Tag Archive for: Australia

British public opinion on foreign policy: President Trump, Ukraine, China, Defence spending and AUKUS

Results snapshot

President Trump

  • Britons support an open and engaged foreign policy role for the United Kingdom. In light of the re-election of President Donald Trump, 40% believe Britain should continue to maintain its current active level of engagement in world affairs, and 23% believe it should play a larger role.
  • Just 16% of Britons support a less active United Kingdom on the world stage.
  • When asked what Britain’s response should be if the United States withdraws its financial and military support from Ukraine, 57% of Britons would endorse the UK either maintaining (35%) or increasing (22%) its contributions to Ukraine. One-fifth would prefer that the UK reduces its contributions to Ukraine.

UK–China relations

  • Just a quarter (26%) of Britons support the UK Government’s efforts to increase engagement with China in the pursuit of economic growth and stabilised diplomatic relations.
  • In comparison, 45% of Britons would either prefer to return to the more restricted level of engagement under the previous government (25%) or for the government to reduce its relations with Beijing even further (20%).
  • A large majority of Britons (69%) are concerned about the increasing degree of cooperation between Russia and China. Conservative and Labour voters share similarly high levels of concern, and Britons over 50 years of age are especially troubled about the trend of adversary alignment.

Defence and security

  • When asked whether the UK will need to spend more on defence to keep up with current and future global security challenges, a clear two-thirds (64%) of the British people agree. Twenty-nine per cent of Britons strongly agree that defence spending should increase. Just 12% disagree that the UK will need to spend more.
  • The majority of Britons believe that collaboration with allies on defence and security projects like AUKUS will help to make the UK safer (55%) and that partnerships like AUKUS focusing on developing cutting-edge technologies with Britain’s allies will help to make the UK more competitive towards countries like China (59%).
  • Britons are somewhat less persuaded that AUKUS will succeed as a deterrent against Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, although the largest group of respondents (44%) agree that it will.

Brief survey methodology and notes

Survey design and analysis: Sophia Gaston

Field work: Opinium

Field work dates: 8–10 January 2025

Weighting: Weighted to be nationally and politically representative

Sample: 2,050 UK adults

The field work for this report was conducted by Opinium through an online survey platform, with a sample size of 2,050 UK adults aged 18 and over. This sample size is considered robust for public opinion research and aligns with industry standards. With 2,000 participants, the margin of error for reported figures is approximately ±2.3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Beyond this sample size, the reduction in the margin of error becomes minimal, making this size both statistically sufficient and practical for drawing meaningful conclusions with reliable representation of the UK adult population. For the full methodological statement, see Appendix 1 of this report.

Notes

  1. Given the subject matter of this survey, objective and impartial contextual information was provided at the beginning of questions. There are some questions for which fairly substantial proportions of respondents were unsure of their answers. All ‘Don’t knows’ are reported.
  2. The survey captured voters for all political parties, and non-voters; however, only the findings for the five largest parties are discussed in detail in this report, with the exception of one question (6C), in which it was necessary to examine the smaller parties as the source of a drag on the national picture. The five major parties discussed in this report are the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, Reform (formerly the Brexit Party and UKIP), and the Green Party.
  3. This report also presents the survey results differentiated according to how respondents’ voted in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, their residency within the UK, their age, their socio-economic status, and whether they come from White British or non-White British backgrounds. The full methodological notes are found at the end of the report.
  4. Some of the graphs present ‘NET’ results, which combine the two most positive and two most negative responses together – for example, ‘Significantly increase’ and ‘Somewhat increase’ – to provide a more accessible representation of the balance of public opinion. These are presented alongside the full breakdown of results for each question for full transparency.

Introduction

There’s no doubt that 2025 will be a consequential year in geopolitical terms, with the inauguration of President Donald Trump marking a step-change in the global role of the world’s largest economy and its primary military power. The full suite of implications for America’s allies is still emerging, and there will be opportunities for its partners to express their agency or demonstrate alignment. For a nation like the United Kingdom, whose security and strategic relationship with the United States is institutionally embedded, any pivotal shifts in American foreign policy bear profound ramifications for the UK’s international posture. The fact that such an evaluation of America’s international interests and relationships is taking place during a time in which several major conflicts – including one in Europe – continue to rage, only serves to heighten anxieties among policy-makers and citizens alike.

Public opinion on foreign policy remains an understudied and poorly understood research area in Britain, due to a long-held view that the public simply conferred responsibility for such complicated and sensitive matters to government. Certainly, many Britons don’t possess a sophisticated understanding of the intricacies of diplomatic and security policy. However, they do carry strong instincts, and, in an internationalised media age, are constantly consuming information from a range of sources and forming opinions that may diverge from government positions.

The compound effect of a turbulent decade on the international stage has made Britons more perceptive to feelings of insecurity about the state of the world, which can be transposed into their domestic outlook. At the same time, their belief in the efficacy of government to address international crises, or their support for the missions being pursued by government, isn’t guaranteed. This creates a challenging backdrop from which public consent can be sought for the kind of bold and decisive actions that may need to be considered as policy options in the coming months and years.

This study provides a snapshot of the views of British citizens at the moment at which President Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second time. It shows a nation which, overall, continues to subscribe to clear definitions of its friends and adversaries, carries a sense of responsibility to Ukraine, and greets the rise of a more assertive China with concern and scepticism. Underneath the national picture, however, the data reveals some concerning seeds of discord and divergence among certain demographic groups and political parties. The UK Government must build on the good foundations by speaking more frequently and directly to the British people about the rapidly evolving global landscape, and making the case for the values, interests, and relationships it pursues.

Sophia Gaston

March 2025

London

‘Impactful projection’: long-range strike options for Australia

Executive Summary

The Australian Government has stated that the ADF requires greater long-range strike capability. This was first stated by the previous government in its 2020 Defence Strategic Update (DSU), which emphasised the need for ‘self-reliant deterrent effects’. The present government has endorsed that assessment: Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles has stated that ‘the ADF must augment its self-reliance to deploy and deliver combat power through impactful materiel and enhanced strike capability—including over longer distances.’ He’s coined the term ‘impactful projection’ to describe the intended effect of this capability, which is to place ‘a very large question mark in the adversary’s mind.’

The term may be new, but the concept is not. To us, it’s a restating of the concept of deterrence by denial; that is, having sufficiently robust capabilities to convince an adversary that the cost of acting militarily against us isn’t worth any gains that might be made.

But the need for the ADF to have those kinds of capabilities has become much more urgent. As the 2020 DSU noted, we no longer have 10 years of warning time of conventional conflict involving Australia. Moreover, this is not just the prospect of conflict far from Australia’s shores. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) force-projection capabilities have grown dramatically in the past two decades and include long-range conventional ballistic missiles, bombers and advanced surface combatants that have already transited through Australian waters.

The ‘worst case’ scenario for Australia’s military strategy has always been the prospect of an adversary establishing a presence in our near region from which it can target Australia or isolate us from our partners and allies. PLA strike capabilities in the archipelago to our north or the Southwest Pacific, whether on ships and submarines or land-based missiles and aircraft, would be that worst case. That could occur as China sought to ‘horizontally escalate’ a conflict with the US to stretch its military resources. So, an enhanced ADF long-range strike capability is not primarily about a conflict off Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

Unfortunately, the ADF’s strike cupboard is rather bare. Defence is acquiring more modern maritime strike and land-attack missiles for its existing platforms. But, even if equipped with better weapons, strike systems built around fighter planes or surface combatants are unlikely to have the ‘affordable mass’ or range needed to deter or defeat a major power’s attempts to project force against Australia.

There’s no doubt that the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) commissioned by the Albanese government is considering new strike options. According to the review’s terms of reference, those capabilities need to be delivered by 2032–33. In this report, we consider options to increase the ADF’s strike power in that time frame.

We start with the US Air Force’s B-21 Raider bomber, which was recently rolled out in California. The B-21 has become a topical issue here but so far there’s been little reliable information to inform the public discussion. This report is a first step in investigating the public data that is currently available on the B-21, while also analysing the B-21’s suitability for Australia’s needs.

As an extremely stealthy bomber that can deliver large amounts of ordnance across our near region, the B-21 is the ‘gold standard’ in strike capability. It could potentially be delivered by 2032–33. But that capability comes at great cost. We estimate the total acquisition cost for a squadron of 12 aircraft to be in the order of $25–28 billion and have a sustainment cost that would put it among the ADF’s most expensive current capabilities (but be significantly less than nuclear-powered submarines).

But that cost is potentially offset by a number of factors. A single B-21 can deliver the same effect as many F-35As. Moreover, B-21s would not require the ‘overhead’ of supporting capabilities such as air-to-air refuellers when operating in our region. Moreover, the B-21 can prosecute targets from secure air bases in Australia’s south, where it has access to workforce, fuel and munitions.

Of course, there are other options for long-range strike. These have their own constellations of cost, capability and risk. Long-range missiles, including hypersonics, have also received much recent attention. But they may be deceptively expensive; the further we want a missile to fly, the more expensive it is, and none of its exquisite components are reusable. Moreover, history suggests that very large numbers of missiles will be needed to defeat an adversary—more than we’re ever likely to be able to afford or stockpile.

Any assessment of capability options needs to be informed by robust cost–benefit analysis. The B-21 certainly has a high sticker price, but if, by virtue of its stealth, it can employ cheaper, short-range weapons, then in the long run it may be more affordable and deliver greater effects than long-range missiles alone. It was analysis of this kind that persuaded the USAF to go down the path of a new bomber. Of course, such exercises are assumption-rich activities, and all assumptions need to be rigorously tested; what’s valid for the US might not be for Australia.

Then there are several options that fall under the heading of the ‘Goldilocks’ bomber: a strike system that doesn’t have the eye-watering cost of the B-21 but still delivers a meaningful capability enhancement. One option is provided by ‘palletised munitions’ dropped from military cargo aircraft. There are two attributes of this approach that have appeal in Australia’s circumstances. The first is that many of the components, such as the missiles and aircraft, are already in ADF inventory or are being acquired. The second is that airlifters can operate from the short and unprepared airfields found in our region. More strike aircraft operating from more locations enhances the survivability of our strike system and complicates the adversary’s operating picture.

Another Goldilocks approach is potentially provided by autonomous, uncrewed systems. They will still need to be large to provide the range needed for impactful projection. However, it’s possible to discern what the solution could look like; for example, a larger version of the Ghost Bat that can deliver ordnance across our near region. At some point, the future of strike will involve larger crewed and uncrewed systems supported by large numbers of ‘the small, the smart and the many’—cheap, disposable systems that Australian industry can responsively produce in mass. The key question is: can that be done within the DSR’s 2032–33 target time frame?

There is potentially a way for Australia to have its cake and eat it too: by hosting USAF B-21s. Under the Enhanced Air Cooperation stream of the US Force Posture Initiative, USAF B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft visit northern Australia. In future, having our major ally rotate B-21s through northern Australia could obviate the requirement for Australia to have this kind of long-range strike capability in its own order of battle. Ultimately, the issue comes down to how much independent, sovereign strike capability the Australian Government requires. And any sovereign Australian capability adds to the overall alliance pool, which is the core concept underpinning AUKUS.

This report also examines some of the main arguments against the B-21. While all of them need to be considered seriously, we would also note that the world has changed. The September 2021 AUKUS announcement under which Australia will acquire a nuclear-powered submarine capability demonstrates that. Things that were previously inconceivable are now happening, so we shouldn’t dismiss the B-21 out of hand. Our recommendation is that the Australian Government should engage with the US Government to gain access to the information on the B-21 program so they can make an informed decision on its viability for Australia.

This analysis will form part of wider ASPI program of work looking at the strategic and capability questions that Australia is grappling with, including deterrence and long-range strike.

ASPI AUKUS update 2: September 2022—the one-year anniversary

Introduction

Consistent with a partnership that’s focused on the development of defence and technological capability rather than diplomatic grandstanding,1 there have been few public announcements about the progress of AUKUS. That’s an observation we made in our first AUKUS update in May,2 and one we make again in this latest update, one year on from the joint unveiling of the partnership in mid-September 2021.

Periodic press releases note meetings of the three-country joint steering groups—one of which looks at submarines and the other at advanced capabilities—but provide little hint about what was discussed.3 On Submarines, we shouldn’t expect to hear anything concrete until the 18-month consultation phase concludes in March 2022.

What’s changed, however, is that the strategic environment that gave birth to AUKUS has worsened markedly, most notably in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s escalating pressure on Taiwan and other parts of the Indo-Pacific. Those developments are making the advanced technologies AUKUS aims to foster even more relevant.

Image: iStockphoto/sameer chogade

While the political landscape across the three AUKUS partners has also changed (of the three leaders that announced AUKUS just one year ago, only one, US President Biden, remains in office), bipartisan support for AUKUS appears to be undiminished in all three capitals.

In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor government has made clear its commitment to AUKUS alongside the announcement of an ambitious Defence Strategic Review (DSR). Albanese has simultaneously worked to restore good relations with France, which temporarily withdrew its ambassador and some forms of cooperation because of the loss of the Attack-class submarine contract and what it said was a lack of Australian sincerity about AUKUS.

Britain’s new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, was a staunch advocate for AUKUS as Foreign Secretary, and all the signs are that she’ll continue in that vein as Prime Minister. Truss has kept Ben Wallace, a strong supporter of AUKUS, as Defence Secretary. Truss’s government has also moved former National Security Adviser Stephen Lovegrove into a new role focused on nuclear defence industry partnerships. If that becomes a permanent position, it could add capacity to deliver AUKUS over the long term.4

This update begins by reviewing the worsening strategic context one year on from the AUKUS announcement. Next, it summarises what more we have learned about progress in the nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) program, which is at the heart of AUKUS. It then assesses how think tanks across a selection of key countries are covering AUKUS to gauge trends in the public debate. The final section of the update assesses the importance of advanced technological cooperation through AUKUS to develop capability and reinforce deterrence rapidly in the face of the strategic challenges we face. The update makes some recommendations for the best way forward.

  1. Michael Shoebridge, What is AUKUS and what is it not?, ASPI, Canberra, 8 December 2021. ↩︎
  2. Marcus Hellyer, Ben Stevens, ASPI AUKUS update 1: May 2022, ASPI, Canberra, 5 May 2022. ↩︎
  3. ‘Readout of AUKUS Joint Steering Group meetings’, The White House, 31 July 2022. ↩︎
  4. ‘Sir Tim Barrow appointed as National Security Adviser’, media release, UK Government, 7 September 2022. ↩︎

Tag Archive for: Australia

The US alliance is precious, but Australia should plan for more self-reliance

If our strategic position was already challenging, it just got worse.

Reliability of the US as an ally is in question, amid such actions by the Trump administration as calling for annexation of Canada, threating to disband or leave NATO, and suddenly suspending support for Ukraine. This follows the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, which declared Australia’s strategic circumstances the worst since World War II.

As Australia seeks to urgently enhance its defence capabilities and sovereign capacity—including by acquiring nuclear submarines, long-range strike options, war stocks and emerging and disruptive technologies—our key ally of more than 70 years has become highly unpredictable.

In Australia’s immediate region, three critical questions arise. Can Australia depend on US military support, particularly the delivery of nuclear submarines within the AUKUS agreement?  Will the United States continue to develop and honour security agreements with Japan? And will the US help Taiwan in the face of potential Chinese aggression? This is not a complete list of concerns for the Australian government and Defence officials.

We should be careful not to throw our most fundamental alliance out with the bathwater of one US administration. But we had better start thinking now about what we would have to do if we needed greater defence self-reliance. To some extent, that implies preparations now.

As the old joke goes, if Australia asked for directions to a self-sufficient defence policy, the reply would be, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to be starting from here.’  But here we are.

Despite early speculation, it is unclear how isolationist this Trump government will be. Its responses to Ukraine and Gaza present contrary pictures. It is important to remember that the US was isolationist and leaned heavily towards non-interventionism after the beginning of both World Wars I and II. Ultimately, it entered both conflicts on the same side as Australia. The bonds formed between Australian and American military forces in those conflicts are deep and enduring and are often invoked by politicians and service personnel alike. The dominant feature of the Australian defence headquarters in Canberra is a towering, stylised eagle symbolising Australia’s gratitude for US help during the Pacific war and the more than 100,000 Americans who died fighting there. America has been hard to predict and slow to react at times, but it has turned up for the free world when it matters most.

Despite some unnerving pronouncements from Trump, over the longer term the US has been more predictable and positive to Australia’s global interests. Australia benefits from American influence, even unpredictable American influence, as it helps maintain the mutually beneficial status quo. Beyond military advantages, our US alliance delivers essential intelligence through the Five Eyes intelligence partnership. The scale and breadth of that partnership would be nearly impossible to replace fully in any new arrangement.

I don’t like to imagine an Australian Defence posture without the US alliance, but I understand the need to consider the possibility. Australia would face an increasingly volatile world without the US as a strategic ally. It is wishful thinking to assume that Russia, China, North Korea or Iran would benignly fill any power void left by America. In such a world, deterring the use of force as a policy option would remain paramount. Deterrence is achieved through credible military capabilities, political resolve and, more often than not, alliances that complicate and overwhelm any opportunistic use of force. Deterrence is the starting point for any defensive national strategy.

A self-reliant Australia would have choices in how it achieves deterrence. The spectrum of deterrence options extends from neutrality to nuclear weapons. The most recognised example of neutrality is Switzerland’s armed neutrality. This is supported by more than 90 percent of its people, while defence costs less than 1 percent of its GDP. Although Switzerland’s approach has worked in a geopolitical sense to date, it is challenged by pressure from allies during crises to align with such policies as sanctions on Russia and by emerging security threats, such as cyber.

Nuclear weapons and the policy of mutually assured destruction have helped ensure there have been no global conflicts since 1945. Russian threats to employ nuclear weapons also appear to have restrained further escalation by other nations in Ukraine. The grim reality is that nuclear weapons remain the ultimate deterrent. However, these weapons are expensive to build and maintain, and a decision to acquire nuclear weapons is not straightforward or guaranteed.

Australia could consider each of these options. How a neutral or a nuclear-armed Australia would be accepted in our region is an open question. Whether the Australian public could be convinced to go down either path is doubtful. Domestic opinion will probably remain somewhere on a middle path. Australia would need greater self-sufficiency or a revised alliance framework without American military capability as a backstop. Defence self-sufficiency would not come cheaply and could not be achieved without a defence budget beyond 3 percent of GDP. It is impossible to determine the precise requirement, but it is sobering to note that Australia’s defence budget in 1942–43 was 34 percent of GDP.

A revised alliance framework could help mitigate costs. It would also bring the advantages of burden-sharing, enhanced mass and breadth, and more significant strategic complications for adversaries. Beyond the US, our traditionally nearest and most predictable military partners are New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. However, they each spend less than 1 percent of GDP on defence. They offer limited practical capability in either scale or deterrence. Indonesia will remain an important partner, but our relationship with it will—for historical and cultural reasons—continue to wax and wane.

Further afield but closely linked to our region and interest in the status quo is Japan. It has a credible military force, and the national and military relationships with Japan are developing strongly. There is good potential for an alternative alliance here. Our relationship with India is less well developed. India’s strategic worldview is also less aligned with ours than Japan’s is. There is potential with India, but building a trusting relationship with it will likely be slower.

We could look at the possibility of working more closely with Singapore, which is well armed for its population of 6 million and is highly skilled in regional statecraft. Our former closest ally, Britain, remains a trusted and capable partner, but it is far from our region and must remain focused on European concerns.

These are a few obvious options for a new alliance framework. No combination will replace the US military’s global reach and scale (including its nuclear capabilities) or capacity for deterrence. Nor could the new alliance replicate the Five Eyes intelligence apparatus in any reasonable timeframe. Australia’s relative security position would be degraded without US military backing.

What, then, would Australia need to prioritise in defence policy if it judged that the US was no longer a reliable ally?

The two key elements of military capability are the ability to shield (defend) and to strike (attack). Each requires a third element, intelligence, to be effective. Australia would need to enhance all three to be more self-sufficient. None would come cheaply in dollars or workforce. Typically, these capabilities take decades to establish. Building them up would require bipartisan agreement through successive government terms of office. In all three, we would be better off maintaining the US alliance through thick and thin. But let’s imagine what we’d do if we were unsure of the alliance, as follows.

Intelligence would require new trusted partners and additional technical and human capabilities for collection and analysis. AI will help but will demand ever-larger supercomputers and data centres. The workforce is specialised and complex to scale, let alone quickly. With national resolve, we could be more capable in a decade.

Concerning shielding, strategically, we would have to decide whether to defend forward (in our near region) or back (on our home shores). Either would have implications for our close neighbours.

Regardless of that choice, we would have to step up preparations that we are already undertaking. Critical infrastructure and locations already require hardening from physical and cyber threats. We need proven air and missile defence capabilities such as Patriot and THAAD ( both, incidentally, US systems) and an ability to integrate them. In a policy and coordination sense, we require a national alert system for air and missile threats and enhanced capabilities to counter sabotage, subversion and espionage within Australia. All this would become more important if the US alliance looked unreliable.

Similarly, additional strike options and weapons holdings are necessary and would be all the more so if we needed to be more self-reliant. The current Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance program to expand our domestic munitions-production capability is worthwhile but needs additional funding and acceleration.

Greater reach, particularly to strike targets from the air and sea in the maritime domain, and an ability to fight for protracted periods are key. It would be expensive to buy additional weapons and platforms (such as aircraft and ships) and to make genuine effort to expand domestic production. Increased domestic production is already necessary, and more of it would be needed for greater self-reliance.

Nuclear submarines are essential to our deterrent posture, because they most credibly contribute to intelligence, shielding and striking. Their full cost is still being realised but they do more to complicate an adversary’s strategic and tactical calculations than any other kind of platform. Walking away from the effort to acquire nuclear submarines (if we could) would undermine our greatest deterrent.

If we are determined to achieve greater maritime reach and influence, the debate about Australian aircraft carriers should be revisited. Again, the cost of these ships would be significant, and having an ally that might deploy a few in our region would be very attractive.

Autonomous air and sea systems offer potentially more cost-effective surveillance and shield and strike options. We already need to incorporate more of these with greater urgency. Even more of them would be part of an Australian Defence Force that might have to stand without the US.

We are already in a world where almost nothing happens without some ability to maintain our operations from space. Satellites and the ability to protect them are increasingly essential (and expensive) capabilities in which we are underinvested. A shift away from the US alliance would necessitate very substantial investment here.

These are only a few of the most critical areas for consideration in a more self-sufficient defence posture for Australia. If we broke our alliance with the US for any reason, we would need to increase defence spending enormously to maintain credible deterrent forces.

A final point should be emphasised: a move away from our alliance of more than 70 years—and a military partnership founded in World War I—should not result from the term of office of just one erratic US administration. The ramifications for Australia would be profound.

China’s warships reveal more than a need to strengthen the ADF

Last month’s circumnavigation by a potent Chinese naval flotilla sent a powerful signal to Canberra about Beijing’s intent. It also demonstrated China’s increasing ability to threaten Australia’s maritime communications, as well as the entirety of its eastern and southern seaboards, where the major population centres and critical infrastructure are concentrated. In a major war, our civilian infrastructure is likely to be targeted, not just military bases.

The deployment further highlighted national resilience vulnerabilities that go well beyond the need to strengthen the Australian Defence Force’s capabilities, overdue and critical though this task undoubtedly is.

While the presence of a Chinese navy task group this far south was unprecedented, and a noteworthy demonstration of China’s reach and sustainment capability, it is important to stress that peacetime signalling through military presence and wartime operations are poles apart. As we are in peacetime, China’s naval flotilla was free to manoeuvre in close formation within Australia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and conduct live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea.

In a crisis or conflict, it is highly unlikely that China’s warships would venture so close to Australia’s continental coastline. Even with Australia’s current, inadequate military capability, the ADF would be able to hold a similar Chinese flotilla at clear risk of annihilation. Surface vessels approaching Australia are easily detected long before they appear in our vicinity, by surveillance systems such as the Jindalee Operational Radar Network. If the navy had not already intercepted a hostile surface action group in Australia’s maritime approaches, the air force would be tasked with responding.

However, such an effort would absorb much of the ADF’s combat capacity. It also assumes a free hand to operate from air bases, when those same, currently unhardened bases could be subjected to preparatory missile strikes launched by China’s long-range aircraft and submarines. China’s most capable warships have stand-off and air-defence weapons of their own, and could still pose a significant threat to ships and coastal targets.

China’s growing fleet of nuclear-propelled attack submarines would be much harder to detect than surface vessels. They would likely operate independently, further stretching the ADF’s resources. Even when threats are detected, gaps will remain in the ADF’s ability to respond to intrusions in our vicinity. After all, while Australia’s extensive continental and island territories create the world’s third-largest EEZ, our navy is and will remain significantly smaller than Japan’s or South Korea’s.

Monitoring and responding to incidents within such vast tracts of sea and air space is challenging even in peacetime. But gaps in capability can be narrowed if Australia invests with greater urgency and purpose to realise the focused, integrated force outlined in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review.

To defend the Australian homeland against China’s power projection, which is only going to grow in scale and frequency, the ADF needs to grow bigger, faster and more lethal. At the same time, Australia’s political and military leaders must avoid being lured into a defensive mindset. Beijing’s ‘I can play in your backyard, if you play in mine’ message is intended to do just that.

An Australia preoccupied with localised defence, less intent on shaping its surrounding region or developing the capabilities and forward posture needed for deterrence, serves Beijing’s interests more than Canberra’s. We need military flexibility, political will and strategic vision to help secure the region and defend ourselves.  We must remember that while China’s navy was sailing around Australia, it had other ships exercising in the South China Sea and near Taiwan. These remain China’s primary areas of military focus and should therefore be an ongoing focus for Australia’s deterrence efforts.

Even as Australia grapples with this unfamiliar challenge—a potential adversary that can project power from all directions and has every motivation to tie down the ADF during a conflict in East Asia—Canberra must continue to align its military efforts with those of our key allies and partners.

Also, the nuclear submarines we’re acquiring under AUKUS are flexible platforms that can be used for sea control. But their primary purpose is not, as sometimes portrayed, to protect and defend Australia’s vital trade routes and sea lines of communication. The massive investment to acquire them will be squandered if they are tied up in the defence of homeland waters or escorting high-value assets. Fundamentally, they are for projecting denial by taking the fight as close to the adversary as physically feasible.

But within the next decade Australia will only have one SSN in service, at best, while the fate of the life extension program for our six old diesel submarines of the Collins class hangs in the balance. China’s uninvited naval presence underscores that even if Australia had an operational AUKUS submarine fleet tomorrow, there would still be a need for a concomitant uplift in the ADF’s conventional capabilities across the board.  Unfortunately, the government has not approached this uplift with the requisite urgency. The opportunity costs of prioritising defence spending increases to fulfil our AUKUS Pillar 1 commitments have come home to roost.

Granted, improvements to the Royal Australian Air Force’s maritime strike capabilities are underway, as evidenced by the recent test-firing of an LRASM anti-ship missile by an F/A-18F Super Hornet, and an associated missile order from the US. The navy is also boosting its inventory of Mark 48 heavyweight torpedos. But the dollar value of such orders tends to obscure their relatively modest scale. For example, A$200 million buys 30 torpedos of the Mark 48 latest variant, based on a unit cost of A$6.7 million.

War stocks are chronically low across the ADF, despite the need to ‘sustain protracted operations during a conflict’ being designated as one of six priority capability effects in the 2024 National Defence Strategy. In addition to boosting its combat power, the navy needs to enhance its undersea surveillance capabilities in Australia’s approaches, to aid submarine detection efforts.

Mike Pezzullo has suggested that Australia acquire B-1B bombers as they are progressively retired from the US air force, and put them into service with Australia’s air force in an anti-ship role. This is a radical idea that deserves serious consideration. While expensive, it could be done on a timeline more relevant to our deteriorating security situation than AUKUS—though AUKUS should still go ahead.

Even then, Australia’s investments in maritime strike from the air will be worth nothing in a war if missile strikes render the air force’s bases inoperable. Base hardening needs to be done in parallel, just as China is doing on a massive scale. Equally, the government’s ambitions to invest in integrated air and missile defence, highlighted as a priority in the Defence Strategic Review, remain just that: ambitions.

In this context, the Australian Army can contribute to securing our surrounding waters and approaches by fielding anti-ship missiles on mobile launchers. This will make our coastal defence thicker, less predictable to enemies and more survivable. But it remains unclear how far down the track the project to implement this, Land 8113 Phase 2, has progressed.

China’s demonstration that it can project and sustain naval power into Australia’s surrounding waters has highlighted our lack of maritime resilience. As the late James Goldrick put it, defending a fortress is pointless without attending to its water supply.

As an island nation, Australia would face profound national sustainment challenges in a wartime environment where prevailing regional trade patterns would be massively disrupted. Shipping would be a key pillar of our national economic security, if not survival. In any prolonged maritime conflict, Australia would have to requisition merchant vessels to sustain the nation’s wartime needs beyond the short term. Australia’s nationally flagged fleet, comprising around 12 vessels and not a single tanker, is risibly inadequate.

The idea that Australia could depend solely on market forces for imports needed for national survival is dangerously complacent, especially given China’s growing dominance in international shipping and port ownership. The fact that the global maritime trading system has absorbed the impact of limited conflict in the Black and Red seas without breaking down owes much to good luck and some wrenching supply-side adjustments.

This is not simply a question of ensuring that Australia maintains maritime imports of essential commodities from across the oceans. Coastal shipping, although out of sight to most of the population, is vital to Australia’s economic functioning. Road haulage is no substitute for bulk transportation by sea. Much of Australia’s critical infrastructure, including our two remaining oil refineries, is vulnerably situated near the coast. We lack the redundancy and stockpiles to absorb damage or cope with sustained supply disruptions. Australia is energy rich. We are a major exporter. But what counts more when it comes to the crunch is our continuing dependence on imported fuels, including 100 percent of our aviation fuel.

The government-commissioned report on a Maritime Strategic Fleet, submitted almost two years ago, needs to be revisited urgently. There is little evidence that its modest suite of recommendations has been adopted. The report assessed that 12 privately owned and commercially operated vessels under the Australian flag and crewed by Australians would be enough to meet emergency needs. This is highly questionable if there were a protracted maritime conflict in the Western Pacific. The strategic fleet needs to include dedicated tankers, as well as more cargo vessels capable of transporting refined fuel products (the navy has two replenishment ships of its own).

By comparison, the US has a fleet of 10 US-registered tankers in its Tanker Security Program. These vessels operate commercially in peacetime, but are essentially reserved for military use to support forward operations in wartime. They are not intended to keep the US’s lights on, or those of its allies. Australia’s need to secure oil and oil products will be far more acute, given our paltry fuel reserves and absence of domestic alternatives.  Deep pockets may not be enough to secure supplies on the spot market at the outset of a conflict, given the attendant competition and dislocation.

There is a case for Australia to consider acquiring its own cable-laying ship, to repair or replace fibre-optic seabed cables cut by an adversary at the onset of a conflict. Such ships are in short supply and their availability would be highly uncertain during wartime. An Australian-flagged specialised seabed cable support vessel would be a strategic asset that Canberra could make available to its closest allies and partners in the Pacific.

If the South China Sea and the major straits connecting it to the Indian Ocean are deemed too hazardous for international shipping, the long diversionary route around Australia will become crucial for Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan (unless it’s blockaded) and the US from a military standpoint. From a supply and sustainment perspective, Australia should benefit from such a major realignment of shipping flows. Calling into Australian ports would no longer require a long and tell-tale diversion from major shipping lanes. And, to some extent, there is still safety in numbers, provided shipping is directly or indirectly protected.

The importance of the coastal sea lanes immediately south of Australia provides a strong case for us entering into cooperative arrangements with countries such as Japan and South Korea. India would become Australia’s most obvious substitute source for refined products, assuming that Japan, South Korea and Singapore would be unable or unwilling to meet our needs. And trans-Pacific routes would be vital to maintain communications and reinforcement from the US.

But there are downsides. China’s naval strategists and planners have likely also realised that the southern diversionary route would become a strategic artery for the US and its regional allies and partners, not simply of local importance to Australia. This paints China’s uninvited naval circumnavigation in a more strategic hue.

Australia’s southern and eastern seaboards could become a target for the interdiction of allied supplies, as they were for Germany and Japan in World War II, on and under the surface (Germany mined the Bass Strait during both world wars). Western Australia would be of heightened interest as a military target, given the likely concentration of US, British and Australian submarines at HMAS Stirling. Australia would necessarily have to assume primary responsibility for the protection of shipping passing close to its shores, partly as a quid pro quo to ensure its own supply. This would mean fewer warships and other assets would be available to perform other tasks, such as repelling an invasion of Taiwan or relieving a blockade of the island.

Fortunately, the closer the shipping lanes pass to the coast, the easier they are to defend. A layered defence incorporating assets based on land, air and sea could extend area protection in sufficient depth so that direct escort would be necessary only for the highest-value strategic cargoes or military assets. All three services would need to play an active role in defending Australian coastal waters and approaches for the duration of the conflict. The creative use of uncrewed platforms could alleviate the burden on the navy and air force.

Sustainment during wartime is a whole-of-nation endeavour. China’s recent naval visit, while in no sense a cause for panic, should sound an alarm that echoes beyond Australia’s naval community and the ADF. The defence of the nation during a major conflict will require more than just capable armed forces to succeed, while civilian infrastructure could be exposed as our Achilles’ heel. Australia’s national resilience and readiness will be the main theme of ASPI’s annual defence conference, on 4 June.

Australia should work with South Korea to secure undersea cables

South Korea and Australia should enhance their cooperation to secure submarine cables, which carry more than 95 percent of global data traffic.

As tensions in the Indo-Pacific intensify, these vital connections face risks from cyber intrusions, sabotage and state-backed interference, particularly amid China’s growing maritime influence. South Korea boasts advanced technical expertise, while Australia has strong maritime capabilities and intelligence connections and is geographically well-placed. The two countries should combine these strengths to secure undersea infrastructure.

South Korea’s digital expertise is highly valuable. Integrating South Korea’s AI-based threat detection with Australia’s intelligence-sharing networks will enable both countries to identify and respond to cyber threats more effectively. The geographic advantages of Australia—and, to some extent, South Korea—can facilitate joint maritime patrols to protect cables, as well as diversification of infrastructure, including alternative cable routes and land-based backups.

Legal reforms and stricter cybersecurity regulations for telecom operators are necessary, alongside public-private partnerships in encryption and threat detection.

Submarine cables are a strategic asset that could be targeted in times of crisis. China’s maritime expansion and technological capabilities heighten concerns over potential data interception and infrastructure disruption.

South Korea’s advanced position in telecommunications technology and cybersecurity is a strength in digital infrastructure resilience. Australia is in a key position in the global cable network because of its geographical position.

Currently, there is no comprehensive global governance framework to secure submarine cables. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides some legal protection but does not adequately address emerging threats such as cyberattacks and hybrid warfare tactics.

Additionally, jurisdictional complexities and private ownership of most submarine cables mean there are gaps in coordinated response mechanisms. Furthermore, many regional states, including South Korea and Australia, have historically prioritised military security over digital infrastructure resilience, leading to insufficient attention to undersea vulnerabilities.

Existing security and economic partnerships could fill these framework gaps, facilitating intelligence-sharing, cyber defence initiatives and coordinated threat assessments. This would help facilitate preventative threat management, rather than relying on reactive measures.

Bilaterally, a South Korea-Australia cybersecurity pact could further enhance coordination on emerging threats. A comprehensive pact would include provisions for physical elements of cyber infrastructure, such as subsea cables. Collaborative projects, such as the development of regionally secured data hubs, could protect sensitive information flows from geopolitical disruptions.

Joint surveillance efforts through AI-based monitoring systems and satellite tracking could strengthen real-time detection of disruptions. Both countries’ navies should also expand maritime patrols along key submarine cable routes to deter adversarial interference. A regional submarine cable security task force could also be established to ensure ongoing coordination and rapid response to emerging threats.

South Korea and Australia must work together to build resilience through infrastructure diversification. They could, for example, support alternative cable routes, reducing dependency on single points of failure or a monopoly of control. Investment in land-based backup systems and secure satellite communication should also be prioritised. Governments should provide financial incentives to private sector companies investing in resilient cable infrastructure and establish joint research initiatives to develop advanced protective measures against cyber threats and physical disruptions.

Legal and policy advancements should accompany these efforts. South Korea and Australia must push for amendments to UNCLOS that address modern cyber threats and advocate for international agreements that criminalise malicious activities targeting undersea infrastructure. A bilateral treaty specifically focused on the protection of submarine cables in the region could establish clear rules and mutual obligations, setting a regional example.

At the national level, stricter regulations on private telecommunications operators, including mandatory cybersecurity protocols and compliance standards, would further enhance resilience. Both governments should also establish mandatory reporting mechanisms for cable operators to immediately share information on potential threats.

Public-private partnerships will be essential in this effort. Governments, technology firms and telecommunications providers should collaborate on encrypted data transmission protocols and conduct regular cybersecurity simulations to prepare for potential attacks. Joint research and development efforts in cable security technologies, including quantum encryption and automated anomaly detection, could position South Korea and Australia as global leaders in digital infrastructure protection.

Establishing a joint Indo-Pacific digital security forum would further institutionalise collaboration and knowledge-sharing on best practices. Increased investment in training programs for cyber resilience experts could also ensure that both countries maintain highly skilled personnel to respond to future challenges.

Securing submarine cables is not just a strategic choice but a necessity for economic stability and regional security. South Korea and Australia should create a long-term roadmap for continued investment in submarine cable security, ensuring sustained cooperation and adaptation to evolving threats.

The permanent Australia-China contest in the South Pacific

Foreign Minister Penny Wong in 2024 said that ‘we’re in a state of permanent contest in the Pacific—that’s the reality.’

China’s arrogance hurts it in the South Pacific. Mark that as a strong Australian card in this permanent contest.

The Chinese navy’s no-notice live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea have become another talking point in Australia’s effort to deny Beijing a Pacific island naval base.

Canberra can offer the South Pacific this argument: ‘Do you want to host Chinese warships so they can play deadly cowboy games in your waters?’

As Australia prepares for a national election in May, China’s Pacific ambitions are again making headlines. During the 2022 election campaign, Wong lashed the Coalition government after Solomon Islands signed a security agreement with China, calling it ‘the worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War II’. Around that time, China sent a surveillance ship down Australia’s west coast.

Australia must become used to China’s blue water navy noodling around our shores, and not just during elections.

As with its navy, China’s Pacific ambitions have expanded. In the past 10 to 15 years, Beijing has shifted from pursuing one core aim in the islands—the diplomatic contest with Taiwan. Now it seeks, even demands, great power entitlements. My rough timeline for the shift says the great power assertiveness has been to the fore for the past 10 to 15 years.

In 1975, Fiji became the first Pacific islands state to give diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China. For the next 40 years, China’s overriding purpose was to beat Taiwan in the cheque-book battle for diplomatic recognition. By 2005, China was ahead: seven island states recognised the PRC while six recognised Taiwan. Today, only three island states have diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

With the flag battle mostly won, China has settled into the permanent contest. That’s why Wong has made more visits to the islands than any previous Australian foreign minister. Taking up the diplomatic duel, Wong headed to Fiji in her first week as minister, saying:  ‘Strategic contest will challenge us in new ways. We understand that the security of any one Pacific family member rests on security for all.’

As China probes, Australia steadily responds, building on what we already have.  As Sean Dorney, one of Australia’s great Pacific correspondents, said: ‘Thank God for China! Now Australia has to pay attention.’

Dorney’s point is simply that China reminds Australia of what we should be doing anyway. When Australia speaks of being the region’s partner of choice–economically, politically and strategically—it defines a lesser role for China.

Australia’s response draws on the calm approach used to stare down coercion and sanctions during the five-year icy age from 2017 to 2022, and three years of slow rebalance.

In this grand competition, Australia has the huge multilateral advantage of being in the region. Canberra strives to win the bilateral contests. More than Beijing, Canberra is explicit in stating its defence aims, signing agreements with Nauru and Tuvalu giving Australia veto rights over security partnerships with other countries. The response to claims of paternalism or colonialism is that Australia holds up island states by holding them close.

The next step is negotiation of a defence treaty with Papua New Guinea, building on the 2023 Australia-PNG security agreement.  China has changed the level of the security pledge Australia offers PNG.

Because of PNG’s shared border with Indonesia, Canberra had always been cautious about a full defence treaty with Port Moresby. The moral hazard fear was that PNG might take risks Australia would have to cover, and Australia was wary of going to war with Indonesia because of PNG’s actions.

Paul Dibb tells the story of accompanying Australia’s then defence minister, Kim Beazley, to a Jakarta meeting with Benny Moerdani in the 1980s. Indonesia’s defence chief asked if Australia would fight for PNG, to which Beazley replied: ‘We’d fight to the last man, but we wouldn’t tell them that.’ Such are the contortions when moral hazard meets strategic imperative. China has wiped away that old caution.

When PNG Prime Minister James Marape addressed the Australian parliament last year, he spoke of Australia’s history as a ‘big brother’. This year marks the 50th anniversary of PNG’s independence from Australia, and Marape joined Wong in Canberra on 24 February to welcome Somare-Whitlam scholars, named after the prime ministers of Australia and PNG in 1975.

In her speech, Wong went first to the people dimension: ‘Neighbours, friends, equal partners. One of the nicest things in my job is that the prime minister of Papua New Guinea calls me “sister”.’

In this permanent contest, Australia has unique assets. China makes ambitious offers to South Pacific states. Australia’s great counter-offer is to South Pacific people, as Labor and Coalition governments embrace Australia’s role in the Pacific family.

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.

Reaction isn’t enough. Australia should aim at preventing cybercrime

Australia’s cyber capabilities have evolved rapidly, but they are still largely reactive, not preventative. Rather than responding to cyber incidents, Australian law enforcement agencies should focus on dismantling underlying criminal networks.

On 11 December, Europol announced the takedown of 27 distributed platforms that offered denial of service (DDoS) for hire and the arrest of multiple administrators. Such a criminal operation allows individuals or groups to rent DDoS attack capabilities, which enable users to overwhelm targeted websites, networks or online services with excessive traffic, often without needing technical expertise.

The takedown was a result of Operation PowerOFF, a coordinated and ongoing global effort targeting the cybercrime black market. While the operation has demonstrated the evolving sophistication of international law enforcement operations in tackling cyber threats, it has also exposed persistent gaps in Australia’s cyber enforcement and resilience. To stay ahead of the next wave of cyber threats, Australia must adopt a more preventative approach combining enforcement with deterrence, international cooperation, and education.

Operation PowerOFF represents a shift in global cybercrime enforcement, moving beyond traditional reactive measures toward targeted disruption of cybercriminal infrastructure. Unlike previous efforts, the operation not only dismantled illicit services; it also aimed to discourage future offenders, deploying Google and YouTube ad campaigns to deter potential cybercriminals searching for DDoS-for-hire tools. This layered strategy—seizing platforms, prosecuting offenders and disrupting recruitment pipelines—serves as a best-practice blueprint for Australia’s approach to cybercrime.

The lesson from Operation PowerOFF is clear: Australia must shift its cyber strategy from defence to disruption, ensuring that cybercriminals cannot operate with impunity.

One of the most effective elements of Operation PowerOFF is its focus on dismantling the infrastructure of cybercrime, rather than just arresting individuals. By taking down major DDoS-for-hire services and identifying more than 300 customers, Europol and its partners effectively collapsed an entire segment of the cybercrime market.

This strategy is particularly relevant for Australia. Cybercriminal operations frequently exploit weak legal frameworks and enforcement gaps in the Indo-Pacific region. Many DDoS-for-hire services, ransomware networks and illicit marketplaces are hosted in jurisdictions with limited enforcement capacity, allowing criminals to operate across borders with little fear of prosecution.

Australia must expand its collaboration with Southeast Asian law enforcement agencies on cybercrime, ensuring that cybercriminal havens are actively targeted rather than passively monitored. Without regional cooperation, Australia risks becoming an isolated target rather than a leader in cybercrime enforcement.

Beyond enforcement, Australia must integrate preventative strategies into its cybercrime response. The low barriers to entry for cybercrime mean that many offenders—particularly young Australians—are lured in through gaming communities, hacking forums and social media.

Targeted digital deterrence, including algorithm-driven advertising campaigns, could disrupt this pipeline, steering potential offenders toward legal cybersecurity careers instead of cybercrime. An education-first approach combined with stronger penalties for repeat offenders, will help prevent low-level offenders from escalating into hardened cybercriminals, while helping to ensure that those cybercriminals face consequences.

Australia’s cybercrime laws must also evolve to address the entire cybercriminal supply chain, not just the most visible offenders. Operation PowerOFF showed that cybercrime is not just about the hackers who launch attacks, but also the administrators, facilitators, and financial backers who enable them.

Australian law enforcement should target financial transactions supporting cybercrime, using crypto-tracing and forensic financial analysis to dismantle cybercriminal funding networks. Harsher penalties for those who fund or facilitate DDoS-for-hire services could create a more hostile legal environment for cybercriminal enterprises, ensuring that they cannot simply relocate to more permissive jurisdictions. At the same time, youth diversion programs should be expanded, offering first-time cyber offenders rehabilitation options rather than immediate prosecution, preventing them from becoming repeat offenders.

Operation PowerOFF’s success is a win for international cybercrime enforcement, demonstrating that proactive, intelligence-driven disruption can dismantle even the most entrenched criminal networks.

But it is also a warning: without continuous vigilance, cybercriminals will regroup, rebrand, and relaunch. Australia must act now to strengthen its cyber enforcement, combining international cooperation, legal reform and preventative education to ensure that cybercriminals see Australia as a hostile environment for their activities, not a soft target.

Australia’s defences must be ready in two years. Here’s what to do

Beijing deployed a naval task group to the waters around Australia for three related reasons. First, to demonstrate the reach and potency of Chinese sea power and to put Australia on notice that it is vulnerable to the application of that power. Second, to test our political and military responses. Third, to rehearse for wartime operations against Australia.

Regarding the last, the deployment was most likely a rehearsal run for the conduct of a seaborne missile strike on Australia, with China testing how it might most effectively launch missile strikes on Australian military facilities and critical national infrastructure.

The task group was led by a powerful cruiser that was equipped with 112 missile cells from which long-range land attack cruise missiles could be launched at targets across Australia.

In wartime, such an operation would be conducted by an even larger and better protected surface action task group, most probably consisting of the same type of cruiser, one or two escorting destroyers, one or two submarines and a replenishment tanker. The mission of the task group would be to fight through any opposing, mainly Australian, forces to get into optimal firing positions in the waters around Australia.

China would assume that in any plausible scenario where it might need to launch such an attack against Australia—as part of a broader US-China war—scarce US naval and air units almost certainly would be heavily engaged elsewhere in the broader Indo-Pacific region and therefore its attacking force would be able to fight through light, mainly Australian, defending forces.

This is not to say that our treaty ally, the United States, would not willingly come to our aid in such a scenario. The reality, however, is that in any such war the US would have very little spare capacity to do so.

It is not that we would be abandoned. Rather, the defence of Australia would be prioritised by the US according to the imperatives of the broader fight and we would be expected to do more for ourselves.

China also most likely would undertake air-launched long-range missile strikes against Australia. These would involve long-range missiles being launched by H-6 bombers, which most likely would fire them from the north of Indonesia, beyond the perceived range of Australia’s air defences. Submarines also probably would be sent to attack shipping around Australia, mine our ports and sea lanes and destroy undersea cables.

China’s relatively small number of aircraft carriers means it is unlikely that Australia would be subjected to carrier-borne air raids, but the possibility should not be discounted, especially as the Chinese aircraft carrier fleet grows in strength.

We should not delude ourselves that the deployment was a benign exercise, conducted ‘lawfully’ in international waters—with the underlying imputation being that is simply what great powers do.

Regrettably, this was the theme of the Australian government’s initial response, which could not have been better scripted in Beijing itself.

The deployment was a rehearsal and, at the same time, a menacing attempt at strategic intimidation, designed to increase anxiety in the Australian population about China’s growing military power and fuel domestic doubts about the wisdom of potentially risking conflict with China—for instance, over Taiwan.

This day of reckoning was long coming. Once China decided in the early 2000s to develop a blue-water navy, it was always going to focus some of its attention on our sea-air approaches and our nearby waters. This is because Beijing understands that, as a matter of geostrategic logic, Australia’s size and geographical location would be a valuable wartime asset for the US.

Neutralising that advantage is a key consideration for People’s Liberation Army war planners.

The PLA could not afford to yield to the US uncontested access to such a significant and secure bastion and staging area, where US forces could be concentrated in protected locations out of the reach of most of China’s conventional arsenal and from where devastating US strikes could be mounted on Chinese forces and bases in the littoral areas of East Asia, the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

While it has not taken a definitive decision to go to war, China has moved into a rehearsal phase for such a conflict. It is determined to give itself the option of fighting and winning a war against the US and its allies. It therefore has to test all of its operational plans, including the neutralisation of Australia’s wartime utility.

We are not special in this regard. China is rehearsing its war plans across the entire Pacific—including in relation to establishing sea control in the littoral rim of East Asia, from Japan to Indonesia, denying US sea and air access to that littoral rim, holding at risk US carrier strike groups and bases, such as Guam, and striking at more distant US staging areas, such as Alaska, Hawaii and Australia.

PLA war planning calculations have nothing to do with the tone or the content of the bilateral Australia-China relationship. They are a function of the hard-headed judgments that PLA war planners need to make. We could have a perfectly ‘stabilised’ relationship, with copious quantities of Australian wine and lobster flowing into Chinese ports, and still be on the PLA’s strike list.

Unfortunately, our response to the deployment was shaped principally by those whose focus is obsessively fixed on the state of the bilateral relationship rather than by those who are paid to think and advise in geostrategic terms.

We should expect more such demonstrations of power projection by China, using not only surface vessels but also submarines, carrier strike groups and H-6 bombers. Such power projection is commonplace around the rimlands and littoral regions of Eurasia, where Chinese, Russian and, increasingly, combined Chinese-Russian operations are mounted frequently against the US (including around Alaska and off Hawaii), Canada, Britain, Japan, Taiwan, The Philippines and others. We have much to learn from these allies and partners in terms of how they deal with such frequent and persistent Chinese and Russian visitors.

Until now Australia has been located safely away from this contact zone of Eurasia, with only Imperial Germany before WWI and Imperial Japan in the early years of the Pacific war of 1941-45 darkening our frontiers.

Today we are no longer protected by distance. Thankfully, there is a ready-made solution to this geostrategic problem. Ever since Kim Beazley commissioned Paul Dibb in February 1985 to conduct a review of Australia’s defence capabilities, the cardinal importance of defending Australia’s sea-air approaches has been at the core of defence planning, even if the requisite capabilities and level of funding required to carry out the resultant military strategy have never fully materialised.

For 40 years, Australian defence planning has been founded on the idea of defending our area of direct military interest, which extends well beyond the continent and the immediate waters around Australia. This means seeking to deny to an adversary the ability to successfully move into and through the sea-air approaches to Australia.

It also means achieving and maintaining sea control in key areas in the waters around Australia. Our strategy is to turn the vast archipelagic arc that extends from the waters to the west of Sumatra to those around Fiji into a great strategic barrier through which any adversary would have to move to attack Australia.

Once this geostrategic logic is understood, much else falls into place—for instance, why it is that Australia could not allow itself to be outflanked to the northeast by the establishment of Chinese bases in the South Pacific, which would represent a catastrophic penetration of the barrier.

In the same way that US president John Kennedy could not tolerate Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, we could not tolerate Chinese missile units or bombers having access to bases in the South Pacific.

The geography of this barrier is such that the sea-air approaches to Australia naturally funnel ships and submarines into a small number of chokepoints. When exploited well, chokepoints favour the defender. They create killing zones where attacking forces can be destroyed before they can do harm.

Australian defence planning also has to contemplate more distant operations, forward of the barrier, including in the South China Sea and in the southern portions of the Central Pacific (for instance, in the Guam-Bismarck Sea corridor) to attrite advancing adversary forces even before they reach the chokepoints.

While we have the strategy, which was given its clearest expression in the 1987 and 2009 defence white papers and has been honed across 40 years since Dibb’s landmark report, we do not have the full suite of capabilities or the mindset to execute the strategy in the face of the gathering storm.

We need to be ready by early 2027—which appears to be the earliest time that China will be ready to launch a military operation against Taiwan, which in turn may trigger a wider war.

Of course, assumptions about whether and when China would do such a thing need to be kept under constant review. In strategy, everything is contingent and nothing is inevitable. If it is to come, war will break out whether we are ready or not. Having missed our chance more than 15 years ago to properly start to prepare—when dark prophesies of a possible war first emerged—we now have to do what we can in the time we have. We should urgently do the following things, which are over and above what has been decided by successive Australian governments, most recently in response to the 2023 Defence Strategic Review.

1. Enhance surveillance

First, we must enhance the continuous wide-area surveillance of our area of direct military interest. We must be able to pinpoint the precise locations and track the movement of Chinese (and Russian) ships, submarines and aircraft of interest as far from Australia as possible. This will require the more intensive use and meshing together of the sensor feeds from national intelligence systems, space-based sensors, the Jindalee radar network, P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft, MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones, E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, undersea sensors and other assets.
A fused situational picture of key Chinese and Russian movements in our area of direct military interest should be developed and shared in real time with US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii in exchange for its fused picture of the same. This will require more resources to support 24/7 operations in the Australian Defence Force and the relevant intelligence agencies. Wide-area surveillance of our area of direct military interest cannot be a business-hours activity.

2. Lift operational readiness

Second, we must enhance ADF operational readiness, which means having more forces standing ready to undertake quick alert missions, such as air interceptions and maritime surveillance flights.

This will cost money and drain crews as they will fatigue more rapidly when kept at higher states of readiness. More assertive rules of engagement should be authorised by the defence minister to allow for the close shadowing of Chinese and Russian units in our area of direct military interest. This would be done in a safe and professional manner, as it is being done nearly every other day by our allies and partners who are being probed regularly at sea and in the air.

The ADF’s Joint Operations Command should be reconfigured along the lines of the original vision of defence force chief General John Baker, who in 1996 established the Australian Theatre Command, or COMAUST. Baker’s logic was that the ADF should be postured, and commanded, principally to conduct operations in Australia’s area of direct military interest. While operations farther afield would be undertaken from time to time, they should not be the main focus of the ADF. After 9/11, the ADF adopted a globalist orientation. Mastery of the area of direct military interest started to fall away.

It is time for the ADF to focus zealously once again on the defence of Australia’s area of direct military interest, and our national military command arrangements and systems should reflect this.

3. Acquire longer-range anti-surface warfare capabilities

Third, we must urgently acquire longer-range anti-surface warfare capabilities. A radical suggestion would be to acquire rapidly six to 10 B-1B Lancer bombers from the US Air Force’s inventory. B-1Bs have been configured in recent years for anti-ship strike missions. Each is now able to carry 36 Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (24 internally in bomb bays and 12 externally), which is a fearsome anti-surface capability. While the RAAF already is acquiring the LRASM weapon for use by its F/A-18F Super Hornets, having a platform in the order of battle with the range and payload capacity of the B-1B Lancer would severely impair PLA options for mounting surface action missions against Australia.

4. Acquire longer-range air superiority capability

Fourth, we must urgently acquire a longer-range air superiority capability to deal with the threat of stand-off attacks by PLA Air Force H-6 bombers operating north of Indonesia. Again, a radical suggestion would be to acquire rapidly the air-to-air version of the SM-6 missile to equip the RAAF’s F/A-18F Super Hornet fighters. Facing such fighters, especially if they were operating forward of the barrier, would make PLA planners think twice about mounting long-range bomber missions against Australia.

5. Remediate naval warfare capability

Fifth, we urgently need to remediate our naval warfare capability, to ensure that our battle fleet of six Collins-class submarines and 10 major surface combatants (the Hobart and Anzac classes) are fully crewed and ready for action.

This will require crewing, training, inventory and maintenance issues to be addressed. The RAN’s replenishment tankers need to be fixed and returned to the fleet as soon as possible. Across time, the RAN battle fleet will need to grow in size, given the rapid growth in the PLA Navy’s battle fleet.

Ideally, we should be aiming across the longer term for a battle fleet of 12 submarines, 20 major surface combatants and 20 smaller offshore combatants, the last of which could be used as missile corvettes and naval mine warfare vessels. To further enhance the RAN’s battle fleet, our large landing helicopter dock vessels should be re-purposed as sea control carriers, with embarked anti-submarine and airborne early warning helicopters and long-range naval drones.

6. Ensure RAAF is battle ready

Sixth, we need to ensure that the RAAF is battle ready, with its squadrons fully crewed and its air bases well protected and fully functional. It is relatively easier to expand an air force, as compared with a navy, given the vagaries of naval shipbuilding. The RAAF is therefore the better bet in terms of a rapid expansion that could be achieved soonest.

More F-35 Lightning II fighters should be acquired, along with the B-1B Lancers mentioned already. The latter could serve as an interim bomber, pending reconsideration of the acquisition of the B-21 Raider strategic bomber. Crewing ratios should be increased quickly, such that the RAAF has more crews than aircraft, which could then be flown more intensively. The extraordinarily rapid expansion of the RAAF’s aircrew training pipeline in World War II should be its guiding vision.

7. Push forward army’s maritime capability

Seventh, the army should continue to develop its increasingly impressive maritime warfare capabilities and readiness. Consideration should be given to the rapid acquisition of the ground-based Typhon missile system, which would give the army a long-range anti-ship and land strike capability. As we barricade the sea-air approaches to Australia, we will have to be vigilant in relation to stealthy commando raids and sabotage operations. The army will need to be postured to deal with such attacks.

8. Address capability gaps

Eighth, we need to remediate a number of other capability gaps where we have no or virtually no capability. Of particular concern is integrated air and missile defence. We will need to acquire some combination of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) and Patriot interceptors on land and SM-3 interceptors at sea. Naval mine warfare capability also needs to be addressed.

There are likely to be other gaps that would impair our ability to execute the strategy. Given the urgency of the situation, rapidly acquired interim solutions will have to suffice to fill many of these gaps. Such interim solutions can be refined and built on. That is the lesson of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

9. Negotiate PNG alliance

Ninth, a military alliance should be negotiated with Papua New Guinea to provide for the establishment of ADF bases in locations such as Manus, Rabaul and Lae to support the conduct of maritime surveillance, anti-surface, anti-submarine, and air superiority missions. For instance, a forward-deployed composite RAAF wing, consisting of F-35A Lightning fighters, B-1B Lancers armed with LRASM, F/A-18F Super Hornets armed with SM-6 missiles, and P-8 Poseidon maritime aircraft could operate from the Bismarck to the Celebes seas and beyond with the aim of denying access into our northern sea-air approaches. A similar alliance should be negotiated with The Philippines. This would extend our coverage north of the barrier into the South China Sea.

We need to better appreciate the significance of PNG and the Philippines as Pacific watchtowers of the sea-air approaches to Australia. Our Indian Ocean territories are our western watchtowers.

10. Develop a war book

Tenth, we should urgently reinstate the practice of developing a war book that would deal with civil defence, national cyber defence, the protection of critical infrastructure and the general protection, and sustainment of the population during times of war.

 

While the likelihood of war in the foreseeable future is low, perhaps 10 to 20 per cent, it is enough to warrant action. This will cost money and divert resources from more agreeable activities. That is the nature of war, which drains societies even when it does not occur. Against this must be weighed the costs of being unprepared.

While this worsening strategic environment is very confronting, there is an even darker scenario. Imagine if we had to face a coercive, belligerent, and unchecked China on our own. That would require a very different military strategy and a significantly larger ADF.

That is a grim story for another day—and one that may require us to pursue our own Manhattan Project. In that world, we would look fondly on this relatively benign age.

Indonesia steps up defence relationships, but stays non-aligned

Indonesia has recognised that security affairs in its region are no longer business as usual, though it hasn’t completely given up its commitment to strategic autonomy.

Its biggest step was a Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) signed with Australia in August 2024. The agreement acts as a de facto status-of-forces agreement, providing for the presence of foreign forces in Indonesian territory, traditionally an uncomfortable idea for the country.

Jakarta has also stepped up specific defence cooperation with other countries over the past five years, notably with Australia. The United States has also become a closer partner.

While China’s strengthening presence in Southeast Asia is an obvious factor in Indonesia’s diversification of defence relationships, Jakarta declares no policy of trying to counterbalance Beijing. Moreover, it is still far from tying itself down in close and permanent security relationships. Instead, Indonesia adopts a more nuanced approach.

Indonesia lacks a formal strategy to navigate great power competition. However, its impartial stance—rooted in what it calls its ‘free and active’ foreign policy—has resulted in a hedging strategy, balancing economic ties with China and strong political relations with the US and its allies. Meanwhile, Indonesia is expanding its global engagement through active participation in regional and international organisations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the United Nations, and through south-south cooperation.

Following its cautious foreign policy, Indonesia avoids alliances with great powers. This approach has allowed it to maintain neutrality and stay ‘defensively active’ for decades. Yet, Indonesia has begun to break from this tradition.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Defence aims to increase the defence budget from 0.8 percent to 1.5 percent of GDP. In recent years, Indonesia has signed several arms acquisition deals. These include buying 42 Dassault Rafale fighters from France for $8.1 billion, 12 drones from Turkey worth $300 million and 24 Sikorsky S-70M Black Hawk helicopters from the US.

In the past five years, Indonesia has deepened various bilateral defence relationships. Australia has become a prominent partner, engaging in 48 defence diplomacy activities. These activities saw steady growth throughout the past five years, with the 2024 DCA as the pinnacle of their cooperation.

The 2024 DCA between Indonesia and Australia is their greatest commitment yet to enhancing defence collaboration and addressing shared security challenges. For Indonesia, it is historic as it allows military drills and mutual force operations within each other’s territories. For Australia, this agreement offers better operational proximity to potential flashpoints, such as the South China Sea.

Although yet to be a status-of-forces agreement, the DCA reinforces previous arrangements. It establishes a legal framework to enhance military cooperation and joint activities between the two countries. The agreement also includes provisions for enhanced educational exchanges and closer maritime operations.

However, this agreement does not signal Indonesia’s alignment with any bloc. The country continues to balance its relationships with major powers, staying true to its principle of strategic autonomy.

In 2023, Indonesia elevated bilateral ties with the US to a comprehensive strategic partnership, expanding defence cooperation, including joint exercises such as Garuda Shield. Simultaneously, Indonesia reinforced diplomatic ties with China and the two countries issued a joint statement in 2024 claiming ‘common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims’ in the South China Sea. This sparked controversy among maritime law and international relations experts. It appeared to contradict Indonesia’s long-standing policy of strategic denial regarding China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Additionally, Indonesia has sought to diversify its defence partnerships by engaging with other Global South middle powers, including Turkey, India and Brazil. Indonesia’s recent decision to join BRICS is also motivated by its willingness to enhance cooperation and collaboration with other developing countries.

The depth of the Indonesia-Australia DCA reveals several key aspects of Indonesia’s approach. First, as great power competition increases, Indonesia is moving beyond its ‘defensive-active’ strategy. Indonesia is now integrating bilateral strategies alongside multilateral approaches to better navigate the evolving security landscape.

Second, Indonesia’s deepening ties with Australia through the DCA serve as a regional safety net in its hedging behaviour. Consequently, Indonesia must reassure other countries that the DCA with Australia aims to enhance cooperation and doesn’t signal alignment with the West.

Finally, while it has shown adaptability in recent years, defence capacity remains crucial for Indonesia to maintain its independence and increase its bargaining position in the geopolitical landscape.

The DCA, alongside global engagement and enhancing defence capacity, indicates Indonesia’s shifting strategy to face the increasingly competitive environment while maintaining its strategic autonomy.

When dealing with China, Australia must prioritise security over economics

China’s economic importance cannot be allowed to supersede all other Australian interests.

For the past couple of decades, trade has dominated Australia’s relations with China. This cannot continue. Australia needs to prioritise its security interests when dealing with Beijing, and it shouldn’t overestimate or overstate its vulnerability to China’s coercive trade practices.

Prioritising security is particularly important as we confront escalating global competition and China’s increasingly assertive behaviour. China’s live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea have once again brought attention to the growing threat of aggressive Chinese military actions in the Indo-Pacific.

The exercises were conducted in international waters and violated no international law. But the behaviour broke norms and was less than ideal: usually, such exercises are preceded by adequate early warning to affected countries. In this case, neither Australia nor New Zealand was informed, and early reports suggest that passenger aircraft that were already enroute were forced to reroute because of the exercises. This is unacceptable international behaviour, and the Australian government should not be shy in saying so.

Australia has been more than accommodating of China. In response to press questions on live-fire exercises, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said China ‘could have given notice but Australia has a presence from time to time in the South China Sea’. This framing was unwise, to say the least. Albanese no doubt wishes to avoid escalation, but it is unnecessary to provide such false equivalence, which Beijing could exploit. The comment offers China a free pass.

Economic issues are important for political leaders, especially in democracies, where everyday issues take precedence even over discussions about national security. This is probably why Albanese highlighted the government’s success in boosting trade and addressing disputes with Beijing—even though many of these disputes were of China’s doing, rather than Australia’s.

But Australian leaders should also recognise that China is not simply doing us a favour by trading with us. It benefits from the goods and services that Australia offers and the revenue from what it sells. This is a mutually beneficial relationship, and disruptions will affect China too.

While China may be able to source its mineral and other resources from other parts of the world, Australia can similarly find other markets for its resources, as it has in response to previous Chinese trade obstruction. China buys from Australia for a variety of reasons, including price, quality and the predictability of supply. These are not values it can get from anywhere. In many countries, resources are in conflict zones that are difficult to access.

Any trade disruption would likely hurt Australia more than it would hurt China, but it would still damage China’s economy. There is a reason why previous trade punishments have targeted a few niche products, such as wine. China has not targeted critical items, such as mineral resources, precisely because it knows that its own economy would face difficulties if it did so. As China’s economy slows, the cost of transitioning away from Australian goods and services rises.

China has repeatedly used trade sanctions against smaller economies—such as Norway, Canada, Sweden and Mongolia—for perceived slights and other political reasons. But it has never really benefited from doing so, instead gaining a reputation as a bad and unreliable actor. Its trade threats in the past few years have been more bark than bite, with most targeted countries, including Australia, standing their ground and China eventually backing off.

While Australia should not pursue trade confrontation, it may be similarly unwise to emphasise or exaggerate its vulnerability, as this will only invite pressure. Rather, Australia should initiate talks with its European and Indo-Pacific partners, as well as the US, to present a united front against such threats.

China can make threats and apply sanctions only against countries with smaller economies, and only because it thinks they will have to face such sanctions alone. Even if sanctions are ineffective—as indeed they have been—we cannot let China assume that it can get away with such behaviour without consequences. A united response to China’s trade bullying is needed to deter and, if deterrence fails, punish China for such aggressive actions.

Political leaders in democracies no doubt have a hard time balancing economic and security requirements in foreign policy. But they should avoid over-emphasising trade and economic factors—Beijing will assume these are pressure points when leaders talk as if they are. Australia must instead emphasise that it will not bend to such tactics.

Overseas investment is getting riskier. The government needs to step up

Australian companies operating overseas are navigating an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape where economic coercion, regulatory uncertainty and security risks are becoming the norm. Our growing global investment footprint is nationally important, and the Australian government must support it more strongly.

The government needs to do this above all to counter market manipulation by China and even its seizure of Australian assets, but other risks are piling up, too.

Australia’s outward foreign investment is not just about business; it is a strategic imperative, with the country’s superannuation funds, trade stability and national security all tied to the success and resilience of its companies operating in high-risk environments around the world.

Many Australians understand the importance of inward foreign investment in driving economic growth, but far fewer appreciate the scale of Australian capital flowing overseas. Australia’s total investment abroad now stands at $3.8 trillion—82 percent as large as the stock of foreign direct investment in Australia.

Manufacturers, financial institutions and miners lead our outward foreign direct investment (FDI), the establishing or buying of businesses in other countries. It embodies Australia’s deep economic integration with global markets. Yet, as geopolitical risks intensify, Australia can no longer take the security of these investments for granted, especially in the mining sector.

Australian minerals companies have built a huge global footprint. S&P Global data shows that Australian-headquartered and ASX-listed companies operate 331 mines and downstream processing plants domestically and that 120 Australian companies manage 212 mining and processing facilities overseas.

In 2024 alone, Australian companies invested $4.6 billion in exploration, of which 53 percent spent in Australia and the rest on all other continents except Antarctica. The $195 billion in outbound mining FDI recorded in 2023 further illustrates the scale of this global presence, alongside $215 billion in manufacturing FDI, much of which is tied to minerals processing.

Australian miners have a long history of navigating complex global environments. However, rising geopolitical tensions, economic coercion and regulatory instability make risk management increasingly difficult. The sector’s dependence on foreign capital and markets leaves it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, trade restrictions and political interference, which threaten profitability and long-term strategic resilience.

Front of mind here is China’s increasing economic coercion. China’s actions serve to reshape global minerals markets, creating risks that extend far beyond trade disruptions. Through market manipulation, aggressive acquisition tactics, and political interference, China is systematically undermining competition. It is attempting to seize control of critical minerals projects and even emboldening hostile regimes to detain Australian mining executives as leverage for financial gain.

Chinese-linked companies have used coercive tactics and state-backed influence to try to take control of Australian-owned mining operations, particularly in some African countries with weak governance in minerals. In 2024, an Australian company was awarded US$90 million in compensation after the Tanzanian government unlawfully seized a nickel deposit, highlighting the unstable regulatory environment Australian firms can face abroad.

Meanwhile, Russian-backed military regimes in Mali and Niger, combined with jihadist insurgencies in key West African mining regions, are increasing security risks for Australian businesses. The closure of US military bases in Niger in 2024 further complicated the security landscape, raising concerns about the long-term viability of Australian investment in these regions.

While the Australian government sponsors the West Africa Mining Security Conference, tangible support for Australian companies operating in high-risk regions is minimal. Unlike Canada, which maintains 17 trade offices across Africa, Australia has just one, in Nairobi. Despite Australia’s large mining and petroleum investments in West Africa, there is just one diplomatic post to service nine countries. This lack of diplomatic and commercial representation leaves Australian companies at a significant disadvantage in security and investment advocacy.

Meanwhile, escalating tariff disputes between the United States and China and retaliatory trade measures from Canada, Mexico and the European Union further complicate Australian companies’ investment and trade outlook. The full impact on Australian-controlled production at home and abroad remains uncertain but potentially severe.

Australian mining depends heavily on foreign investment and financial mechanisms, including cash-backed offtake agreements. China dominates the financing and sales mix, making it an essential partner and a strategic risk. China’s deliberate manipulation of mineral prices, particularly in rare earth markets, and its covert and coercive attempts to acquire key mining assets directly threaten Australia’s economic sovereignty.

Multiple takeover attempts of Northern Minerals and allegations of similar activities around control of Global Lithium Resources demonstrate China’s ongoing efforts to increase control over Australia’s critical minerals industry. This threatens national security and broader supply chain diversification efforts.

The Australian government must take decisive action in response to the rapid escalation of geopolitical risks.

First, a dedicated task force led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should provide real-time risk assessments and direct assistance to companies navigating complex security and regulatory environments. Second, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission must collaborate more closely with the Foreign Investment Review Board to detect and counter corporate coercion threatening Australia’s national interest. Third, Australia must prioritise deeper engagement with like-minded partners, including the US, Canada, Japan, the EU and South Korea, to accelerate the development of more secure, diverse and sustainable critical minerals supply chains.

While Australia has made cooperation commitments under multiple critical minerals agreements, implementation has been slow and inadequate. With global competition intensifying, there is no time to waste.

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