Key US ally Australia slashed Aus$5.5 billion (US$5.57 billion) from its defence budget Tuesday as part of sweeping cuts, deferring or scrapping jet and weapons deliveries and sacking 1,000 staff. Defence saw the largest cuts of any sector in the 2012-13 budget, with $5.5 billion in savings scheduled over the next four years, but the government promised the reductions would have “no adverse impact on operations” overseas. Australia has some 1,500 troops serving in Afghanistan as well as peacekeeping deployments in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, and it is set to host a new United States military base in the Asia-Pacific. Some 2,500 US Marines are to be stationed in northern Australia by 2016-17 under a deal inked with US President Barack Obama last year which will see a major expansion of military ties between the two nations. But Canberra is to delay the acquisition of 12 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets to save Aus$1.3 billion, with another Aus$1.7 billion to come from cancelling 35 self-propelled howitzer artillery pieces and other projects. Lockheed Martin’s troubled F-35 programme has laboured under soaring costs and delays, with claims the stealth jet has now been outclassed by new Russian and Chinese aircraft. Several other countries including the US and Italy have announced they are delaying or cutting their F-35 orders.
