Navel-gazing: What can we expect and what should we expect with the next NDS and IIP?

The 2000 Defence White Paper still rested on the older “Defence of Australia” instinct: protect the continent and its direct approaches first, then the immediate neighbourhood, south-east Asia, the wider Asia-Pacific and finally, broader global security.

Yet even that document was already moving beyond a purely continental mindset and the shock of 9/11 quickly exposed how closely Australia’s security could be affected by events far beyond its shores.

However, over the following decade, the centre of gravity shifted from reassurance to adaptation.

The 2009 and 2013 cycle is best understood as a period in which Australia tried to preserve the logic of self-reliance while modernising the force to face down the prospective of a more complex regional environment.

By the early 2010s, Defence policy was increasingly about making capability sustainable: aligning strategy, force structure and resources while also treating personnel reform, industry capacity and affordability as core parts of readiness rather than afterthoughts. That was a significant evolution from a paper-based conception of strategy towards a more constrained, costed and executable defence enterprise.

The 2016 Defence White Paper and supporting Integrated Investment Program marked the point at which this approach became formalised into a clearer, long-term framework. It was explicitly framed as a comprehensive, affordable plan, backed by a costed acquisition program, a 10-year capability plan, and a more deliberate partnership with industry.

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Strategically, it retained the familiar interests of a secure Australia, a stable near region, and an Indo-Pacific order favourable to Australian interests, but the emphasis had clearly moved towards a more potent, networked and independently usable force. In effect, the policy mood had shifted from “defend and contribute” to “defend, shape and, where necessary, operate at distance with greater resilience”.

The 2020 Defence Strategic Update then acknowledged that the assumptions underpinning 2016 had eroded faster than expected. Defence said Australia faced rising strategic competition, more capable military systems, and more aggressive grey-zone coercion, and it replaced the earlier framework with three sharper objectives: shape the strategic environment, deter actions against Australia’s interests, and respond with credible military force when required.

This was a doctrinal pivot away from gradualism, rather it marked a major pivot in the way the nation viewed itself and the concept of “warning time” and its “tyranny of distance”, forcing Australia to accept that it could no longer rely on distance, warning time or incremental modernisation to preserve security.

All of this combined, in essence, to form the foundation from which the forthcoming 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program will be built. The policy architecture is now explicitly designed as an evolving cycle rather than a one-off white paper every few years, with government statements pointing to a 2024, 2026 and 2028 NDS rhythm and linked IIP updates.

The 2024 NDS and IIP already set the cornerstone: a strategy of denial, an integrated and focused force, and a generational uplift in funding and capability. A 2026 update, therefore, should be understood as consolidation and acceleration rather than reinvention, a chance to turn the post-2023 shift into a more durable and fit-for-purpose national defence system.

With all of this in mind, what can and should we expect from the imminent 2026 NDS and supporting IIP?

What to expect

A consistent feature of Australian defence policy since 2000 has been the prominence of what are often termed “motherhood statements” – broad, aspirational, framing phrases – that are difficult to contest politically but which provide only limited direct guidance for implementation.

These formulations serve a purpose: they create continuity across governments, signal intent to allies and industry, and frame Defence’s activities in language that is accessible to the public.

However, they also introduce a degree of ambiguity that has, over time, shaped doctrine, force posture and acquisition decisions in ways that are not always coherent or aligned with the underlying strategic environment.

Successive white papers and strategic updates have relied on such formulations.

The 2016 Defence White Paper, for example, stated that Australia’s objective was to ensure “a secure, resilient Australia with secure northern approaches and proximate sea lines of communication” while also seeking to “promote a secure nearer region” and support “a stable Indo-Pacific region and a rules-based global order”.

These are, in essence, uncontroversial statements that few policymakers would argue against security, stability or resilience, but they leave considerable room for interpretation in terms of prioritisation, sequencing and resource allocation, a triad of longstanding issues that continue to impact Australia’s defence spending to this day.

Similarly, the 2020 Defence Strategic Update framed Australia’s goals as to “shape Australia’s strategic environment, deter actions against Australia’s interests, and respond with credible military force”. Again, the language is deliberately broad, allowing Defence to justify a wide spectrum of activities under a single conceptual umbrella.

The 2023 Defence Strategic Review continued this pattern, albeit with a sharper tone, emphasising the need for “a strategy of denial” and a more “focused force”.

Yet even here, the key phrases function more as directional cues than as binding constraints. “Denial” can encompass everything from long-range strike and undersea warfare to cyber operations and regional engagement, while “focus” is often interpreted through the lens of existing institutional preferences and legacy programs.

As a result, these motherhood statements tend to be operationalised in ways that reflect compromise rather than clarity.

This dynamic has had a tangible impact on doctrine. Rather than producing tightly defined operational concepts, Australian Defence doctrine has often evolved as a layered construct, incorporating elements of continental defence, forward engagement, coalition interoperability and, more recently, integrated deterrence and denial.

Each of these strands can be justified using the language of successive policy documents, but the absence of hard prioritisation has meant that doctrine frequently attempts to accommodate multiple and, at times, competing, strategic logics. The result is a force that is expected to be simultaneously self-reliant, regionally engaged and globally interoperable – an ambition that is conceptually appealing but practically demanding.

Force posture and structure have been similarly affected. The enduring emphasis on securing Australia’s approaches while also contributing to regional stability has driven investments in both high-end warfighting capabilities and presence-oriented assets.

For instance, the development of long-range strike systems and undersea capabilities aligns with the “deterrence” and “denial” narratives, while amphibious platforms and rotational deployments support the “shape” and “engage” functions.

In isolation, each of these choices is defensible; collectively, they reflect a force structure that is stretched across multiple roles, with limited ability to mass capability decisively in any single domain without significant trade-offs.

Acquisition decisions, in particular, reveal how motherhood statements translate into practice. The requirement to maintain a “balanced force”, itself another recurring phrase, has often led to the retention or acquisition of capabilities across all domains, even when strategic guidance might suggest deeper specialisation.

This has been compounded by the need to sustain domestic industry, alliance interoperability (particularly with the United States) and political considerations associated with major projects. The result is an Integrated Investment Program that, while increasingly disciplined in presentation, still reflects a degree of strategic hedging.

Looking ahead, there is little reason to expect the 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program to depart from this pattern.

Indeed, the structural incentives for maintaining broad, consensus-driven language are arguably stronger than ever. The introduction of a biennial NDS cycle reinforces the need for continuity and adaptability, both of which are more easily achieved through high-level framing than through tightly prescriptive guidance.

At the same time, the strategic environment continues to deteriorate, increasing the political sensitivity of defence policy and making unifying rhetoric more attractive.

Compounding this is the growing pressure on Australia’s fiscal position. With competing demands across health, social services, infrastructure and the energy transition, defence funding even at elevated levels is unlikely to be unconstrained. In this context, motherhood statements serve a dual function: they justify sustained investment in defence while avoiding explicit trade-offs that could prove politically contentious.

However, this comes at a cost.

Without clearer prioritisation, the risk is that Defence continues to pursue a broad spectrum of capabilities without fully resourcing any of them to the level required for high-intensity conflict against a capable adversary.

In this sense, the 2026 NDS and IIP are likely to represent continuity rather than departure. They will almost certainly reiterate familiar themes – resilience, deterrence, denial, integration and partnership – while adjusting the balance of investment at the margins.

The challenge, as in previous iterations, will be translating these broadly framed objectives into a force that is not only credible on paper but also coherent, sustainable and decisively effective in practice.

What should we expect?

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating global environment, the 2026 National Defence Strategy and accompanying Integrated Investment Program will almost certainly adopt a more urgent tone than their predecessors, but they are unlikely to abandon the established pattern of broad, consensus-driven framing.

The outbreak of major conflict in the Middle East, sustained instability in Europe following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and intensifying strategic competition across the Indo-Pacific have collectively eroded any residual confidence in long warning times or geographically bounded conflict.

For Australia, this reinforces the central premise that the strategic environment is no longer deteriorating gradually, but has already crossed a threshold into persistent, multi-domain contestation.

In this context, the strategic policy community should expect the 2026 NDS to sharpen its emphasis on preparedness, resilience and credible deterrence, while retaining familiar language around “denial”, “integration” and “national defence”.

What will distinguish it, however, is a stronger linkage between these concepts and measurable outputs, most notably in funding. I suspect it will be increasingly likely that government will formalise a pathway to lift defence spending to approximately 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, with a stated ambition to reach 3 per cent by 2035.

This would represent a significant, though not unprecedented uplift, aligning Australia more closely with the trajectory of key partners such as the NATO benchmark of 2 per cent, while acknowledging the more demanding regional environment Australia faces.

However, as with previous policy cycles, the critical issue will not simply be the quantum of funding, but how it is translated into capability.

Here, the 2026 IIP is likely to place far greater emphasis on accelerated acquisition of mature, off-the-shelf systems, particularly in areas where capability gaps are both acute and immediately relevant to high-intensity conflict.

Integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) is the most obvious example. The proliferation of advanced cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and uncrewed systems, demonstrated vividly in both Ukraine and the Middle East, has underscored the vulnerability of fixed infrastructure, forward bases and maritime assets.

As a result, the ADF can be expected to prioritise the rapid fielding of layered IAMD capabilities, leveraging proven systems rather than pursuing bespoke or developmental solutions.

A similar logic will apply to critical warfighting consumables. One of the clearest lessons from contemporary conflicts has been the rate at which precision munitions, artillery ammunition and other expendables are consumed. The longstanding assumption that such stocks could be regenerated over time has been fundamentally challenged.

Accordingly, the 2026 IIP is likely to include substantial investment in stockpiling, domestic production capacity and supply chain resilience. This will extend beyond traditional munitions to include fuel, spare parts and other enablers of sustained operations, areas that have historically received less attention in headline policy documents but are central to operational endurance.

Uncrewed systems and the means to counter them will also feature prominently. The rapid evolution of large-scale uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and counter-UAS capabilities has transformed the character of modern warfare, enabling both state and non-state actors to generate mass, persistence and targeting at relatively low cost.

For Australia, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The ADF is likely to pursue a mix of imported platforms and domestically integrated systems to rapidly expand its UAS inventory while simultaneously investing in electronic warfare, directed energy and kinetic solutions to counter adversary drones.

As with IAMD, the emphasis will be on speed of acquisition and scalability rather than exquisite performance.

Notwithstanding these anticipated shifts, there will remain legitimate concerns within the strategic policy community about the overall effectiveness of the capability being delivered.

The persistence of motherhood statements, combined with institutional and political constraints, means the ADF may continue to field a force that is broadly capable but insufficiently optimised for the most demanding scenarios. In particular, questions will endure around survivability, firepower and longevity.

Survivability is challenged by the increasing transparency of the modern battlespace, where satellites, sensors and uncrewed systems make concealment and manoeuvre more difficult.

While investments in IAMD and hardening will help, they may not fully offset the vulnerability of key platforms and bases. Firepower, meanwhile, is constrained by both the scale of existing inventories and the pace at which new systems can be integrated.

Even with increased funding, building sufficient mass in long-range strike, naval combatants and land-based fires will take time. Longevity, the ability to sustain operations over extended periods, remains perhaps the most difficult problem, given Australia’s geographic isolation and dependence on complex global supply chains.

In this sense, the 2026 NDS and IIP are likely to reflect a system under pressure: more funding, faster acquisition and a clearer recognition of risk, but still grappling with the inherent tension between strategic ambition and practical delivery.

The policy narrative will continue to emphasise resilience, deterrence and denial, but the extent to which these concepts are realised in a force that can absorb, endure and prevail in high-intensity conflict will remain an open question.

So let’s wait and see.

Final thoughts

Australia’s defence debate can no longer afford the comfort of broad “motherhood statements” unbacked by hard choices. The strategic reality is moving faster than our policy language and faster than our delivery system.

If we fail to close that gap, we risk handing a far more dangerous and uncertain region to the next generation.

For decades, Australian policy – like much of the West – operated on the assumption that the end of the Cold War delivered a durable “peace dividend”. Defence spending could be moderated, capability could be modernised incrementally and risk could be managed at the margins. That assumption now looks not just outdated, but strategically negligent.

The environment Australia faces today is defined by acceleration, not evolution. The lessons of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ongoing conflict in the Middle East are clear: mass still matters, supply chains fail under pressure and survivability cannot be assumed. At the same time, the Indo-Pacific is becoming more contested, more heavily armed and more unpredictable. Major powers are expanding both capability and intent, while middle powers are rearming at pace and with purpose.

This is not a future problem. It is the operating environment Australia now inhabits.

Successive defence policy documents have acknowledged elements of this shift, often framed through familiar concepts: “shape, deter, respond”, “denial”, “resilience”, “integration”. These are useful, but they are not sufficient. As seen in previous iterations, including the 2016 white paper and 2020 Strategic Update, such framing can just as easily enable hedging as it does prioritisation.

The result has been a force that is broadly capable but not optimised for intensity, scale or endurance.

The 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program will almost certainly recognise this reality more directly. We should expect a firmer commitment to increased defence spending rising towards 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, with a pathway to 3 per cent by 2035 alongside a stronger emphasis on speed of capability delivery.

This will likely manifest in accelerated acquisition of mature, off-the-shelf systems, particularly in integrated air and missile defence, long-range strike and large-scale uncrewed and counter-uncrewed systems.

There will also be a necessary and overdue focus on the unglamorous but decisive elements of warfighting: munitions stockpiles, fuel security, sustainment and industrial capacity.

The idea that Australia can rely on just-in-time supply chains in a major conflict has been decisively disproven. Sovereign capacity, redundancy and depth are no longer optional – they are foundational.

Yet even with these shifts, there is a real risk that Australia continues to spread resources too thinly. The enduring preference for a “balanced force”, itself another form of strategic compromise, may limit the ability to generate meaningful mass in the areas that matter most.

Survivability remains a critical concern in an era of persistent surveillance and precision strike.

Firepower, while improving, risks being insufficient in both scale and rate of generation. Longevity, the ability to sustain high-intensity operations over time remains the most underdeveloped aspect of Australia’s force design.

These are not abstract concerns. They go directly to whether the ADF can absorb a first strike, continue to fight and impose meaningful costs on an adversary.

Australia must avoid the path taken by parts of Europe and the United Kingdom, where decades of underinvestment justified by similar assumptions and similarly broad policy language hollowed out capability and eroded readiness. Rebuilding that capacity is now proving slow, expensive and strategically fraught. Australia does not have the luxury of making the same mistake.

What is required now is not just more funding but sharper prioritisation and a willingness to make trade-offs. That means aligning strategy, force structure and industry policy around a clear objective: a force that is survivable, lethal and sustainable at range. It also means moving beyond incrementalism.

The strategic environment will not wait for Australia to adjust at its own pace.

The Indo-Pacific is already the central arena of global competition. The question is no longer whether Australia recognises this, but whether it is prepared to act accordingly. If the 2026 NDS is to be more than another iteration of well-crafted intent, it must translate urgency into capability and rhetoric into resilience.

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..

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.