Time to break the mould on Australian defence planning

I know, I know. For me to be saying that the status quo and groupthink that dominates much of Australia’s strategic and defence policy and planning needs to change must sound like a broken record.

But now, I’m not the only one consistently hammering home the message!

Thankfully, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Senior Fellow Liz Buchanan has joined the fray in a piece published in The Weekend Australian and again in the ASPI Strategist, titled Australia’s defence is lost in a fog of strategic failure and a lack of imagination, in which she lays her thoughts bare.

Buchanan began her analysis, saying, “While I’m wary of joining the chorus of defence commentators yelling at clouds, our government has boxed itself into a corner. We must spend more on defence, but creeping suppression of informed public debate coupled with dire cost-of-living realities make this an unlikely option for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.”

Now for the preamble.

It goes without saying that much of Australia’s strategic and defence policy, posture and force structure even to this day continues to be heavily informed by the 1986 Dibb Review and subsequent 1987 Defence of Australia white paper, which was, in many ways, prophetic in preparing the nation for the era of the “Peace Dividend” and the largely benign environment which followed the end of the Cold War.

In its simplest form, the 1986 review established the idea of a 10-year warning time of any serious attack by a “regional power” against Australia or its interests, thus affording the nation’s planners and leaders time to prepare the Australian armed forces, economy and people accordingly.

VIEW ALL

To this end, the report stated, “Military preparations for serious assault on Australia would be evident long beforehand, because of our access to the most advanced intelligence collection systems in the world and our ability to detect clearly apparent adverse trends years beforehand.

“This essential transparency of our strategic environment is one of our most important national assets. It gives confidence in warning time for substantial attack against Australia. But because the necessary capabilities already exist in the region, warning time for lower-level contingencies could be much shorter and this should be recognised in our force structure planning.”

The 1986 report also emphasised the role of deterrence in Australia’s strategic planning, defence posture and force structure with similar language to that found in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and supporting 2024 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program, stating, “More recently, the concept of deterrence has been advanced as a defence planning methodology because, it is claimed, it would enable Australia to control its threat environment.

“In the absence of perceived threats, it is suggested that Australia’s defence planning should be oriented towards deterring aggression against us. This approach considers that an effective strategy can be based on an opponent’s fear of our capacity to counter his attack and to respond with unacceptable force.”

For comparison, this is the language used in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, which stated, “Current Australian defence policy is based on deterrence through denial. This military application of deterrence theory is based on the concept of establishing effective defence capabilities relative to the threat...

“However, Australia does not have effective defence capabilities relative to higher threat levels. In the present strategic circumstances, this can only be achieved by Australia working with the United States and other key partners in the maintenance of a favourable regional environment. Australia also needs to develop the capability to unilaterally deter any state from offensive military action against Australian forces or territory.”

While that final line is a departure from the idea presented in the 1986 report and subsequent white paper, the strategy of denial and the ensuing force structure, capability development and emphasis on “self-reliance” is a clear thread throughout the respective plans, so it is fair to ask, what has changed in the nation’s thinking over the past 37 years?

Well, it would seem not much.

Something Buchanan highlighted, saying, “Australia’s defence and foreign policy is entrenched in short-term domestic political considerations, devoid of strategic imagination. The idea of nearing an inflection point in international security is routinely trotted out but misses the fact that Australia passed that point long ago. Perhaps the Cold War never ended; it just mutated and incorporated multipolar elements.”

This reality is shaped, by two distinct factors, one domestic, the other, foreign, which Buchanan explained, saying, “There are two sets of external changes shaping Australia’s defence problem. First, new groupings of states are emerging – with some firepower to boot – that prioritise different values to us.

“On values we share – say, the continued survival of the state – they are often interpreted differently. Australia might look to the multilateral rules-based order to shore up support for our right to exist. Another state might view this order as a legacy system that is not willing to facilitate the transfer of power to rising states. Problems ensue.”

This ultimately has a dramatic impact on the way in which the nation and its leaders both conceptualise and plan for the nation’s security, leaving us open to deferring to our traditional strategy of dependence, that is dependence upon a benevolent “great and powerful friend”.

Buchanan hinted at this, saying, “In a word, Australia is lost – lost in reviews, lost in rhetoric and lost to a government fixated on complicating a rather straightforward problem set. Australia is unprepared and unserious about our position in the emerging international strategic environment.”

Going further, Buchanan added, “We must be willing to have this discussion publicly. Government needs to come to the party and rapidly enhance its appetite for risk. Canberra should rediscover the agility of a relatively smart population and urgently craft a sustainable defence footing for the nation. This requires a strategic culture overhaul, which must come from the top.”

The most critical point here is the need for Australian political leaders to lead this charge of reform, particularly as it relates out strategic culture and the centrality of national security to every individual Australian’s way of life.

We need to see our leaders set out a more contextually realistic plan for our national security, defence structure and posture and do so with dogged determination, doing this, however, also requires our leaders to have an intimate understanding of the harsh reality we face on our doorstep.

Reinforcing and maximising the impact of this, we need to see the nation’s defence funding actually match a realistic analysis and assessment of our strategic environment, including confronting the reality of competing and long-standing ethnic, religious and cultural hostilities in our region, because if we don’t, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

Buchanan concurred with this in a rather provocative manner, saying, “Australia has a surface-level grasp of the intricate regional relationships on our doorstep. This continues to undercut adequate manoeuvring of our international political environment. We must know our environment if we want to prosper and compete within it.

“Australia is part of a group of states, in a club, of minority power in the international system. Humbling ourselves to accept this strategic reality will allow for hard but necessary discussion of our plan to adequately defend Australia. Australia has a middle-power ego on a small-power budget. Canberra must be creative."

Only by having an open, frank and fearless conversation with the Australian people can the nation truly embrace the opportunities of the Indo-Pacific, while also securing our national interests without spooking the horses in our region.

Buchanan left an interesting final question worth considering in the context of a broader national conversation, “A sense of strategic culture can’t reside in the halls of departments – nor can it remain a job of government. National security is every Australian citizen’s duty. Education therefore becomes paramount. As the saying goes, ‘if one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.’ If we don’t know what we are competing for, and why, how can we possibly begin to chart success?”

Final thoughts

Australia’s uncomfortable reality has always been dominated by its need to balance its position as a “loyal deputy”, whether to the British Empire or, more recently, with the United States, with its own national interests in remaining and maintaining its role and capacity as an “anchor nation” to maintain the regional balance of power and stability.

Regardless of whether we are in a “pre-war” or traditional “Cold War” environment, it is clear that successive generations of Australian leaders have let the country down, too entranced and seduced by the promise of “Peace Dividends” and the “End of History” to recognise the cold reality of the world, particularly developing concurrently with the “Clash of Civilisations” during the Global War on Terror.

Equally, many an academic, strategic thinker, and policymaker were seduced by the march of hyper-globalisation and the ultimate triumph of liberal democratic values that either naively overlooked the importance of historical context, religion, ethnic loyalty and rivalry and ideology that has left Australia dangerously exposed and unprepared for the challenges we now face.

But it isn’t too late if we pivot now and accept the reality of the world and the region as it is, rather than how we would wish it to be, or as the US Marines say, “Embrace the suck”.

Responding to the challenges arrayed won’t be easy and it will require the whole-of-nation effort to put its shoulder behind the effort, but if we can engage the Australian public and industry early and bring them along, I promise it will be worth it in the long run.

Because if we don’t, when it comes to paying the bill, the cost will be too devastating to comprehend.

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..