Gleaning lessons from Putin's attack on Ukraine, Australia decides to increase its troops to 80,000

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday that Australia will increase its defence forces by 30 per cent by 2040, calling that the largest build-up in peacetime.

The force will grow from 70,000 to 80,000 over 18 years, at a cost of about Aus$38 billion (US$27 billion), the prime minister announced at an army barracks in Brisbane.

At a news conference, Morrison, who is expected to call a general election in May, said it was the "biggest increase in size of our defence forces in peacetime in Australian history".

Also read | From Ukraine's besieged cities, 35,000 escaped via humanitarian corridors: Zelensky

According to him, the military build-up was in response to the "threats and the environment" that his government faced as an Indo-Pacific liberal democracy.

Some of the new troops will support a future nuclear-powered submarine fleet under the new Australia-Britain-US alliance, AUKUS.

Although Australia plans to arm the submarines with conventional weapons, it has not yet decided what the specifics of the program will be, including whether to opt for a fleet based on US or British nuclear-powered attack submarines.

Also read | Australia flood toll rises to 20 as thousands evacuate Sydney

In the face of China's growing influence in the Pacific region, the AUKUS alliance would make Australia the only non-nuclear weapons power with nuclear-powered submarines capable of travelling long distances without surfacing.

A build-up of uniformed forces, according to Defence Minister Peter Dutton, would provide a credible deterrent to any expansionist military threat.

Beyond submarines, Dutton said the new forces would be deployed in areas such as space, cyber operations, naval assets, as well as land and sea-based autonomous vehicles.

"It is absolutely necessary," he said, invoking Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent invasion of Ukraine.

"People who believe that President Putin's only ambition is for the Ukraine don't understand the history that our military leaders understand."

Watch | Watch how owl interrupted news interpreter in Australia mid-conference

As China flexes its muscles in the Asia-Pacific region, the defence minister reiterated warnings about the strategic threat Australia faces.

"If people think that the ambitions within the Indo-Pacific are restricted just to Taiwan and there won't be knock-on impacts if we don't provide a deterrent effect and work closely with our colleagues and with our allies, then they don't understand the lessons of history," Dutton said.