{"id":33395,"date":"2020-07-02T14:24:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/07\/02\/australia-releases-weapons-wish-list-amid-defense-spending-boost\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:44:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:44:31","slug":"australia-releases-weapons-wish-list-amid-defense-spending-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/asia-pacific\/2020\/07\/02\/australia-releases-weapons-wish-list-amid-defense-spending-boost\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia releases weapons wish list amid defense spending boost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014 Australia plans to increase defense spending over the next decade to AU$270 billion (U.S. $187 billion) in response to what it says is a deteriorating regional environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The July 1 announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the plan coincides with the launch of the government\u2019s 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the associated Force Structure Plan, which will raise projected spending from AU$195 billion as laid out in the 2016 Defence White Paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe simple truth is this: Even as we stare down the COVID pandemic<\/a> at home, we need to also prepare for a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous and that is more disorderly,\u201d Morrison said during the documents launch at the Australian Defence Force Academy on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have not seen the conflation of global, economic and strategic uncertainty now being experienced here in Australia in our region since the existential threat we faced when the global and regional order collapsed in the 1930s and 1940s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morrison also cited trends including military modernization<\/a>, technological disruption and the risk of state-on-state conflict as further complicating factors in the Indo-Pacific region, which he said has deteriorated more rapidly than forecast by the previous whitepaper from 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Indo-Pacific is the epicenter of rising, strategic competition. Our region will not only shape our future; increasingly though, it is the focus of the dominant global contest of our age,\u201d he said. \u201cTensions over territorial claims are rising across the Indo-Pacific region, as we have seen recently on the disputed border between India and China, and the South China Sea and the East China Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t