The strait of Hormuz is a sideshow. We need to be preparing for the main game. You can’t mobilise from a standing start – time to get ready! ⬇️
While all eyes are on the unfolding conflict in the Middle East, the Indo Pacific is the decisive theatre for Australia’s focus. Being ready and resilient is essential and we must be able to mobilise more than just our military to deter and defend. Palantir’s Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar has partnered with Madeline Hart to write ‘Mobilize – how to reboot America’s Defense Industrial Base and Stop World War III’. This quote gets straight to the point on why mobilisation is vital to being both ready now and focused on the future:
“Successful mobilization will be defined by optionality and speed. The battlefield extends from the factory to the foxhole and we must be able to pivot production and upgrade hardware at the tempo of AI-enabled warfare. Timelines to improve weapons are now measured in hours and days, not months and years.”
Shyam appeared at the Hudson Institute recently to launch the book and was providing plenty of on point analysis. He talks about the need for Heretics as well as Heroes in order for the Arsenal of Democracy to renew and refire. Heretics who challenge the status quo, develop contrarian ideas and test new concepts that simply won’t be created if all we do is focus on perfecting business as usual.
Likewise ASPI Senior Fellow Marc Ablong is a regular contributor to the contest of ideas on all things mobilisation, but with an Australian perspective. He has highlighted the need to broaden the scope of preparedness planning away from just mobilising our military to mobilising our whole economy. Our quest for efficiency and eagerness to take a peace dividend has left us with a national model not fit to be ‘future ready’:
“The very essence of national support to Defence is the civil sector’s seamless, scalable delivery to the warfighter of capability, from munitions to maintenance. To believe that the modern, hyper-efficient and globally disaggregated industrial model will spontaneously pivot to meet the extraordinary attrition rates and surge requirements of major conflict is to ignore history.”
Australia is getting a lesson in the risks of putting too much faith in a globalised, outsourced and just in time supply chain as we speak. Being ready to mobilise also requires rebuilding our national resilience and reforging capacity in our industrial base, energy system and national infrastructure. The Geopolitical context has changed – time to prepare our nation accordingly!
Food for thought as always and we’ll add links to the book, Hudson Institute event and articles reference in the post the comments.
🖼️ via Palantir – we rate the nod to the WWII era Canadian War Information Board classic ‘Attack on All Fronts’ poster!
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