Opinion
Better now than never. The defence strategy and investment program released this week is the largest step Australia has taken to confront the 21st-century strategic realities in a world of disorder and conflict. And no doubt its champions, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, are right that these outcomes were hard won within cabinet.
Anthony Albanese did not become prime minister with defence and security at the core of his idea of Australia, and he is yet to build these priorities convincingly into his message of “progressive patriotism”. Yet today’s unforgiving global landscape does not give government much alternative, unless it wants a legacy of leaving the nation exposed to geopolitical risk and so jeopardising everything else. Hence the many welcome, if overdue, themes in the new strategic documents. These include increased defence spending, an emphasis on deterring China (without quite saying so) in our Indo-Pacific region, an acceleration in making drones and autonomous capabilities based on the lessons of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, and a recognition that defence is a whole-of-nation effort requiring industrial grunt, private capital and community preparedness.
The commitments of the new strategy and investment plan are necessary, including greater Australian “self-reliance” and a projection of defence spending growing, by some measures, to 3 per cent of GDP by 2033.
But will any of this be at a scale and pace sufficient for the challenges ahead? The 2026 national defence strategy, unveiled in Marles’ speech at the National Press Club, accurately describes a world of fracture, rivalry and disorder, with armed conflict between states now a reality in every region. But he also made the point that the trends in this direction – the fraying and failure of the “rules-based order” our government continues to cherish – have been evident for a decade.
In other words, governments have been warned of the gathering storm for years, including presumably by their officials and intelligence agencies, even while the gap between what governments know and what they tell the public has widened. Recently, my organisation, the ANU National Security College, published a trove of data about public attitudes which revealed rising security anxiety. These community consultations findings, based on representative surveys of more than 20,000 Australians conducted before the current Iran conflict, also showed that most of our fellow citizens expected multiple high-consequence crises over the next five years.
These threats included war overseas, economic crisis, supply chain disruptions, attacks on critical infrastructure, disinformation, foreign interference, cyber and AI-enabled attacks and domestic unrest. A large minority, 45 per cent, even considered foreign military attack on our territory to be probable before long.
In general terms, then, parts of the new defence strategy read like government catching up with the public mood and with global patterns of surging defence investment, military innovation and national readiness. That may be a little unfair.
Since 2022, this government has sought to impose new discipline on defence capability decisions, and argues that results take time but will accelerate. The public may be right to be anxious or they may be wrong. Setting that picture straight with honesty and reassurance is a job for government.
In his press club appearance, Marles pushed back against a journalist’s suggestion that government has not been “levelling” with the public about the risks of armed conflict and strategic threats. Our consultations revealed that most of the population want government to share more information about security risks, albeit in ways that do not fan panic.
The new strategy leaves some key questions unanswered. What are the real foundations for continued assurance in the military alliance with the United States (of which AUKUS is but a subset), which allows the government to draw a distinction between its aspiration of “self-reliance” within the alliance and the impossibility of “self-sufficiency”, that is Australia ever being able to fight alone?
It was awkward to hear Marles affirm confidence in the Trump administration’s 2025 national security and defence strategies as evidence of US commitment to our shared security against China in the Indo-Pacific, when those America First manifestos and multiple subsequent US actions also undermine the global rules-based order.
On drone technology, how now does Australia innovate at scale and speed, sometimes with US partners and sometimes without? And on private investment, including the potential to encourage the Australian superannuation sector to invest in defence infrastructure, will government now persistently make the case as to why this is a sensible and ethical investment pathway?
That goes to the pressing need for a national conversation about resilience and preparedness. Being prepared to deter conflict and become a more genuinely self-reliant military power will require active buy-in from the public, the private sector, states and territories, and even local government. Tellingly, the one paragraph on civil preparedness in the new national defence strategy uses words such as “would” and “will”, describing something that is yet to happen.
Professor Rory Medcalf is Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University.
Professor Rory Medcalf is head of the National Security College at the Australian National University.
