UAVs and the ADF

Evolutionary or Revolutionary?

Maintaining a technological edge over peer competitors within the South-east Asian region has been one of the fundamentals of Australian defence policy since WW2. Because Australia is an island nation, that principle has been applied especially to the Royal Australian Air Force. Simply put, control events in the vast maritime (air and sea) approaches to the country’s north and northwest and you control national military security. Thus, it is no coincidence that for half a century the RAAF has been the region’s pre-eminent air power.

However, as the Australian Defence Force’s vice-chief of staff Air Marshal Mark Binskin recently noted, it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain that status. With the region enjoying unprecedented wealth, growth, and industrialisation, access to advanced technologies is inevitably growing.