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The Australian Army has backed its support for the 2026 National Defence Strategy in a new document outlining their contribution to the nationwide approach to the changing security and defence environment.
The Australian Army Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2026, publicly announced on Monday, 6 July, set out more direct and engaged strategies the Army is expected to deliver in the coming years.
The document outlines critical priorities that will solidify the Army’s contributions to Australia’s defence environment, including trust, storytelling and readiness.
“Thrift” is also highlighted as a key component the Army will need to address to meet the National Defence Strategy (NDS) goals, incorporating the idea of ensuring that resources are used adequately and efficiently across the Army’s range of capabilities.
“The nation entrusts Army with significant resources: people, time, machines, money and facilities. It is Army’s duty to ensure that they are utilised thriftily: applying diligence, accountability and economy,” the document reads.
To achieve these goals in more practical measures, the document highlighted accompanying measures the Army is working towards to align with the goals of the NDS.
These include “fight and win in the littorals … strike at long range … win the close fight on, from, and onto the land … integrate with the ADF, with allies and partners, and with sovereign industry”.
Not limited to just these practices, the Army said it has approached this new era of defence through a range of internal corporate and practical operations, such as multifaceted forums, multinational liaison and acceleration of new autonomous technology, including artificial intelligence.
Long-range missile development is also being positioned as a key technological advancement, as well as a potential threat – “geography alone cannot protect Australia against new long-range missiles or attacks”.
There has also been a larger investment in “domestically produced landing craft” in order to ensure Australia can maintain strong oversight and sustainment of regional concerns without “solely relying on partners”.
“The Australian Army – your Army – is rapidly transforming to meet this direction. We are a very different fighting force to the one that commenced this decade,” said Chief of Army Lieutenant General Simon Stuart.
“We are demonstrating every day – at home and abroad – the Army’s essential, enduring and unique contribution to Australia’s Strategy of Denial.
“The nation needs us to adapt and deliver, and we are doing both – rapidly, faithfully and credibly.”
The “Strategy of Denial” is noted in the NDS as an important development the Army, and the wider Australian Defence Force, needs to continue applying in order to effectively achieve defence and national security goals.
This essentially involves deterring and preventing conflict before it even begins.
The NDS, which was unveiled in April, highlighted the specific role of the Army to “optimise for littoral manoeuvre with a long-range strike capability”, which the contribution documents said is at the “centre of our ethos, mindset, investment and training”.
The Army defines the littorals as “the areas of the sea that influence the land, and the areas of the land that influence the sea”.
Specifically, they are a key region in the Indo-Pacific where a large number of Australia’s population lives and where important undersea cables and economic trade flow is present.
The document outlined warfare in the littorals as a “single, cohesive battlefield”, that incorporates land, sea, air, space and cyber domains in the one defensive environment.
The Army said it primarily operates in this region via preventative measures, such as defending against multi-domain attacks, gathering intelligence, securing critical infrastructure and ensuring regional stability.
“The most important task for the Army is to be ready, if necessary, to fight a war in the littorals to defend Australia and its interests,” the document reads.
The Australian Army has been engaged in a multitude of advancement operations in recent years, and within the past three alone, has “progressed the largest modernisation since WWII”.
It specifically highlighted missile and strike technology (HIMARS, GMLRS), mobility vehicles, counter drone and aircraft (UH-60M Black Hawk, AH-64E Apache) development as some of the major capabilities of Army defence that have been accelerated.
“Our mission is set: prepare land power in order to enable the integrated force in competition and conflict,” LTGEN Stuart said.
“We exist to fight and win Australia’s wars. But how we fight is evolving, fast.”
The full Australian Army Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2026 document is available here.
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