Galahs in Canberra Make Our Soldiers Sitting Ducks

The plan to defend Australia against attack drones using trained eagles

Attack drones are the new weapon of war.

Australia doesn’t have any. Nor do we have any defence against them.

The good news is that our understaffed defence force is more diverse than it has ever been. Diversity, as they say, is our strength.

But the lack of drones is problematic. Houthi rebels have used drones worth just a couple of thousand dollars to inflict all sorts of trouble on a shipping industry worth billions.

But don't worry. The Australian Government promises it is looking into the situation and will have a solution in around eight years.

Start learning Mandarin.

Hilariously, the government is considering trained eagles as a defence against enemy drones.

Or hawks.

Orange bellied parrots will not be considered after most were wiped out by a wind farm off the coast of Tasmania.

No great loss. If a bird can’t figure out how to fly around massive slow moving turbines, it is hardly going to out-manoeuvre CCP attack drones.

I presume the eight year study will focus on whether we can produce enough bird seed to supply the defence of Australia.

Animal rights group PETA will no doubt protest the move, especially when they discover the eagles are to be paid chicken feed.

What next? Trained dolphins to replace our Collins Class submarines?

Israel is currently testing the Iron Beam, a laser that fires drones out of the sky, at a cost of just a few cents per shot.

Meanwhile, here in Australia, the galahs sitting behind desks at the ADF are looking to train birds, like we’re in the dark ages.

The drawn out process is one that is all-too familiar to those who understand the way the ADF procurement process works.

First you need a welcome to country (repeated before every meeting).

Then a white paper.

Then a bird brained review.

Then the Defence Minister will, right on cue, insist that whatever birds we source, they must be at least partly bred in South Australia. Unions, you see.

Then everyone will get trips overseas, after which there will be a capability study.

We will select eagles that are top of the line, ultra expensive and utterly unproven on the battlefield.

Finally, we will demand that every bird purchased must be ‘modified for Australian conditions’.

And by the time all of that is done, we will only be able to afford to buy one, maybe two eagles at most.

When the birds malfunction, we will bury them in the ground alongside our perfectly good Taipan MRH-90 helicopters, and announce a decade long process for beginning the entire charade all over again.

And thus it has ever been.

Despite a budget of $50 billion a year, it really is a miracle that the ADF has any equipment at all.

If the turkeys in Canberra go ahead with a plan to defend Australia with eagles, our soldiers will be sitting ducks.