With ‘Ghost Bat’ drone, Australia gears up for new arms race

WOOMERA PROHIBITED AREA, Australia – The two onyx-coloured aircraft took off within a minute of each other, disappearing over an expanse of red desert stippled with low shrubbery.

No human was on either plane as they carved a path through the boundless desert sky on Sept 5 as part of a pre-programmed mission. The pilot was on the ground, hundreds of miles away in a nondescript shack, and ready to take control should the need arise.

The aircraft were MQ-28A Ghost Bats, 11.6m-long military drones that function as robot wingmen of sorts.

Australia is investing heavily to develop and produce these so-called collaborative combat aircraft, which will help the country defend its shores at a time when military threats are encroaching ever closer and wiping out what was once its strongest bulwark against potential conflict: distance.

Australia has invested about US$650 million (S$835 million) so far in a partnership with Boeing to develop the drones, which will be the first to be designed and manufactured in Australia in more than half a century. It is a tidal shift for the close American ally, which after decades of relying on the United States for its military equipment is trying to jump-start its defence industry, one that had atrophied since the end of the Cold War.

In Beijing this past week, China showcased several “loyal wingman”-type drones, signalling that it too was investing heavily in unmanned systems. The US Air Force is also developing collaborative combat aircraft, which are designed to fly alongside piloted fighter jets to amplify air capacity at a fraction of the cost and with reduced human risk.

“We’re seeing the biggest conventional arms race since World War II,” said Mr Pat Conroy, Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry. “China is massively modernising its conventional and nuclear armed forces.”

Mr Conroy was showcasing the aircraft this past week in the remote outback of South Australia, at the Woomera test range, a vast area of more than 120,000 sq km with a long history of secretive weapons testing by Britain, Australia and the US.

When it is not in use for military tests, cattle and sheep graze on the sparse stretch of land, which has been referred to as Australia’s Area 51.

Australia has a history of quickly ramping up a defence industry from very little. During World War II, it scaled up production of arms and munitions to supply Allied troops and began manufacturing aircraft. But without the scale or industrial base of other countries, the last plane to be developed and produced in Australia was around the time of the Vietnam War.

The dawn of artificial intelligence is giving Australia a chance to be competitive in defence manufacturing, Mr Conroy said. Boeing has broken ground on factories in Toowoomba, in Queensland state, to produce the Ghost Bat, which the country is aiming to eventually export. The US Navy may be among interested buyers, according to news reports.

About 70 per cent of the Ghost Bat’s components will be made in Australia, Boeing officials said. They said each drone would be about a 10th of the cost of a manned fighter jet like the F-35.

“You need to pay to have self-reliance to some extent, you need to be strategic about it,” Mr Conroy said.

Named after a small but feisty local animal with sharp teeth and a strong jaw that can subdue birds and other vertebrates similar to itself in size, the Ghost Bat has a range of about 3,700km, nearly the width of Australia.

Mr Malcolm Davis, a defence analyst for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the global interest in collaborative combat aircraft was a sign of countries bracing themselves for protracted conflicts between major powers. The war in Ukraine has realigned thinking for countries, including Australia, about their readiness for the types of conflicts that may emerge, he said.

“If this is being produced in Australia, in a crisis, we can keep on producing them,” he said. “If we rely on the US, we’re in the back of the queue.”

Despite the emphasis on sovereign capabilities produced on its soil, the production with Boeing is also furthering ties with the US at a time of uncertainty from Washington on its approach to alliances, said strategic and defence studies professor Stephan Fruehling of the Australian National University.

Australia has begun producing artillery shells and guided missiles in partnership with American companies in recent years, and is carrying out maintenance on US nuclear-powered submarines under the 2021 landmark defence pact with the US and Britain known as Aukus.

Those efforts have continued despite anxiety over the future of the agreement, which the Pentagon has said is under review for whether it is “aligned with the President’s America First agenda”.

“There’s certainly a more transactional approach from the White House,” Prof Fruehling said. “The instinct will be to double down on defence industrial integration, to be a net contributor than a drain on the US.” NYTIMES