilities.
Al-Qaeda has issued threats to energy infrastructure as a way to disrupt the West, describing them as “the Achilles heel of Western economies”.
As well as protecting offshore energy assets, they would be used to defend Australian troops forming a beach head after carrying out an amphibious landing on foreign soil.
But Andrew Davies, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and an external adviser on the white paper, said it was “a silly way” to counter any threat.
Aircraft would be a better way to deal with any ship-borne threat, he said.
“They’d be much better for targeting with a much better ability to hold the other guys at a distance,” he said.
He said the oil and gas rigs were vulnerable because of their isolation.
“If you were in a high-stakes conflict, someone might have a crack,” he said. “Somebody might strike an oil or gas platform to make a point to Australia.”
But hitting the bottlenecks where the oil and gas were brought ashore would make more sense, he said.
The idea was being taken seriously enough to form a commitment in a white paper, he said.
But he added: “There have been one or two things in previous white papers that were a bit out there that have never happened and it wouldn’t surprise me if this was one of those.”
ASPI’s executive director Peter Jennings, who is also one of the government’s external advisers on the blueprint, said the plan was “unrealistic”.
However, he did say the missiles would be more useful for troops deploying in from the Navy’s amphibious landing craft, the Landing Helicopter Docks.
“You could imagine a situation where you’re deployed in a country with a bubble of force protection around that group,” he said. “This would provide a stand-off capability to hit targets way out.”
Australia does not currently have land-based anti-ship missiles. Generally they are bought by countries that fear amphibious invasion of their territory by sea, such as China.
One option for Australia to buy would be the Type 88 truck-mounted missile, made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, with a range of up to 180 kilometres.
