Without sufficient resilience the Australian Defence Force risks being knocked out of the fight—defanged and disabled—in the opening hours of a future high-intensity war.

The ADF must be able to repair damage to mission-critical combat enablers under wartime conditions. These are things such as air and naval bases, fuel and ordnance stocks, runways, ports, rail networks and communications networks. Repair capabilities for runways and ports need particular attention.

The risk of early disablement is rising as potential adversaries strengthen their capacity for long-range strike, particularly with high-speed weapons that allow little warning time.

Our response must be to build up an organisation of repair units in the ADF for rapidly repairing combat enablers, one that can do the work in remote locations under difficult conditions and is equipped to keep fixing things for months or even years.

Wartime damage to ADF combat enablers might look like smashed port infrastructure, cratered runways and burning fuel and ordnance stores. Depending on what was hit, any one of these wounds might severely hinder combat operations, two might reduce the ADF to a feeble capability, and more might render it barely capable of fighting at all.

In 1967 the Israeli Defence Force avoided catastrophe by using a pre-emptive strike to defang then destroy all hostile neighbouring air forces. Runways were early targets.

Private contracting is not an option for this. Repair work would be a disciplined operation often exposed to risk of enemy attack, so the organisation must be part of the Australian Defence Force.

An example of what is needed is the US Air Force’s organisation of combat engineer repair teams, composed of uniformed personnel who can parachute to damaged facilities and work under austere conditions for limited periods and without resupply to repair them.

An equivalent ADF unit should be able to patch minor to moderate battle damage in short order using on-hand resources and to repair major to severe damage with greater time and access to external resources.

It should, for example, be able to get a minor to moderately damaged runway back into operation using on-hand resources. This might mean dealing with craters and removing debris. If the runway is quite wrecked, the ADF repair unit might need heavier equipment and more materials.

Repair units must be deployable from the Royal Australian Navy’s LHD assault ships and the Australian Army’s forthcoming landing ships. They must also be able to move by road, rail and C-17 or C-130 airlifters of the Royal Australian Air Force. Some units should be able to drop in by parachute, since runways might be too far away from the damage or might themselves be what has been knocked out.

Coordination with ADF explosive ordinance disposal teams will be needed, since an attack may leave behind unexploded enemy bombs, submunitions and sea mines.

Creating an ADF ability to fix runways and ports should be given the highest priority as these are the gateways for dispatching and receiving bulky cargo and heavy equipment that would be needed for repairing other things.

An ADF combat enabler repair capability could be used in peacetime to repair civilian infrastructure—for example, after severe storms. That activity could in fact be training for the repair units.

The risk of the ADF being knocked out of the fight in the opening hours of a regional war is rising as potential adversaries field increasingly advanced and high-speed long-range strike capabilities.

For example, China has fielded DF-26 ballistic missiles with a range of around 4,000 km. It is also working on its DF-27 ballistic missile with a hypersonically manoeuvring re-entry vehicle and a range of 5,000 to 8,000 km. It’s H-20 stealth bomber, also in the works, will have a range exceeding 10,000 kilometres, a payload of around 10 tonnes and the stealthiness needed for evading defences.

A range of 8,000 kilometres would allow China to strike anywhere in Australia and the surrounding ocean from its southern island Hainan.

DF-26s and DF-27s are a serious concern because the time from launch to warhead detonation will be only tens of minutes.

If no action is taken, the ADF could lose its ability to defend Australia in the opening hours of a high-intensity regional war, raising the risk of China winning—with all the geostrategic consequences that would follow, including US withdrawal from the Western Pacific.

If losing is not an option, the Australian government must consider options to ensure that infrastructure and equipment that the ADF relies on can be kept in action—or quickly put back in action if hit.