Much of the commentary surrounding the success of Hanwha’s Redback family of infantry fighting vehicles in the lucrative LAND 400 program has directly focused on the capability to be delivered to Army, and rightfully so, but the opportunities go far beyond that.

Despite the ongoing debate around the global handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, for many nations, the pandemic served as a form of divine intervention, revealing foundations of sand and the vulnerability of over-dependence on the lowest cost proposition and globally, interdependent “just in time” supply chains.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent impact on critical supplies of liquid energy, grain, nitrate fertilisers, chemical precursors, and a host of other supply chain constrictions, coupled with the rapid depletion of Western munitions stockpiles, has further reinforced the inherent vulnerability across the globalised supply chains and industrial base.

The reality of this vulnerability has only been reinforced as the post-pandemic world has given way to an era of renewed great power competition and the emergence of an increasingly multipolar world defined by further constraint on globally, interdependent supply chains, mounting grey zone warfare, and a myriad of national security challenges impacting the security and sovereignty of many nations, including Australia.

This global shift towards multipolarity is only reinforced by the increasing multipolarity of the world beyond the “main event”, that is the US-China competition, as the increasing prominence of the BRICS member states, namely Brazil, Russia (albeit somewhat limited), India, South Africa, and the emerging list of BRICS “partners” or “adjacent” states eager to hasten the collapse of the post-Second World War order.

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