Australia’s defence strategy should be coherent and have our national interest at its core. We should not squander billions of dollars on doubtful long-range, long lead-time war-fighting equipment that offers Australia little protection.
The US is a friend and ally but has drawn us into too many far-flung and failed wars – Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now potentially China with its sights on Taiwan. Instead, Australia should be protecting its borders and tackling real and present threats.
The consequences for us of a major conflict would be very serious in terms of the Australian economy, the impact on the Australian people and the ravages to our way of life throughout the land. …. Our nation is ill-prepared for climate impacts, instead fuelling security implications in one of the highest risk regions in the world, the Indo-Pacific.
Admiral Chris Barrie
The collapse of the post-war consensus and alliance network
An administration whose policy is to be a predator upon its own allies, waging an unapologetic economic war on them while in some cases threatening their actual sovereignty, not only does not view America as the leader of the democratic world; it has abandoned any meaningful notion of “the West” altogether. Or, at least, of America’s membership of it.
George Brandis, Former Liberal Senator, Attorney General and High Commissioner to the UK.
Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has carefully and deliberately fostered a web of alliances across the western world. It has positioned itself as both the global leader in trade and the cornerstone of national security and defence for many western democracies. The United States, in turn, has benefited enormously from this strategy; no other country has managed to shape global affairs to suit itself and its interests as the US has.
In 2025, under President Trump, the United States has abandoned this web of alliances, accusing long-standing alliance partners of “freeloading” on the United States’ defence capabilities, despite several nations’ reliance upon, and integration with, US military and defence capabilities being entirely by its design over several decades.
Our plan
- Adopt the posture of defence of Australia rather than offence
- Be an independent voice in foreign affairs
- Acquire defence equipment that is smaller, smarter, far less costly and more effective than the current plan in defending the nation
- Broaden defence to encompass diplomacy, particularly in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands
- Recruit, train, and fully equip army reserves for homeland defence role
- Substantially increase Australia’s Airforce capability
- Purchase and deploy space reconnaissance and communications assets
- Raise the level of cyber and intelligence capability
- Complete and act on the risk assessment to Australia of global warming
- Initiate arms control talks for the region and raise the alarm about existential threats from nuclear weapons
- Entrust the Parliament to decide whether or not to go to war or engage in war-like operations
The evidence
The unhappy reality is that nations can sleep-walk into war, even when rational, objective self-interest on all sides cries out against it. Bellicose nationalist rhetoric, designed mainly for domestic political consumption, can generate over-reactions elsewhere. Small provocations, economic or otherwise, can generate an escalating cycle of larger reactions. Precautionary defence spending can escalate into a full-blown arms race.
Gareth Evans, former Minister for Defence
The post-WW2 world order is undergoing a rapid disassembly in real time; so quickly that it is difficult for firm policy positions to keep up. The United States has emerged as an untrustworthy and unreliable alliance partner. Even if President Trump is replaced in four years by a more conventional president, the Western alliance system is unlikely to be rebuilt to what it once was. Having demonstrated that European, Pacific, and Asian national security can be dismantled overnight on one a president’s whim, the United States defence partners can no longer rely on the alliance system for security and protection.
Just as Australia diversified its trading markets in the wake of Chinese tariffs on some of our key export products, Australia must diversify its security and defence partnerships and alliances, starting with the nations that are now also scrambling to rebuild defence capabilities that had previously been provided by the United States, such as Canada, the UK, France, South Korea, and Japan.
The AUKUS alliance and submarine deal, always a terrible outcome for Australia, should be abandoned on economic, security and sovereignty grounds. The billions of dollars planned for investment should be redirected into equipment, training, and recruitment to support an independent self-defence posture. Along with an independent foreign policy approach, Australia must step up in reorganising the global order in the face of the United States’ abandonment of its role and its allies.
Adopt the posture of defence of Australia
The Labor Government has taken a more measured approach to China than its predecessor but with Australia’s interests now ever more deeply aligned with the US, our economic and geopolitical interests in East Asia and the Asia Pacific regions are at risk. Threats to Australia are more likely to be economic and disruptive than any sort of invasion and quite different from the role the US adopts.
The war between Hamas and Israel, the death of over 50,000 Palestinians (March 2025), mostly civilians, the ongoing military strikes in Gaza and Rafah, and the crisis of mass starvation and displacement is undermining regional stability. Since March 2, it has also blocked the entry of food, fuel, and aid into the enclave, defying an order by the International Court of Justice that it must allow humanitarian access.
It is said China’s build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the Second World War at around 500 nuclear weapons. This is a small number compared with those of Russia and the US. However, the UN estimates that just 400 of today’s 22,000 nuclear weapons could wipe out all humanity and other biota.
Australia should initiate arms control talks for the region and raise the alarm about the existential threat of nuclear weapons.
Be an independent voice in foreign affairs. Australia’s foreign policy directly affects our trade, security, peace, and international standing. Diplomacy should be the front line of advancing Australia’s national interest through persuasion and good relationships, especially in our Asia-Pacific region. However, underfunded diplomacy, record-low levels of foreign aid, and a swiftly changing world order means that greater investment in our relationships with other nations is needed.
Broaden defence to encompass diplomacy, particularly in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands where these countries, unlike Australia, do not wish to adopt the language of the ‘China threat’ or take sides between the two great powers. Australia’s role in education, free trade agreements, development and aid programs is crucial, as are positive encouragements towards democratic reforms, gender equality and closer relationships.
Acquire defence equipment that is smaller, smarter, far less costly and more effective, such as:
- Uncrewed aircraft or land-based missiles instead of vulnerable frigates – saving $36b
- 20 advanced diesel-electric submarines that can stay submerged for weeks instead of 8 nuclear submarines – saving $80b
- Anti-ship missiles instead of more armoured vehicles
With the United States becoming an increasingly unreliable ally and trade partner, sourcing equipment and weapons that can be operated independently from other allies such as South Korea, France, Japan and Germany will be crucial.
Recruit, train, fully equip and properly integrate Defence Reserves for homeland roles.
“The single greatest contribution to national security this Reserve Strategic Review submission can make is to enable an outcome where Government and Defence approach future planning with a common understanding that the nation requires a fully integrated and aligned ADF, with Permanent and Reserve components that complement and sustain each other.”
Substantially increase Australia’s Airforce capability. RAAF chief, Mel Hupfeld says the RAAF is the region’s most technologically advanced air force, but technology alone will not see it succeed.
Purchase and deploy space reconnaissance and communications assets. The National Defence Strategy was released in April however, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says that of a budget of $9-$12 billion, a mere $590 million will be spent on ‘enhanced space capabilities’, including satellite communications, space sensors and space control.
Raise the level of cyber and intelligence capability. An Independent Intelligence Review, due to report mid-year, raised questions about how Australia will build and maintain cyber capability and improve communications.
Complete and act on the risk assessment to Australia of global warming. The UN and leading international security agencies have identified climate change as a security threat for the last decade. Rapid climate change is likely to create, accelerate and exacerbate already unstable situations world-wide. Forced migration, social and political tensions are likely to cause conflict and violence. Climate change has a direct effect on war fighting, threatening to overwhelm our security and undermine Defence’s contribution to Pacific Step-Up initiatives which puts us at a competitive disadvantage in developing regional influence and power projection.
Overall, climate change is degrading stability and increasing complexity in Defence and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief environments. This is having a major effect on our region, as archipelagic nations are seeing their whole landmass at risk of falling beneath rising sea levels, threatening habitability. The inhabitants of these archipelagic nations will likely become climate refugees, forced to find a new home.
Australia’s reluctance to act seriously on climate threatens Australia’s interests and standing on the global stage.
Initiate arms control talks for the region and raise the alarm about existential threats from nuclear weapons.
Entrust the Parliament to decide whether or not Australia will go to war.
The decision to go to war is one of the most serious choices any government will face. Though not explicitly stated in the Australian Constitution, in practice, the power to make war, deploy troops and declare peace, has been assumed by the prime minister; not the governor general nor the parliament. It is however constitutionally possible to change this practice by agreement of the parliament.
Since 1985 the Australian Democrats have attempted to remove the exclusive power of the government to commit Australia to war, without success. In 2023 that power was again affirmed by a joint parliamentary committee.
Both Houses of Parliament should be required to authorise by resolution any decision to commit the Australian Defence Force to warlike operations or potential hostilities within sixty days of the decision to commit forces. Given that the contemporary kinds of conflict tend to run for many years, ADF deployments should then be reconsidered by the Parliament on an annual basis.
former Australian Army chief, Peter Leahy