“Nations that [think their] militaries can quickly invade other countries or tracts of land and take populations under their control are simply naive…it’s a relearning of what history tells us,” he said.
“I think what you’re seeing is, even when a much stronger military force seeks to use its military power on an adjacent land border, and then when that country strikes back, it’s an incredible struggle … and I think that’s probably all nations are taking stock,” he said.
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Radakin said one of the big lessons of Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion was the “strength of collective defense” as well as the “crass” way in which Russia was carrying out the attacks.
“The opposite is trying to conduct the war more precisely with more speed,” Radakin said, adding that Ukraine’s counterstrikes had involved more agile and “higher quality” weaponry.
He described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tactics as an example of “how not to fight, and that has surprised us because, I think for most of us, we thought the Russians had a stronger ability to link ground forces to maneuver combined armies, to be able to operate with much greater speed… and this is not happening”.
Australia could face a defense capability gap, with nuclear submarines expected to be procured under the AUKUS deal with the US and Britain not to be ready until 2040, prompting the spokesman for opposition defense, Andrew Hastie, urges Britain to compete with the Americans. supply from Australia.
A British Astute class nuclear powered submarine. Credit: Royal Navy
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But Radakin said the strength of the partnership was the lack of competition over cooperation between allies. “We are working together to achieve the best outcome to provide Australia with an honest assessment of the various options and how it can move forward to produce a fleet of nuclear submarines in the future,” the admiral said.
“So I don’t buy the ‘let’s focus on this country and these difficulties’ and so on. We’re doing it entirely to share a result.”