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As Australia heads into the quagmire that comes with an election campaign where defence and national security will play an increasing role, there is a growing recognition that Australia, as a nation, is without a strategy.
Since the end of the Second World War, Australia’s defence strategy has undergone significant transformations, shaped by shifting global alliances, regional security challenges and advancements in military technology. In the immediate post-war years, Australia’s defence policy was largely influenced by its historical ties to the United Kingdom.
However, as the geopolitical landscape evolved, the nation began forging closer military and strategic partnerships with the United States, particularly through the ANZUS Treaty of 1951.
During the Cold War era, Australia’s defence strategy was primarily focused on countering the perceived threat of communism, leading to involvement in conflicts such as the Korean and Vietnam wars. The emphasis during this period was on alliance-based defence, where Australia’s security was closely linked to its Western allies.
The post-Cold War era saw a shift towards a more self-reliant defence posture, with increasing focus on regional security in the Indo-Pacific. The Defence white papers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries outlined Australia’s commitment to modernising its military capabilities and strengthening its defence industry.
Terrorism, cyber threats and geopolitical tensions in the Asia-Pacific region further influenced strategic priorities, leading to closer security cooperation with nations such as Japan and India, as the nation’s leaders grappled with tension between asymmetric threats and emerging great power competition.
Today, Australia’s defence strategy continues to evolve in response to emerging challenges, including great-power competition, climate security and technological advancements in warfare.
The AUKUS agreement, announced in 2021, marked a new phase in Australia’s strategic outlook, reinforcing its commitment to a more advanced and capable defence force. As global and regional dynamics continue to shift, Australia’s defence strategy remains adaptable, ensuring the nation is prepared for future security challenges.
Yet despite the rhetoric, the myriad of reviews and “strategy documents”, the vast bulk of dialogue and debate at both the policymaker and public level are heavily dominated by a glaring focus on “platform-centric” solutions and how a new fleet of submarines, how new long-range fires or new crewed or uncrewed aircraft will play in any conflict.
And herein lies the problem, this focus on the “new and shiny” and tedious debates about defence spending continues to distract and detract from the importance of strategy in defining the objectives, the role and the capabilities Australia is seeking in the face of mounting great power competition and multipolarity, both on the global stage and, more critically, in the Indo-Pacific.
Highlighting this is The Australian Financial Review’s James Curran in a piece titled The fundamental problem at the heart of defence policy, in which he said, “The noise over meeting US demands on military spending underlines the fundamental problem at the heart of Australian defence policy: there is no strategy.”
But wait, I thought we had a strategy?
If anyone has been following the evolution of Australia’s defence policy and strategy over the past decade alone, it has been incredibly convoluted, with multiple iterations with minor tinkering around the edges, all based upon one central pillar that can be best summarised as: America does all the heavy lifting.
While an overly simplistic summary, Australia and its policymakers have long stressed that we will only ever be capable of providing niche forces as part of a larger, coalition effort and as a result, we would never really require a coherent strategy, capable mass and depth of capability because our “great and powerful friend” would bear most of the burden.
Today however, as America’s relative power diminishes and it becomes increasingly transactional in its approach, particularly in the face of Beijing’s own rising economic, political and strategic capability, Australia’s seemingly endless, circular debates about platform solutions and defence spending are more dangerous than ever.
Curran highlighted this saying, “the noise over meeting US demands on defence spending once more underlines the fundamental problem at the heart of Australian defence policy. Other than continuing the long evolution of integrating Australian forces with their US counterparts and thus assuring US concern for our ultimate defence, there is no strategy”.
Unpacking this, Curran added, “The government’s rhetoric about the country facing its most dangerous external environment since the Second World War has set a chilling stopwatch, counting down the unforgiving minutes. Yet, its capacity to deliver a meaningful capability to meet the hour of peril operates on a different chronology entirely: that of Old Father Time.”
“And the lobby here that seeks to conciliate Trump is not yet prepared to dismiss him as unreliable. Once they do, they will likely come to the same conclusion as ANU strategic studies professors Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin Smith, who on the weekend said that ‘arguments that say only ‘more is better’ will get us nowhere’. And they added the crucial point that ‘Defence needs a story to tell – a conceptual framework, agreed and accepted by the machinery of government, as the basis for considering more specific issues and initiatives’,” he further said.
Combined, this all seems to directly contradict repeated assurances that Australia does, in fact, have a strategy, either through the 2023 Defence Strategic Review or the 2024 National Defence Strategy and the supporting Integrated Investment Program, bringing us conveniently to continued questions about the nation’s spending and not just the quantum, but importantly, the quality.
Strategy, quality and quantity matters
I may sound like a broken record, but it has to be said yet again, that merely increasing the nation’s defence spending is only part of the equation; strategy makes up one critical equation, as does the “quality” of the spending.
To summarise, if c= meaningful national capability, then a2 is the quantity and quality of defence spending and b2 is the top level strategy and underpinning doctrines and operational models that guides Australia’s national response, we can express if as a simple formula: c= a2+b2.
Curran highlighted this, saying, “It is not so much how much Australia has to spend, it is how we spend it. And to make those decisions, Australia needs a post-Trump strategy. It would be idle to predict what decisions Trump will make on China’s claim to Taiwan. Though Taiwan, with Ukraine in mind, is understandably jumpy.
“There needs to be a serious discussion inside government about the likely need for a new paradigm of tailored defence and offence, as long argued by Dibb, long-time defence analyst Professor Hugh White, and the Lowy Institute’s International Security program director, Sam Roggeveen. And such a strategy, and the choice of weapons it proposes, must come before a budget,” he added.
While White and Roggeveen have a drastically different approach to how I, for one, would conceptualise, shape and implement Australia’s defence policy and strategy, their central thesis that strategy must come before budget, procurement and the like is logical and has long served as a bugbear for many commentators.
This only becomes more important as Australia, like many other comparable nations, grapples with the reality of our new multipolar world, increasingly defined by the emergence of a number of competing centres of economic, political and strategic gravity and orbiting spheres of influence, presenting a major challenge for a cadre who have never known a truly multipolar period.
Importantly though, we have been in similar positions before, as Australia’s “strategy” shifted from dependence on the British Empire following the fall of Singapore in 1942 and then accelerating throughout the course of the Second World War to be formalised following the British withdrawal of East of the Suez in the 1960s.
Curran detailed this, explaining, “The history of past defence crises offers some precedents. Australia did have a robust debate about its defence in the 1930s. But they were very different times: the country simply did not have the resources of today.
“If any comparison is useful, it might be Canberra’s reaction in the late 1960s to Britain’s decision to withdraw its military position from east of Suez. The reconsideration this prompted in cabinet was not out of immediate fears for Australian security but because of the additional costs of maintaining its forward defence position in the region as Britain departed.”
However, this new era, coupled with the increasing unpredictability of the Trump administration, adds a further sense of urgency for Australia to develop its own unique strategic doctrine, with well-articulated, clearly defined economic, political and strategic security objectives in the Indo-Pacific.
Curran highlighted this saying, “The bottom line remains: if Trump does turn against Australia, it might force us to think what there is to Australian foreign policy other than the US alliance. At any rate, surely the case for less noisy declarations of loyalty is now rock solid. And it brings to mind Keating’s point that some of the enormous investment in the American relationship over the past two decades might have been better directed to binding ourselves with Indonesia rather than futile escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Final thoughts
If Australia is not only to survive but truly thrive in this changing era, both policymakers and the wider community must recognise that the world is becoming ever more multipolar and the Indo-Pacific is fast emerging as the most hotly contested region on the planet.
This shift is fuelled by the growing economic, political and strategic clout of countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam, alongside the established and resurging capabilities of South Korea and Japan. Together, these forces are crafting a highly competitive arena right on Australia’s doorstep.
In the face of these challenges and opportunities, Australia must move beyond the narrow views that have long shaped its diplomatic, strategic and economic policies since Federation.
To truly capitalise on the profound changes underway in the Indo-Pacific, Australia needs to take a long-term view. The pressing question now is: when will we see a more detailed analysis and response to these challenges? When will a clear narrative and strategy emerge that helps both industry and the community grasp not only the risks but also the exciting, untapped opportunities ahead?
As regional dynamics evolve and China continues to assert its influence, Australia must decide whether it can afford to remain a secondary power or if it must assume a more independent and influential role amid intensifying great power competition.
Crucially, Australia’s leaders and citizens must steer clear of short-term distractions and remain committed to upholding the nation’s core values and principles.
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
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
