The Independent Intelligence Review is finally out, and it’s a worthy sequel

The unclassified version of the 2024 Independent Intelligence Review (IIR) was released today. It’s a welcome and worthy sequel to its 2017 predecessor, with an ambitious set of recommendations for enhancements to Australia’s national intelligence community (NIC).

The IIR’s authors, Heather Smith and Richard Maude, have definitely met the goals of the review process: to gauge the effectiveness with which the NIC serves the national interest and meets the needs of government, and to examine how well positioned the community is for the future.

Smith and Maude find that the NIC is ‘today a more capable and integrated intelligence enterprise’, and it’s ‘highly capable and performing well’. But they also identify opportunities for ‘greater—or different—collective responses … so that the NIC can more effectively serve the national interest and meet the needs of government in the future’.

Unsurprisingly, given its authorship, the 2024 IIR captures well the state of Australia’s emergent and emerging strategic and security challenges, and the key priority issues facing the NIC. The report’s strategic framing reflects the reality of the international environment.

The report includes 67 recommendations, with the implication that there might also be classified recommendations or parts of recommendations. That is a lot—in 2017 there were just 23. Many of the 2024 recommendations are primarily about drawing attention to issues or sometimes getting down into the weeds. Compare that with 2017 and its singular vision for the creation of the NIC and the concept of ‘national intelligence’.

However, that’s the wrong take. Rather, the Smith-Maude recommendations reflect the breadth of the issues facing Australian intelligence and the complexity of its operating environment.

Smith and Maude’s principal findings are as follows:

—There is a gap between what’s being asked of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI, a creation of the 2017 review) in terms of leading the NIC as a collective enterprise and ONI’s ability to ‘bring the rest of the intelligence community along’. There’s a need for greater NIC integration and the review recommends ways to help ONI achieve this.

—There’s also a ‘need for deeper integration of intelligence with other arms of government’ to ensure intelligence is used as a ‘tool of statecraft to maximise Australia’s competitive edge’. This goes beyond just achieving decision advantage over adversaries and competitors. It includes using intelligence for strategic warning, and for influencing outcomes through intelligence diplomacy and the purposeful public release of intelligence information.

—Finally, innovation is key to preparing for future conflict and crisis, deploying new technologies, building and nurturing partnerships, and in recruiting, retaining and training a highly skilled and committed NIC workforce.

That emphasis on the policy-intelligence interface is important, and may come to be seen as one of the most consequential dimensions of the 2024 IIR. It was a resounding theme of ASPI’s submission to the review, including the idea of transforming the national intelligence community into ‘national intelligence power’.

Importantly, the unclassified version of the 2024 review gives the Australian public a sophisticated and updated understanding of the NIC, which serves them and acts in their name but about which information is necessarily limited. It also explains the very real challenges and opportunities the NIC faces and the laws and oversight mechanisms that govern Australian intelligence.

At 127 pages, comparable to the 2017 review’s 132, the 2024 version is both substantive and substantial. That substance confirms the value of Australia’s world-leading process of intelligence review. It works by scheduled check-up rather than crisis-driven post-mortem, and includes a detailed public version of the review’s findings. ASPI has consistently argued in support of this approach.

Kudos should also be given to the Albanese government for its related announcement of $44.6 million over four years from 2025–26 for ONI to begin implementation of key priorities identified in the 2024 IIR.

There is one disappointment. The prime minister’s media statement releasing the report says that ‘consistent with the approach to past independent intelligence reviews under successive governments, details about the proposed approach to specific recommendations will remain classified’.

As I highlighted in my submission to the review, and in previous analysis of the 2017 IIR, that historic practice of not publicly accounting for implementation of recommendations (at least in some form) has led to sub-optimal implementation and accountability in past. My concern about this approach is only reinforced by the number and complexity of recommendations.

Nonetheless, it was pleasing that the review listened to and made productive use of the contributions and submissions made, including from outside of government. For example, recommendation 66—providing security-cleared personal staff to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Chair and Deputy Chair, to help relieve the workload on the committee’s members and secretariat, and also enhance parliamentary oversight capability—was suggested in ASPI’s submission to the review.

The depth and sophistication of the Smith-Maude review means there will be further analysis and insights to come as their findings and recommendations are pored over.

A new US humanitarian agency must operate without political blinders

The United States government is considering replacing USAID with a new agency, the US Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance (USIHA), according to documents published by POLITICO. Under the proposed design, the agency will fail its task within the decade.

To succeed, its personnel cannot wear ideological blinders on the sources of crises as they work to prevent them. The agency can—and should—work with partners, including Australia, to assess and share the burden of this crisis prevention.

The agency’s proposed goal is to advance and secure US interests and soft power by preventing crises from escalating into more costly events that require military intervention. This is an excellent goal, but it won’t work if it’s not done well.

Even as part of a transactional strategy to align assistance with concessions, the agency must still respond to what global partners want. The Pacific islands, for example, have been consistent and clear about the interests they’re seeking support on—particularly climate change—and will engage with anyone who takes their concerns seriously. The US has a right to choose where and how it delivers support, but the gaps in that support will be filled by competitors, causing the US to lose influence.

To prepare and prioritise its work, USIHA must be given the independence to assess and respond to global crises based on what’s best for the US—not forced to address a limited set of crises that are politically palatable at any given time. The world is complicated, and the US needs more, not less, awareness. But much of this capacity in the US government has already been curtailed by cost-cutting exercises. An agency can’t tackle crises at the source if it doesn’t understand them, which means US agencies will start falling behind the curve.

If the US administration wants USIHA to serve its interests, it should move to reinstate all such assessment and planning capacity (after it decides Department of Government Efficiency is no longer useful). This must include climate science and meteorological services that provide crucial early warning systems for disastrous weather and climate risks.

Climate change provides a perfect example of how this new agency could quickly fail.

The current administration has treated climate change as an ideological issue, and officials have worked to cut any reference to it they can find. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has himself claimed the Department of Defense ‘doesn’t do climate change crap’.

Pure and simple, this is a misunderstanding. Climate change is driven by physics, and it does not have feelings or care what we call it. Its consequences touch every single aspect of where and how we live, whether through more frequent heatwaves, higher sea-levels or more intense storms and wildfires. Secretary of State Marco Rubio would understand this, considering the increasingly intense hurricanes affecting his home state of Florida.

Managing climate change is about managing risk—determining where, when, and the likelihood its effects will bring harm (or opportunity). There may be different ways to manage that risk, but there is no opting out. We either act, or we let it happen to us. That’s the choice ahead of us.

Climate change is a multiplying factor of future conflicts and tensions that will affect US national security interests while degrading capacity—so the US Department of Defense has to ‘do climate change crap’ whether it wants to or not. This includes dealing with rising sea levels and floods, adapting to changes in submarine warfare and planning for changes to airlift capabilities. It will get harder, not easier, the longer it’s put off.

Similarly, USIHA will fail if it focuses on a narrow set of parameters. There’s no doubt aid and development systems need reform, and there’s no question that global partners can and should move toward greater self-sufficiency. These are goals that everyone wants.

But making these changes will require dedicated and concerted planning, not fast moves designed to break a system and see what shakes out. That approach might work in Silicon Valley startups and boardrooms, but in the real world it costs lives. Such instability can drive the kinds of threats the US wants to avoid dealing with.

Say what you will about USAID, but their professionals were committed to their work and delivered it with integrity, in contrast to a few young, inexperienced keyboard warriors with power that exceeds their sense of responsibility. They should bear the guilt of their actions for years to come—even if they didn’t fully comprehend the consequences of enthusiastically pulling apart a system they did not understand.

If the proposal for USIHA moves past legal challenges to USAID’s status and remains a priority of the US administration, it must be developed and operated with eyes wide open to all risks. If that doesn’t happen, it won’t be worth the investment, and US interests will suffer in the process.

The future of the Combined Space Operations initiative

As space becomes more contested, Australia should play a key role with its partners in the Combined Space Operations (CSpO) initiative to safeguard the space domain.

Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States signed the CSpO initiative in 2014. It has since grown to 10 partners, adding New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Norway.

In 2022 the partners released the CSpO Vision 2031 statement, outlining its mission to improve cooperation, coordination and interoperability to ensure freedom of action in space, enhance mission assurance and prevent conflict.

Now in its second decade, CSpO in its efforts and activities must respond to the contestation and congestion of space.

Australia and its allies confront a more challenging security outlook across all five domains of conflict. The space domain is now seen as an operational domain in its own right, rather than merely an enabling adjunct for the traditional air, sea and land domains.

The role of the initiative will become only more important new challenges emerge.

The space domain is contested as adversary states develop a full suite of counterspace (such as anti-satellite, or ASAT) capabilities to deny, degrade and disrupt access to vital space support systems which support joint and integrated military operations and the function of economies and societies.

Space is also increasingly congested as more states and non-state actors deploy large constellations of satellites across multiple orbits and space debris grows. This makes avoiding collision a key challenge.

The first objective of the vision 2031 statement is to prevent conflict, including conflict ‘extending to or originating in space.’ The starting point for this must be space domain awareness, which is an area where Australia plays a key role.

Australia occupies an ideal location for monitoring important regions of space, including low-earth orbit (LEO) and geosynchronous orbit (GEO). Australia hosts several space-domain awareness sensors. For example, the 2023 announcement of a Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) at Exmouth in Western Australia, expected to be operational by 2026, will enable space surveillance out to GEO, an orbit used for satellite communications.

The collaboration that Australia and its CSpO partners undertake on space domain awareness allows the sharing of strategic and tactical intelligence across multiple classification levels. Information can be shared in real time via national headquarters for joint operations—for example between HQ Joint Operations Command near Canberra and the Combined Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

But it also demands a robust, and interoperable space infrastructure, and the ability to ensure continued access to space support. This requires encouragement of commonality in space systems, including resilient satellite architectures and responsive space access.

The development of proliferated LEO (pLEO) satellite mega-constellations enhances space resilience by embracing a ‘small, cheap and many’ solution and avoiding large, complex and expensive satellites in GEO. CSpO partners can work together to develop such pLEO architectures to deploy lower-cost small satellites across multiple orbits and offer services in areas such as satellite communications, satellite relay, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and other specialised tasks.

Australia has redefined its JP-9102 Advanced Satellite Communications project away from ‘large, few and expensive’ satellites in GEO towards a distributed multi-orbit architecture. So CSpO collaboration on new approaches to satellite networks is an obvious step forward that could benefit all members. This would harmonise partners’ efforts, enhance information sharing through common capabilities in space and reduce a concerns of a lack of Australian government support for space initiatives.

Space mission assurance would also benefit from development of responsive space access using Australia’s advantageous geographical location for launch and returns. The north of the continent is close to the equator, maximising the energy boost from the Earth’s rotation for payloads launched from locations such as northern Queensland. The result is lower launch cost.

Additionally, launch sites in southern Australia are good for sun-synchronous and polar orbits often used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites. Australia could support launch requirements for CSpO members. For example, Australia and the US already cooperate through the Technology Safeguards Agreement on launches and returns, signed in October 2023.

Finally, CSpO states need to confront challenges posed by adversary counterspace threats, including through development of credible space control capabilities to defend vital space capabilities. The National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program allude to this challenge, but the practical aspects of space control needs to be realised. It would be an opportunity for CSpO, perhaps through AUKUS Pillar 2, to start putting capability substance behind the declared requirement for such a role.

The ADF reserve system is obsolete. We need a dramatically expanded force

Australia needs to radically reorganise its reserves system to create a latent military force that is much larger, better trained and equipped and deployable within days—not decades.

Our current reserve system is not fit for purpose. It was designed many decades ago to support distant expeditionary operations, not the prospect of major war in our immediate region emphasised in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR).

With doubts growing about the reliability of our major ally, we have no choice but to prepare to defend ourselves—if necessary, largely on our own. This requires whole-of-nation preparations that were described in the DSR. The driving needs are to deter and provide effective defence against an aggressive China.

But the Review of the ADF Reserves, quietly released before Christmas, addresses none of this. At best, it is an administrative review that describes how management of the current system can be refined. It is an exercise in deck chair rearrangement, when we need a credible plan to build a far larger latent force that can be mobilised to carry much of the load if we must fight alone with little notice.

Commissioning this review of Australian Defence Force reserves was a key recommendation of the DSR. The DSR said:

The strategic risks we face require the implementation of a new approach to planning force posture, force structure, capability development and acquisition… It is clear that a business-as-usual approach is not appropriate.

The DSR said that the force structure was ‘not fit for purpose’ and that the country needed a larger defence force, greater war-fighting endurance and stronger national resilience.

The review of reserves doesn’t address these issues at all but does describe the current reserve system. It states that in early 2024 some 41,000 people were registered as ADF reserves, but they included 10,000 who had never rendered service. Some of the remaining 31,000 provided specialist skills that were in short supply elsewhere in Defence, some filled gaps in permanent units, and a few served as a base for ADF force expansion in future emergencies.

At best, the reserves review performs a process-reform function, suggesting tweaking of current systems for efficiency and effectiveness. It recommends three categories of reserve service, accelerated entry pathways, adoption of an approach of providing minimal essential training, and a further review of conditions of service. However, the review proposes a recruitment target of only another 1000 personnel by 2030.

This is clearly not what the authors of the DSR had in mind.

There are limits on how many permanent ADF personnel can be recruited short of major war.  However, given our strategic circumstances, a steep increase in part-time personnel should be a priority.

Advanced democracies variously use three reserve force models. The first is an expeditionary one suitable for countries which are not directly threatened but whose militaries periodically deploy to fight in distant wars of choice. Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia use this model.

The second type is the homeland and theatre defence model. It is used by countries that face serious threats of direct attack with little warning and therefore need to be able to field a very large defence force to fight wars of necessity within a few hours or, at most, a few days.

Examples include: Finland which, with a population of 5.6 million, operates a force of 24,000 permanent military personnel and 254,000 trained and equipped reservists; Israel, which from a population of 9.8 million, fields 170,000 permanent force personnel and 465,000 active reservists; and Singapore, which, with a population of 6 million, can field 51,000 permanent force personnel and 253,000 trained and equipped reservists.

The third type is a hybrid, such as the US model. From a population of 340 million, the United States it has a permanent military force of 1.3 million supported by 807,000 well-trained and well-equipped reservists.

The reserves review should have asked which model was now most suitable. Our expeditionary model, inherited from forward commitments in Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, is obsolete. It provides some operational capabilities but generates limited resilience and would require many years to expand the reserves to the size needed for major regional war, which we could face before the end of this decade.

We must rapidly transition to a homeland and theatre defence model or, possibly, some sort of hybrid model. We must quickly prepare a reserve force that is much stronger than what we have: better trained, equipped and organised, and much larger. It must be deployable within days.

We must simplify and accelerate the way we bring people into it and improve ADF access to the national skills pool. Many intelligence, cyber, transport, medical, maintenance and other roles can be filled by qualified civilians following short training periods.

This next-generation ADF reserves system demands big changes in leadership, culture and organisational habits. The government must explain the security challenges Australia faces, why major changes are needed and why people should enlist.

What’s needed now is an action plan to quickly develop a much larger ADF reserve force. We needed it yesterday.

Elbridge Colby’s vision: blocking China

Elbridge Colby’s senate confirmation hearing in early March holds more important implications for US partners than most observers in Canberra, Wellington or Suva realise. As President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defence for policy—the Pentagon’s chief strategist—Colby gave testimony that is a window into the administration’s approach to China and what that means for allies and partners across Oceania.

Colby commands attention not as a partisan operator but as a genuine analytical thinker. As the chief architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, he orchestrated the United States’ pivot to Asia through changes to force posture, acquisition priorities and strategic focus. His 2021 book The Strategy of Denial has become required reading for defence planners. In it, Colby argues that the US must direct its military power to deny China hegemony over Asia, rather than pursue global primacy or retrenchment.

The vision he laid out before the Senate Armed Services Committee was neither the primacy-obsessed neoconservatism of the Bush era nor the strategic restraint and belt-tightening advocated by US progressives and libertarians. Instead, Colby argued for ‘prioritised engagement’—a strategy that recognises the limits of US power while refusing to abandon core commitments.

This ranking is important for Australia and Pacific island nations.

First, Colby’s confirmation suggests strategic prioritisation of the Indo-Pacific. Throughout the testimony, he stressed that China is ‘the biggest, most powerful rival we have faced in probably 150 years.’ While other theatres might command attention, Colby made clear that resources must flow to deter Beijing first. The unfunded $11 billion priority list from the US military’s Indo-Pacific Command is, in his words, a strategic failure that demands rectification.

Colby’s testimony also flashed warning signs for allies hoping Washington would shoulder the burden of regional security. His insistence that ‘we have a one-war military and change’ reflects a hard-nosed pragmatism—a stance that reinforces calls for allies to increase defence spending. These demands may prove challenging even for Australia, which has already committed to defence spending increases, provides key regional intelligence and offers the US military access to Australian ports and airfields. They are probably more challenging for smaller Pacific Island countries or other regional partners with limited resources.

Colby expressed reservations about AUKUS, despite describing Australia as ‘perhaps our closest ally in the world’ that has ‘been with us even in our less advisable wars’. His concern was that the arrangement could potentially reduce the US’s submarine availability during a crucial period.

This concern reflects a common Trump administration line that support for alliance commitments must not come at the expense of the US’s ability to deter China. This tension between alliance building and direct deterrence capability is not new. Colby has consistently emphasised re-assessment and re-organisation of alliances around the paramount goal of preventing Chinese hegemony.

Such an America First position creates both challenges and opportunities for Australia. The challenge lies in potential timeline slippage for submarine delivery; the opportunity comes from Colby’s desire to ‘do everything we can to make this work’ by revitalising the US’s industrial base to produce more submarines for the US and its allies. Australian defence planners understand this dual message from Washington, but Australian taxpayers also deserve an explanation from their government.

For Pacific island states caught between Washington and Beijing, Colby’s approach suggests more direct US engagement. When questioned about regional coalitions, he expressed scepticism of a ‘NATO-like alliance’ in the Indo-Pacific, preferring more tailored bilateral relationships. This points to a strategy of supporting critical nodes in the US’s defensive perimeter, rather than building expansive regional architectures. Colby argued in his book that the US should cultivate and strengthen capabilities among a ‘deny China’ coalition rather than pursue diffuse multilateral frameworks.

The issue underpinning Colby’s testimony is the mismatch between the US’s global commitments and its current military capabilities. He repeatedly invoked the Lippmann gap—a disparity between strategic ends and available means.

Colby presents prioritisation not as a choice but as a necessity, recognising that the US industrial base has atrophied while China’s has bloomed. Noting that China has ‘a shipbuilding capacity over 230 times that of the United States’, he underscored a US industrial deficit that must be addressed.

If confirmed, Colby would seek tailored deterrence approaches for specific contingencies rather than general regional dominance. He would also want better stewardship of US resources and stronger allied defence capabilities. He understands the industrial limitations and recognises that resources—including decisionmakers’ and strategists’ time and attention spans—directed toward one theatre necessarily come at the expense of another.

With Colby at the Pentagon’s strategic wheel, allies should expect more US demands. Australia, with its resources and strategic location, will face increased pressure to accelerate its defence buildup and repeated asks from the US to step into the breach. Pacific island states will need to navigate even more carefully between economic enticements and competing security guarantees that may come with more explicit conditions than in the past.

China’s military spending rises should prompt regional budget responses

China’s defence budget is rising heftily yet again. The 2025 rise will be 7.2 percent, the same as in 2024, the government said on 5 March. But the allocation, officially US$245 billion, is just the public disclosure of what is likely far greater spending within China’s opaque system.

What we do know is that China has the second-biggest military expenditure in the world, behind the United States’. This year’s budget is another demonstration of the high goals that Beijing has set out for itself in military and geopolitical terms.

This should push others in the region to spend more on their militaries. Too many nations fear an arms race in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, whereas in fact it is just what’s needed. Beijing will keep building up its offensive power regardless of what the rest of us do. By holding down defence spending, we only put ourselves at risk.

The 7.2 percent rises in China’s defence budget for 2024 and 2025 imply a rising share of the economy going to the military. In 2024 GDP officially grew 5.0 percent (after adjustment for inflation) and is supposed to do so again this year.  Since China’s inflation rate was just 0.2 percent last year and is forecast by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at 0.6 percent this year, the real rises in Beijing’s defence spending are not much below the nominal (unadjusted) budget increases. And they’re faster than GDP growth.

With conflict and tension across Europe, Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates global military spending rose a spectacular 6.8 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) terms from 2022 to 2023, reaching US$2.44 trillion in 2023. It was the largest annual rise since 2009—though measuring defence spending is notoriously difficult, partly because the budgets of some countries, particularly China, are opaque.

In its latest China Military Power report, the US Department of Defense said China was spending somewhere between 40 and 90 percent more on defence than the public budget figure. That implies 2024 spending of US$330 billion to US$450 billion. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, China’s 2024 defence budget rose 7.4 percent, far outstripping the regional average of 3.9 percent.

Despite Asia’s relatively strong economic growth, the region’s share of global military spending fell from 25.9 percent in 2021 to 21.7 percent in 2024, because of wars and associated spending increases in Europe and Middle East. Additions to China’s spending as well as North Korean developments will likely drive up Asia’s share of defence spending, however. According to SIPRI, China in 2023 allocated US$296 billion to defence, 6.0 percent more than in 2022.

China’s relentless build-up has prompted its neighbours to increase their own military spending. An assessment by a few well-known China specialists last year suggested that China’s 2024 was actually US$471 billion (though their accounting methods also assessed US 2024 defence spending at US$1.3 trillion instead of the official US$825 billion).

Even if China’s neighbours accept its implausible claim to be spending less than 1.5 percent of GDP on defence, they can hardly be reassured as the capability of the Chinese armed forces grows and as that military and supposedly civilian agencies act with aggression in the region. Anyway, 1.5 percent of so large an economy would still be alarming.

As China’s economic growth slows, we should expect the defence share of GDP to continue to rise.

China likes to mention that the 2025 defence budget is the 10th in a row to show single-digit percentage growth. Yet these growth rates are still large by international standards and build on the much larger expansions of earlier years. In 2014, China had a 12.2 percent increase in defence spending, declining to 10.1 percent in 2015 and to 7.6 percent in 2016.

The opaqueness of China’s military spending is a particular cause for concern.

China usually attributes the increase in spending to the various military exercises it is engaged in as well as maintenance and upkeep of its military forces. The implication is that the increments are mostly going to salaries and pensions. It is true Chinese military personnel numbers are very large, but its equipment is improving dramatically. Just this last year, China demonstrated two new stealth fighters; a stealth bomber is in the works. And China is building a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that will rival the latest US carriers in size.

The government’s Xinhua News Agency justifies China’s defence budget as paying for a ‘national defense policy that is defensive in nature, with its military spending mainly focusing on protecting its sovereignty, security and development interests … and the country will never seek hegemony or engage in expansionism no matter what stage of development it reaches.’

But China’s actions do not suggest a purely defensive motivation. Such claims should be no more truthful than Vladimir Putin’s claims that Russia’s military build-ups on the Russian border with Ukraine in 2021 and 2022 were only exercises.

When China sends its naval forces to intimidate neighbours and engages in military exercises that suddenly force rerouting of commercial flights, more regional countries should speak up. And the type of language that Beijing understands is an increase in our own defence spending.

I, too, got a few things wrong

I agree with Will Leben, who wrote in The Strategist about his mistakes, that an important element of being a commentator is being accountable and taking responsibility for things you got wrong.

In that spirit, I’ve taken up his challenge and have thought back on what I got wrong in a long, long career.

I haven’t chosen easy examples, which are almost a form of self-congratulation. I didn’t think Russian President Vladimir Putin would order the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 because it was not in Russia’s interests. I stand by that. Or that the United States and its coalition of the willing should invade Iraq in 2003 with flimsy evidence. These are good reminders that international relations is not about just rationality.

So, my first mistake is one of tactics. I was wrong to believe that Australia should have tried to repair its relationship with China in 2020. After China imposed trade restrictions, it was better for Australia to hold its position and show that it could weather China’s economic coercion. I stand by my view that the relationship should never have been allowed to get that bad. But once it was, it was the right call to hold firm to show China, other countries and, crucially, the Australian public that Australia had the strength and resilience to survive and even thrive.

The situation would’ve been different had China imposed trade restrictions on iron ore rather than lobsters and red wine—that would have been mutually assured destruction of both economies’ growth. (And on this, we should be watching when China’s African sources of iron ore come on line.) But in the actual situation, affected industries were right to find other markets, showing China that its tactics were counterproductive.

My second is a failure of communication. I’m on the record saying that Australia should not go to war with China in defence of Taiwan. That sounds more definite than anyone can be, given the range of scenarios that might lead to a contingency in the Taiwan Strait. I stated it better when I said Taiwan should not rely on Australia to come to its defence. I regret that I bought into narratives focussing on military options and end games rather than how we can support Taiwan right now.

The starting point for any Taiwan discussion should be the welfare of the Taiwanese people. I worry that some who say they are pro-Taiwan are just raring for a fight and aren’t thinking about the catastrophe this would bring for Taiwan, one of the places I love most on earth. I don’t think they have Taiwan’s best interests at heart.

Being a friend means talking frankly with Taiwanese contacts about risk and the importance of avoiding all-out war. Many in Taiwan understandably want independence. There’s a danger that after 80 years Taiwan sees China as all bluster and bluff and underestimates China’s resolve. I can’t overstate how unwise it would be to take reckless action assuming that Taiwan can rely on external support.

Taiwan’s strategy must remain the same—preserve the status quo and maintain maximum space—in the hope that better options may emerge. I’m a status quo-ist because anything else would be a calamity for Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean acquiescence.

Friends of Taiwan should counter narratives presenting Taiwan as a Chinese province by explaining its history and diversity. I try to explain this in terms of decolonisation. Taiwan is less like Catalonia and more like the Philippines, handed between empires with a distinct identity from a myriad of heritages. Nowhere on earth is quite like it.

My third failure is one of courage. I’m conscious that I have never written anything about Israel or Palestine in all my decades as an international affairs commentator.

The glib answer is that I’m not a Middle East expert. And that’s true. Some people I studied with in Boston have dedicated their entire careers to the Israel-Palestine conflict. They can talk about 1967-this and 1948-that at a level of detail I don’t pretend to understand. As one conflict resolution expert described it to me: ‘you either do Israel-Palestine, or you do everything else’. I chose everything else.

But that’s not the whole answer. I’m happy to do media spots about the NATO Summit, not because I know today’s battlefield details in Ukraine but because I understand conflict concepts such as victory, best alternative and zone of possible agreement.

With Israel and Palestine, the divisiveness of the topic stops me. Whatever I say, I’ll be hated. And I don’t like being hated. This is not something I like about myself.

But if we all stop ourselves, we end up with a shouting match between the absolutely convinced. We lose the opportunity for civil debate that actually changes minds, builds empathy and tries to find solutions. That means understanding both Israel’s sense of insecurity and the hopelessness of Palestinian dispossession. It means taking international law and humanitarian law seriously, whoever breaches it.

So I’ve decided I’ll do something I have never done before. I will speak out, if anyone will publish me. In a decade’s time, I don’t want to regret that I missed an opportunity to be a voice.

Australia needs greater defence self-reliance, and extra funding

Two recent foreign challenges suggest that Australia needs urgently to increase its level of defence self-reliance and to ensure that the increased funding that this would require is available.

First, the circumnavigation of our continent by three Chinese warships in February and March puts in question our capacity to keep even one flotilla under persistent surveillance. To remedy this, we need to re-examine our intelligence and surveillance capabilities. We knew well enough where the Chinese warships were but not what they were doing.

Second, the aggressive behaviour towards Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy by President Donald Trump in the White House on 28 February raises the question of our need for a higher degree of defence self-reliance. This does not mean abandoning or jettisoning the alliance with the US. But it does mean we need better ability to manage military contingencies in our strategic approaches without depending on the United States.

This will demand greater capabilities in longer-range weapons and supporting capabilities for intelligence, surveillance and tracking. These contingencies raise the need for a significantly greater degree of defence self-reliance. The US under Trump will expect us to manage them by ourselves.

Further, the principle of extended deterrence in the Asia-Pacific—under which the US remains the strategic guarantor for its allies in the region, especially against nuclear attack—has not (yet) been challenged by Trump or his administration officials. That guarantee seems a curious exception to Trump’s transactional approach to other security commitments.

However, short of nuclear war, we need to ascertain whether our strongest ally has transformed overnight into our most immediate problem. Already we see that Russia’s long-standing ambition to divide NATO is several steps closer.

The assumption still reigns in Australia that military threats are something that happen to other people a long way away and will never come to our homeland. With that belief, we have indulged ourselves in the luxury of merely incremental increases in defence budgets, rather than the transformative investment that is now needed.

Such transformation is now needed to ensure, first, that the Australian Defence Force can surge to meet the demands of new, short-warning contingencies and sustain the associated higher rates of effort and, second, that the ADF can continue to be the basis for further military expansion in the event that our strategic circumstances deteriorate further.

Underlying these concerns is the need to understand that the US is undergoing radical change under Trump. As Sir Lawrence Freedman observes, ‘The US is shrinking before our eyes as a serious and competent power.’

Taken together, the observations set out above reinforce Australia’s need for a greater level of self-reliance. These new issues are demanding because of their severe and sudden impact on our strategic environment. They require Defence to revisit its allocation of resources.

Defence must review operational requirements for anti-ship missiles, drones and associated ammunition, sea mines, uncrewed submarines, air-to-air missiles and strike missiles. The review must result in a new allocation of resources to such systems.

In the past few years, it has become quite trendy for defence experts in Australia to assert we need to spend 3 to 4 percent of GDP on defence, compared with barely 2 percent now. That would mean finding an additional $28 billion to $55 billion a year and bringing the overall defence budget to between $83 billion and $110 billion a year, compared with $55 billion now.

On 7 March, the nominated US under secretary of defence, Elbridge Colby, bluntly called for Australia to spend 3 percent of GDP on defence.

Making such arbitrary claims for an additional $28 billion a year is not a responsible approach to defence planning. Instead, what is needed is a much finer-grained definition of the ADF’s needs for such materiel as mentioned above, particularly for long-range missile strike capabilities and their associated deterrence through denial. Australia’s Defence organisation now needs to get on with this as a matter of urgency.

Our focus now needs to be not so much on additional, hugely expensive major platforms, such as ships and crewed aircraft, but giving new priority to surveillance and targeting capabilities, missiles and ammunition and uncrewed systems. Such an approach would be much less expensive, and much more timely.

The fact remains that today’s ADF, together with supporting capabilities, has little ability to sustain operations beyond low-level contingencies. Moreover, assumptions about force expansion made over many previous decades are no longer appropriate, particularly with respect to major platforms. In contrast, a way forward is presented by the government’s 2024 Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) plan, which is aimed at establishing domestic supply of advanced munitions. It can significantly increase the ADF’s ability to sustain high-technology operations and credibly support powerful force expansion based on modern long-range precision strike and targeting. Again, this is much quicker and cheaper than buying yet more large and costly platforms.

Despite rising strike ranges, geography is not dead. As the 2024 GWEO plan says, ‘With vast maritime borders and critical northern approaches, Australia must be able to defend against any adversary who may project power close to our territory.’

At present, Defence is spending $28 billion to $35 billion to develop and enhance targeting and long-range strike capabilities out to 2034. These will give the ADF a greater capacity to hold at risk a potential adversary’s forces that could target Australia’s interests during a conflict. But this is just the beginning. There are more expensive investments to be made—for example, in integrated air and missile defence.

Merely asserting that a particular percentage of GDP is appropriate for the defence budget is not adequate. Arguments that say only ‘more is better’ will get us nowhere. Defence needs a story to tell—a conceptual framework, agreed and accepted by the government and by the machinery of government—as the basis for considering more specific issues and initiatives. It must be suitable for public presentation, not just to get public understanding of the need for increased funding but potentially to get acceptance of the need to handle what looks like an extremely worrying emerging strategic situation in the shorter term.

The issues to be confronted include the level of strategic risk that the government is prepared to accept. What options in this respect does it want to consider? How much further down the path of self-reliance and sovereignty does it want to go in this new strategic environment? What would be the right level of reliance on the Trump government for intelligence, operational and combat support and logistics support? What range of options (and at what cost) should Australia now develop for contributing to US-led operations in the Indo-Pacific? This consideration will need to address a wider choice than in the Cold War, when Australia’s need to support the US in the Western Pacific, and US expectations of support, were much lower.

Further, Australia needs to consider its options for working more closely with other countries in the region, such as Japan, especially in the event that the US reduces its commitment to the area.

In many ways, the key point is how best to position Australia’s national defence effort (not just the ADF) to be able to surge in response to short-warning contingencies involving China as a potential adversary and, in a different way, the US, presumably as an ally.

The short-warning contingencies of today’s strategic circumstances will be potentially much more demanding than those of earlier years.

The legacy of five decades of assuming extended warning time is, in effect, an ADF with little capacity today for sustained operations, especially at an intense level. So, positioning Defence to have this surge capacity requires close attention.

It is good that governments have, progressively, recognised most of these issues. But implementation has been slow. The end of the era of extended warning was made clear in the 2016 Defence White Paper, drafted in 2015. This was 10 years ago, the length of time during which previous defence policies assumed we would respond to strategic deterioration and expand the ADF. But in terms of more potent defence capabilities, we have very little to show for it.

Even so, Defence’s adoption of net assessments (modelling likely enemy capabilities against ours, including both sides’ logistics support) is a powerful tool contributing to decisions about the force structure, preparedness, and strategic risk. Decisions on communications, surveillance and targeting capabilities reflect the importance of Australian sovereignty in these vital areas.

Defence is grasping the opportunities presented by the new technologies of remotely operated uncrewed platforms (combat aircraft, small submarines and surface ships). Such platforms offer a more expeditious and less expensive mode of force expansion than the acquisition of major crewed platforms, just as local manufacturing of modern long-range precision strike missiles does.

The matters set out above would contribute to the basis for estimating the costs of defence policies, including the costs of different policy options such as different levels of self-reliance and strategic risk, more or fewer options for contributing to US-led Indo-Pacific operations, greater or lesser reliance on the US for sustainability stocks of spare parts and munitions during contingencies.

Other factors include the need to address workforce issues, including the difficulties that the ADF has in attracting and retaining its personnel. If the latter difficulties persist, there may well be a need to consider radically different approaches to the ADF workforce, including some form of national service, an increased focus on the Reserves, or both.

Arguments for increased funding based on the above analysis would be much more likely to carry the day than mere assertions that a particular arbitrary fraction of GDP should be the target for the Defence budget.

Finally, the authors of this article are of the view that Defence’s decision-making abilities are not adequate, even for peacetime governance. It is, therefore, but a short step to be concerned that the arrangements for decision-making in the event of the more serious contingencies that have now to be part of the defence planning basis would be even less adequate. This also needs attention.

Japan and Australia can fill each other’s defence gaps

Japan and Australia talk of ‘collective deterrence,’ but they don’t seem to have specific objectives. The relationship needs a clearer direction.

The two countries should identify how they complement each other. Each country has two standout areas: Japan has strengths in air and missile defence and in shipbuilding, whereas Australia needs help in both; and Australia has strengths in cybersecurity and its distance from China, both of which offer advantages for Japan.

It’s true that both nations have recently strengthened their special strategic partnership to the point where it has begun to show alliance-like characteristics, such as commitments to consult during regional crises. Yet practical coordination has barely begun. Discussions on bilateral cooperation often end at increasing interoperability—but to what end?

During the Japan-Australia Dialogue and Exchange program, hosted by the United States Studies Centre and the Japan Foundation from July to August last year, I engaged with many Japanese and Australian experts on security issues, including a Taiwan contingency. While many underscored the need for the two countries to deepen defence ties and prepare to fight together should a crisis erupt, there was little clarity on how exactly they should coordinate.

Although some studies are conducted behind closed doors, the overall lack of discussion stems from several factors. Japan has a limited understanding of Australia’s defence capabilities, and the Japanese defence community primarily focuses on implementing established policy. These factors have contributed to stagnation in finding new strategic opportunities.

In Australia, a shortage of Japan-focused security expertise and a preoccupation with the trilateral framework that includes the United States as well as Japan have constrained deeper thinking around bilateral cooperation.

Japanese and Australian foreign and defence ministers said in November that the countries were refining the scope, objectives and forms of their cooperation, a development that will help shape bilateral defence relations. This was in support of what they called strengthening collective deterrence. But all this work is still general rather than specific in nature, and discussion among strategists has been minimal.

Defence cooperation between nations with comparable military power and a reciprocal security relationship typically takes two forms: force aggregation, which enhances overall military capacity through joint operations; and complementary cooperation, which mitigates vulnerabilities by leveraging respective strengths.

Japan and Australia have primarily focused on force aggregation by emphasising interoperability, but this has limitations. China has an overwhelming numerical advantage, with about 1100 fighter aircraft and more than 140 major surface warships. Conversely, Japan has 300 fighters and 52 surface combatants, while Australia has about 100 fighters and plans to expand its fleet from 9 to 26 ships. Given this disparity, simply combining forces would do little to shift the strategic balance without further integration with US forces. Even then, the military challenges would remain immense.

Complementary coordination is needed, too. Both countries face the challenge of China, but their operational priorities differ. While Japan focuses on the East China Sea and the western Pacific, Australia can secure sea lanes of communication in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific and disrupt adversary lanes. This would help ensure Japan’s access to vital resources and ammunition, sustaining its ability to keep fighting while weakening China’s. Japan’s combat endurance is important for managing the Chinese navy’s threat to Australia.

Functionally, Australia and Japan have distinct strengths, as well as vulnerabilities that the other can help mitigate. Japan faces challenges in cybersecurity and logistical sustainment, while Australia lacks integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) and efficient shipbuilding.

Fortunately, Japan has a strong foundation in IAMD and shipbuilding, while Australia excels in cybersecurity and benefits from a geographically resilient logistical basis. By addressing each other’s weaknesses through increased bilateral exercises, common equipment and systems, and joint defence industry investments, Japan and Australia can build a more resilient defence posture.

Japan-Australia defence complementarity is already taking shape to some degree. Geographic cooperation has been an indirect but longstanding feature for both nations due to US naval strategy since the early Cold War. Functional cooperation has advanced further in recent years. At the Trilateral Defence Ministers’ Meeting in November 2024, Australia, Japan and the US discussed cooperation on IAMD systems. Shipbuilding collaboration will likely begin if Australia chooses a design based on the Japanese New FFM class for its new general-purpose frigates. Cybersecurity cooperation is also advancing through joint exercises between Australia, Japan and the US.

Japan’s ability to sustain a protracted conflict remains a challenge, as its shipyards and ammunition factories are in range of China’s missiles and can be easily targeted. For both nations to make credible contributions to regional deterrence, robust defence-industrial cooperation must be a foundation of effective contingency and operational planning. Beyond shipbuilding, the two countries should look to collaboration on ammunition production to reinforce war endurance capability. They should also consider storing mothballed assets in Australia, such as aircraft that have been retired but are still worth keeping for a while, in case they’re needed.

Deeper ties will need dedicated advocates. Both countries’ strategic communities must define the desired end-state of cooperation and identify opportunities that advance this goal.

Eggs in more baskets: protecting Australian agricultural exports from US tariffs

Australia’s export-oriented industries, particularly agriculture, need to diversify their markets, with a focus on Southeast Asia. This could strengthen economic security and resilience while deepening regional relationships.

The Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium has caused doubts about the strength of the relationship between Australia and the United States. While the US has not yet imposed tariffs on Australian beef and other agricultural products, the current unpredictability of US trade policies means these industries could soon be on the chopping block. This would harm Australian primary producers and have significant social effects on rural communities, including in the strategically important north.

The rumblings of a shifting world order are impossible to ignore. We cannot pretend that the post-Cold War order, in part defined by the US’s championing of trade liberalisation, is still healthy and intact. Middle powers, perhaps the chief beneficiaries of the rules-based order, bear a particular responsibility and capacity to preserving it. The shakeup of the global trade system may require us to re-evaluate our export posture; Australian governments and businesses must prepare for this.

Australia exports approximately 70 percent of the agricultural, fishery and forestry products it produces. The US is the second-largest market for Australian agricultural goods, taking $6.8 billion of them in 2023–24, with beef, lamb, dairy and wine among the most valuable. The loss of this market would deal a great blow to many agricultural businesses and communities across Australia.

These economic challenges are clear, but agricultural export tariffs would also have concerning social ramifications. Economic loss leads to disillusionment, unemployment and scapegoating, fuelling political and social discontent.

The development of northern Australia, vital for Australia’s strategic position and foreign policy, would be at particular risk if trade barriers curtailed agriculture—one of the region’s key economic engines and forces of community life.

Australia has recent experience in diversifying markets for our agricultural exports. In the face of trade barriers erected by the Chinese government beginning in 2020, Australian officials and agricultural industries did well to find other destinations for some affected products. Even when the Chinese market reopened, these other markets remained favourable.

Southeast Asian markets are particularly promising for a variety of reasons. One is that together they already buy more Australian agricultural products than the US does.

The region’s largely tropical climate makes it unsuitable for the kinds of products grown in Australia’s mediterranean, sub-tropical and semi-arid zones. Australian exports can play a more prominent role as Southeast Asia’s population rises and consumer preferences change, with both factors driving the demand for greater volume and diversity of food products, especially animal protein.

Furthermore, the US is also a significant agricultural exporter to the region. It shares six of its top 10 export markets with Australia, all in East and Southeast Asia. Should the Trump administration continue to impose tariffs, and should regional nations introduce reciprocal tariffs, Australia could fill some of the US-shaped holes.

South and Southeast Asia’s textile industries are also markets for Australian natural fibres such as cotton and wool. Currently, 60 percent of clothing is made with petrochemical fibres. But campaigns aimed at reducing this amount could drive global demand for natural fibres, benefitting Australian producers and the environment. Southeast Asia also presents a fantastic market for raw goods to be processed and exported, even back to Australia, due to moderate labour costs, lower utility costs and proximity to markets. This provides mutual economic and social benefits.

Other markets should also be considered. While Southeast Asia’s tropical produce is plentiful, New Zealand’s is not. Australia is the largest exporter of tropical fruits to New Zealand, but there is still room to grow this profile. This would particularly benefit northern Australia, where many tropical fruits are grown.

In East Asia, Australian high-quality agricultural products are particularly prized. Australia should boost agricultural-product promotion campaigns in the region, which are already quite creative.

Australia’s agricultural sector will continue to be important, yet vulnerable to trade insecurity. Through multilateral groups such as the Cairns Group and MIKTA—Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia—Australia should continue to reinforce the benefits of open trade, while also being alert to the challenges it can create for communities large and small.

As we see in the US, serious public grievances arise when negative domestic effects of international trade aren’t addressed. Governments and civil society must manage economic transitions effectively and develop adequate supports during the process. This must be supported by responsible corporate governance, alive to the ethical effects of economic change.