Australia's Defence Force is up to 20 years behind the United States in preparing for a future conflict that will likely involve attacks from swarms of drones from the air and the sea, according to one of the Defence Department's own consultants.

Jai Galliott, a researcher at the University of New South Wales, said future war would also demand sophisticated satellite and cyber strategies to counter attacks on energy and communications infrastructure.

He said the planned purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter jet and new submarines is "last generation".

"By the time we get the new order of subs they will be outdated definitely," said Mr Galliott, who is contracted to the Department of Defence to study the future of war in the Indo-Pacific.

"Australia needs to think about the next generation of warfare and the fact that our enemies are already deploying highly sophisticated drone technology.

"We need to have drones in the air, under the water and on the ground."

At a recent future of war conference in the US, former fighter pilot and drone expert Mary Cummings questioned whether the Pentagon was also too focused on big weapons systems.

"Now we have 3D printers and I have students who over a weekend can build a drone," she said.

"When you can put a million drones in the air for let's just say, a couple of hundred thousand dollars — and China could easily do that — you have to start thinking about a whole new way of fighting a war.

"It's not the big monolithic platforms, but it's these very cheap drones that can just keep coming."

Underwater drones predicted to change role of submarines

Peter W Singer, a strategist at the New America Foundation and former senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, said 80 different countries already equipped their militaries with drones, plus they were being used by non-state actors like Islamic State, paparazzi and farmers.

He said the human role in controlling drones was also changing.

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"They can do things like take off and land on their own, fly mission waypoints on their own, ID targets on their own," he said.

"They're not able to put it all together and carry out the entire mission on its own — but that's coming."

Mr Singer has co-authored a novel, Ghost Fleet, imagining what armed conflict could look like between China and the US.

"Unlike World War II, we'll see battles in these two new places — outerspace and cyberspace," he said.

"Whoever wins those battles, whoever controls the heavens, and by that I mean communication satellites, surveillance, navigation and GPS, all of the wars on land and sea depend on that.

"The same thing goes for cyberspace: it is the lifeblood for modern day battlefield, whoever controls it or who controls access to it will dominate the physical fight."

Drones are spreading not just across the skies, but into the sea, with underwater drones predicted to challenge the role of submarines.

The Pentagon is even researching how it could bury launch pods in the deep sea for years at a time, before triggering them to rise to the surface and release pre-packed drones.

Robotic mules are already being developed to lighten the load for infantry and human-like robots that can climb stairs and run are also being tested.

A federal parliamentary committee is examining the potential use for unmanned vehicles or drones across the Army, Navy and Air Force.

It is due to report at the end of June.

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