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Great powers often have the luxury of viewing the world in markedly different ways to smaller powers, but one of their key frames of reference, a grand strategy, may ultimately prove to provide Australia with the much needed momentum in the face of regional competition.
Over the weekend, I listened to an interview with Andrew Hastie, the Federal opposition’s Home Affairs spokesman during which he made a particularly important comment: "Great powers do grand strategy. The rest of us just respond. And in a sense, Australia has always been the beneficiary of a English-speaking democratic global power.”
Subsequently, this got me thinking, what if Australia began to at least think like a great power?
Now this doesn’t mean that Australia has to be a great power to think like one. In a region where strategy, not sentiment, shapes outcomes, adopting a great power mindset is about disciplined ends means alignment, coherent priorities and credible instruments of national power. Grand strategy is the framework that turns that mindset into practice.
At its core, grand strategy is the art of marrying what a nation wants with what it can actually do. Historian John Lewis Gaddis calls it the “alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities”. Paul Kennedy similarly argues that true grand strategy concerns “peace as much as (perhaps even more than) war”, integrating economic, diplomatic and military tools over time.
Those ideas echo two canonical touchstones.
First comes Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz’s reminder that “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means” – strategy is political through and through.
Second is Basil Liddell Hart’s injunction that “the object in war is to attain a better peace”, which keeps strategy oriented on durable outcomes, not just tactical wins.
Great powers operationalise grand strategy by setting priorities, building power systematically and shaping the environment. The United States’ containment strategy after 1947 is the textbook example: George Kennan recommended “a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” achieved through “adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting … points.” It was not a single plan but a durable logic that linked ends, ways and means across decades.
What does this mean for Australia in 2025? Canberra’s own documents already diagnose a harsher landscape. The government has stated we face “the most challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War”, with rising coercion and accelerating military modernisation in our neighbourhood.
The 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS) responds with a concept of “National Defence ... a coordinated, whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach that harnesses all arms of Australia’s national power to defend Australia and advance our interests,” anchored by a Strategy of Denial. That is, in essence, the language of grand strategy.
Still, language isn’t enough. Thinking like a great power demands discipline in five areas where Australia must lift its game.
What can be done?
5 pillars of building a grand strategy
First and foremost, a grand strategy starts with choices.
Set clear priorities, sequence ruthlessly
For a trading island continent, priority one is control over access through and from the Indo-Pacific’s maritime and air approaches. Alfred Thayer Mahan’s old observation remains contemporary: “The history of Sea Power is largely … a narrative of contests between nations” for position and communications at sea. That logic underwrites the NDS emphasis on long-range strike, undersea warfare, integrated air and missile defence, and resilient C4ISR capabilities that complicate an adversary’s calculus and enable denial.
The Strategy of Denial’s purpose is straightforward: deter “a potential adversary from taking actions that would be inimical to Australia’s interests and regional stability”. In practice, that means sequencing investments that most rapidly shift deterrence now, not in the 2030s: survivable sensors, magazines of theatre-relevant missiles, uncrewed systems at scale, and airbases hardened against long-range fires.
Establish a statecraft playbook
Kennan’s lesson was that containment combined military posture with political warfare, economic measures and alliance management. Australia should treat statecraft as a campaign plan, not a press release: targeted development finance to help neighbours absorb critical infrastructure at sustainable terms; trade facilitation and standards that lock in open, secure supply chains; and migration/education policy that deepens people-to-people ballast.
The NDS itself nods to “integrated statecraft” but a great-power mindset requires resourcing and institutional muscle memory to match.
Rebuild the nation’s capacity for endurance, resilience
Grand strategy is about time as much as tools. Gaddis’ warning on aligning ambitions to capabilities is really a call for endurance: stockpiles, industrial depth, workforce and fiscal realism. Australia’s defence industry and energy systems need stress-tested plans for surge and sustainment: more multi-source munitions lines, fuel security that can ride out a long maritime disruption, sovereign maintenance for platforms that matter in the first 30–90 days of a crisis.
Critics of the NDS are right to push for faster translation from rhetoric to tangible force-in-being, a “minimum viable capability” can deter only if it’s real, ready and replenishable.
Shape a ‘favourable’ balance in our near region
Great powers don’t just react; they shape. Now while successive Australian policy documents have sought to “shape, deter, respond”, our efforts seem at best to be limited and largely superficial.
For Australia, that begins in our immediate arc – the eastern Indian Ocean, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific and extends through Southeast Asia.
Strategy here is about presence with purpose: patrols that uphold law, not just flags; maritime security partnerships that increase regional capacity for domain awareness and interdiction; climate and disaster resilience projects that meet expressed needs; and habit-forming logistics that make it easier for partners to work with us than around us.
This is the diplomatic counterpart to deterrence by denial: raising the regional floor so full-spectrum coercion is costlier and less effective for any adversary.
Preserve our capacity for escalation as the foundation for a ’better peace’
Liddell Hart’s “better peace” should guide Australia’s theory of victory. Deterrence that relies only on punishment risks brittle red lines; denial, correctly applied, gives adversaries off-ramps and preserves the political space for de-escalation.
Clausewitz’s caution that war is an instrument of policy, not an alternative to it, should keep military planning nested within political objectives we can actually live with after the shooting stops.
Seems pretty straightforward right? So let’s get cracking.
Final thoughts
Longtime readers will know I’ve long argued for a clear, unified strategy to transform Australia from a struggling, second-tier “middle power” into a more capable and influential regional force, one able to assertively pursue its own economic, political and strategic interests.
But it’s time to face facts: the old “she’ll be right” mentality no longer cuts it. The world and, indeed, our region is becoming more competitive, more contested and more hostile by the day.
The brutal reality of war in Europe, the Middle East, and the brief but intense clashes between India and Pakistan have shown us that we’ve returned to a world where “might makes right”. But this time, it’s not just about military force, it’s about whole-of-nation power.
And like many Western nations, Australia is nowhere near prepared for the ripple effects of modern conflict.
Australians have enjoyed extraordinary security and comfort for generations: no rationing, no real shocks to our system, no prolonged chaos. But that comfort has bred dangerous complacency. To protect our future, Australia must build the diplomatic, economic and military strength expected of a serious power.
This isn’t just about defence, it’s about safeguarding our way of life and earning the ability to help shape, not just survive, the future of the Indo-Pacific. We urgently need to drop the mindset that bold reform is “too hard”. With the right leadership, we can unlock enormous strategic and economic opportunity and become not just a fast follower, but a true strategic leader.
With China growing more assertive and tensions rising across the region, Australia faces a clear choice: stay small and exposed or rise to meet the moment.
That means building real national resilience diversifying our economy, investing in innovation and preparing for economic coercion so that our sovereignty isn’t vulnerable to global shocks. Only a strong, agile economy can provide the leverage to deter threats, grow prosperity and lead with confidence.
And only then can our defence force move from being reactive to being truly ready, capable of defending our interests in a world where power is shifting fast and security can no longer be assumed.
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.
