This episode of All About the Base, a video series analyzing critical industrial base topics, examines the challenge of resilience in the Pacific and how Australia can strengthen its industrial capability and capacity to support the maintenance of domestic and international weapons systems. In protracted large-scale combat operations, particularly those fought across the large distances and littoral environments found in the Asia-Pacific, logistics and sustainment cannot be secondary concerns. Indeed, they can be the difference between a force that can fight and a force that cannot.
This episode builds upon a yearlong Center for the Industrial Base project that assesses these exact issues. What measures can the Australian Department of Defence pursue to enhance its national preparedness and resilience in the face of a major conflict? How are other agreements, such as AUKUS, the Regional Sustainment Framework (RSF), and the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), helping integrate the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies to improve industrial capacity? What long-term, structural changes need to happen within and between allied industrial bases for them to achieve their shared strategic goals?
Host Dr. Jerry McGinn, Director of the Center for the Industrial Base, discusses these questions with Mr. Jedidiah Royal, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs. Their conversation examines the factors driving Australia’s industrial policies, identifies obstacles and opportunities for deeper allied resilience, and underscores how Australia can enhance its industrial resilience to contribute to the joint fight.
The All About the Base series is made possible by general funding to CSIS.
