In this government’s National Defence Strategy, published in April, Defence Minister Richard Marles reaffirmed that ‘Australia no longer enjoys the benefit of a 10-year window of strategic warning time for conflict.’ This was one of the key judgements of the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and, indeed, of the Morrison Government’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update. So, there is bipartisan agreement on this critical subject. However, as argued below, this new era of shortened warning time requires a radically new approach to Australia’s defence policy.

The National Defence Strategy goes on to describe this ‘fundamentally new approach’ as one that leverages and coordinates all arms of national power to achieve an integrated approach to Australia’s national security. It specifically identifies the need for a robust National Intelligence Community capable of providing strategic decision-making advantage and strategic warning, as well as direct support to ADF operations and domestic security.

So far, so good, but—as far as we are aware—little is being done yet to address the radical new concept of little or almost no warning time, to quickly reorder Australia’s defence posture and preparedness, as well as the urgent need for more strike weapons.

It is important in this regard to have a good understanding of what has changed to Australia’s defence policy, and why. In brief, Australia’s defence policies for most of the past 50 years have been based on the key strategic conclusion that only lesser contingencies were credible in the shorter term, with higher levels of military contingency credible only in the longer term, after an extended period of strategic deterioration. From the mid-1970s to 2020 a strategic warning period of 10 to 15 years was envisaged. (The 2016 Defence White Paper even predicted no major threat before 2040.) Intelligence analysis would provide this warning, leading to a timely response by the machinery of government. This response would include expansion of the Australian Defence Force.

These policies were appropriate for the time but resulted in an ADF which, while capable in many respects, was of modest size, was at low states of readiness and had little capacity for sustained operations beyond the routine: in other words, a peacetime force.

Similar observations may be made about the areas necessary to support military operations, such as intelligence, policy and industry.

As is now widely recognised, the rise of China’s economic and military strength, together with its aggressive foreign policies, has rendered invalid this earlier Australian conceptual framework. The consequences of this are far-reaching and change radically the framework within which Australia’s government needs to manage strategic risk.

The key is that China’s military capabilities now give it the potential to conduct and sustain sophisticated operations against our interests, were it to develop the motive and intent to do so. The timescales within which motive and intent can change are much less than the timescales which previous Defence policies concluded would be needed for an adversary to develop the readily detectable capabilities to be used against us.

This leads to the conclusion that warning times now would be much less than those assumed in earlier decades.

Further, assessment of motive and intent is inherently difficult and subject to ambiguity. There would likely be the absence of an obvious warning threshold. Yet the consequences of getting it wrong would be severe, much more so than in the past.

With this in mind, we have proposed that the Office of National Intelligence set up a National Intelligence Warning Staff. This is set out in our paper Deterrence through denial: A strategy for an era of reduced warning time (ASPI Strategy, May 2021).

Our recommendations included the following:

In view of the radical contraction in defence warning time, Australia needs to appoint a National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Warning. In the Cold War, which was a highly demanding era in which warning of a surprise attack was a critical priority, the CIA had an NIO for Warning whose sole task was to scrutinise daily the incoming evidence from intelligence indicators and subject them to critical assessment.

In Australia, such an NIO, together with the position’s National Intelligence Warning Staff, could be in the Office of National Intelligence. It would be important, however, that the Intelligence Warning Staff include officials from various disciplines—and not least intelligence officers skilled in the interpretation of political, strategic, and military warning indicators, some of whom should also have a policy background.

We would now add that this new intelligence body would also require new skills, such as threats with no warning from cyber and artificial intelligence and from unmanned air, sea and submarine platforms and drones. There will be an obvious need for more political warning advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which, given cuts to their already modest budget, suggests additional expertise and funding for this purpose.

We said also that an alternative would be to locate the NIO in the Defence Organisation and that, wherever its location, ‘the NIO needs to have influential access at the highest levels of decision-making—including briefing the National Security Committee of Cabinet in times of impending crisis.’

We made the further suggestion that the program of national assessments increase its focus on the United States. This reflected a concern that US security policies could become more volatile than over recent decades. Among other things, Australia needs a well-informed analysis of where it thinks the US is going in its confrontation with China and in support of allies, including the role of extended nuclear deterrence. The latter has received no new focus in Australian defence policy since the end of the Cold War more than 30 years ago.

Australia needs prudent analysis about how the US will react to its own warning indicators of potential military attack and what it would expect of Australia. Australia cannot afford not to be fully informed about US contingencies relating to Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula or China’s or Russia’s clash with Japan over disputed territories. So, we need to assess both US military capabilities and US intentions.

There is also the question of the capacity of our National Intelligence Community to respond in a timely way to the outbreak of hostilities and to sustain the necessary level of support to decision-making and military operations. As mentioned earlier, the policies of earlier decades have resulted in an ADF and supporting capabilities that currently do not have the levels of readiness and sustainability that are needed in Australia’s new and more demanding strategic circumstances.

Governments are unlikely to accept that standing forces and their associated support need to be kept at a level sufficient to handle today’s more-demanding contingencies without at least a degree of preparation. This is because some element of warning would be expected, even today, and because the additional costs would be significant and best avoided.

We note here the conclusions of Richard K Betts in his seminal book Surprise Attack: Lessons for Defense Planning (Brookings Institution, 1982). Betts argues that governments should expect to be surprised. He believes that governments’ ability to interpret other people’s politics is always limited. But he also acknowledges that inadequacies in warning are rarely due to the absence of anyone in the system ringing an alarm. He suggests that the principal cause of surprise isn’t the failure of intelligence but the unwillingness of political leaders to believe intelligence or to react to it with sufficient dispatch.

In our view, to analyse the implications of greatly reduced warning time, defence planners now need to address three interrelated questions: Readiness for when? Readiness for what? Readiness of what? As all those who have ever been involved in defence planning know, a major interaction between answers to these questions comes from their implications for resources and allocation of money. Competition between decisions on resource allocation is now even more inevitable for Australia’s defence planners, and the resolution of that competition must be integral to defence planning and—dare one suggest it—prompt decision-making.

The new demands we now envisage might best be described as a need for a surge capacity:  the ability, quickly and confidently, to move to higher states of readiness and to sustain higher rates of effort for as long as contingent developments might require. This kind of attribute has been little needed in previous decades and represents a new departure for Australian security policy.

The on-going challenges of setting priorities for intelligence collection and analysis suggest there is unlikely to be much current spare capacity within our National Intelligence Community. While some extra capacity could be made available by the reordering of priorities, this is likely to be limited in extent. This implies the need for a clear pathway for the NIC to move to a higher level of capacity, although what this path might be is not clear, not least because of the requirement for personnel to have high levels of security clearance and the need for secure facilities.

Following the publication of our ASPI paper in 2021, we gave a presentation on its key findings to a senior Defence group led by the chief of the defence force, and we also had a separate discussion with a senior group in ONI.

In summary, we encourage the current Independent Intelligence Review to examine whether the National Intelligence Community is correctly structured and prepared to meet the urgent requirements of Australia’s new defence policy. In particular, the dramatically changed nature of Australia’s strategic circumstances—recognition of which is a basic bipartisan policy—means that policymakers need to be sure that the NIC can meet the challenges of short-warning contingencies involving the support of round-the-clock military operations sustained over months rather than days. Ministers must be left in no doubt about the NIC’s ability to move quickly to higher states of alert and then to sustain operations on a 24/7 basis.

For the first time since the Second World War, the NIC needs to be able to respond rapidly to the demands of such military operations, in circumstances of serious military threat to our key national security interests and survival.

As the strategic environment continues to darken, the defence force built by Australia in the decades after the Vietnam War is being completely reconfigured. Long gone is the reliance on light infantry combat capabilities that could be quickly and seamlessly deployed to our immediate region or blended into allied forces. Despite the lessons of the Ukraine conflict, the hardened army seems to be limited to a single brigade in the plan outlined in the 2023 defence strategic review.

The emphasis now is on rapidly acquiring disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and hypersonic missiles and on adopting a more focused and agile force posture out of northern Australia.

Strategists can debate the wisdom and the viability of these changes as much as they like, but it’s beyond dispute that if Australia hopes to realise its vision for a more lethal dispersed defence force with shorter internal lines of communication, a modernised and more decentralised approach to information and communications technology will be required.

The new technologies that Defence wants require huge computing power. Emerging AI and machine-learning capabilities would, if adopted across the Australian Defence Force, completely overwhelm Defence’s existing ICT infrastructure. Storing and managing the torrent of data these new systems will both generate and use to function effectively will involve a massive digital infrastructure uplift.

These changes are dry and technical. They tend not to attract the attention of journalists, commentators or strategists. Digital infrastructure can’t be used to cross an obstacle; nor can it be used for long-range strike. But in the information age it will include critical enablers of other capabilities and Defence is simply not ready for the world ahead.

Currently, Defence’s ICT infrastructure is deployed in three ways: on-premises via the private network operated in Defence-owned and -operated data centres, in the cloud with centralised service providers such as Vault Cloud, Amazon WebServices or Microsoft Azure, or in a hybrid of the two.

While this enables Defence to consolidate resources and achieve relative economies of scale with reduced costs, it also presents security and scaling challenges.

All network, hardware resource, data and control is consolidated in and controlled by a central entity, which can lead to a single point of failure and opaque security and performance.

More importantly, though, the concentration of cloud hosting services in nine urban centres across Australia leaves a major capability gap in the northern bases, the very area the DSR nominated as central to the ADF’s future force posture.

Recognising the limitations of the current infrastructure, and a need to improve interoperability with allied forces, the government has agreed in principle to the DSR’s recommendations to shift Defence to an open ICT architecture.

However, the future of an open architecture is intertwined with and dependent on the broader defence strategy and technology estate. The success of this shift hinges on a balanced investment in core infrastructure alongside the pursuit of a more decentralised approach, which will have the most benefits where capabilities are at their most feeble while being required the most.

Unlike centralised cloud service providers, a decentralised infrastructure relies on a distributed network of computers and hardware devices that can be operated without the need for intermediaries or centralised control.

Decentralised infrastructure offers a paradigm shift in security, control, cost and accessibility compared with traditional centralised cloud networks. It enhances security by distributing data across a network of computers, meaning there’s no single point of failure.

Users also gain increased control since their data isn’t managed by third-party providers and the risk of potential data misuse is minimised. Decentralisation frees data from specific locations or devices, enabling users to access their data across multiple locations. This will be critical as Defence disperses large sections of its workforce across the country, including into remote locations.

A priority identified in response to the DSR is improving the ADF’s ability to operate from Australia’s northern bases. Defence’s emphasis on littoral operations in the northern land and maritime domains, coupled with the need for a long-range strike capability and seamless collaboration with partners, will require more efficient and adaptive infrastructure.

Decentralisation emerges as a crucial strategy to address a critical capability gap in northern Australia, given that there are no core data centres in the region, and interoperability will be paramount. Adopting a more decentralised architecture promises to enhance access to data and improve interoperability with partners. In addition, a decentralised approach offers cost advantages by allowing Defence to start small and providing a scalable framework. It also helps bolster network security, fortifying the overall resilience of Defence operations in the north.

As Australia accelerates its acquisition of disruptive technologies, including autonomous systems and hypersonic missiles, operationalising these advancements will require a modernised and decentralised approach to ICT.

Decentralised ICT offers enhanced security, control, cost-efficiency, scalability and accessibility—all especially important as Australia develops its critical northern bases.

This paradigm shift is crucial to reshaping Defence’s digital backbone to meet the demands of a dynamically evolving strategic landscape.

Australia faces a deteriorating geostrategic environment, and the recent defence strategic review has found that the military’s force structure is not fit for purpose. In line with the review’s recommendations, the government has adopted the concept of a ‘focused force’ and of ‘national defence’—the defence against potential threats arising from major-power competition—as a new approach to defence planning and strategy.

The introduction of national defence will require a coordinated, whole-of-government approach that includes enhanced sovereignty in defence industrial capacity in key areas, and a renewed focus on national planning for defence preparedness.

Since the 2016 defence white paper, industry has been considered a ‘fundamental input to capability’ (FIC), in recognition of its role as a critical enabler of defence activity. Without a defence industry of appropriate size and shape, the ability of the Australian Defence Force to operate as required would be extremely limited.

But the war in Ukraine has demonstrated once more that the importance of defence industry goes further than that: Ukraine is now constantly producing (and consuming) drones and weapons in large numbers, integrating new capabilities into its forces on the fly, and establishing new production of indigenous and foreign platforms. In other words, deep and adaptive industrial capabilities are critically important in a major conflict because they are what sustains a country’s ability when its forces need to be expanded, replaced and evolved.

The Department of Defence’s treatment of industry as a FIC isn’t consistent with the move to national defence and the new realities of major war. Viewing industry as a FIC compartmentalises thinking around domestic industrial support to Defence to discrete capabilities; limits consideration of the domestic defence industry as a system with application across multiple capabilities; and inhibits the development of broader concepts such as industrial surge, mobilisation and preparedness that will be required during periods leading up to, and including, conflict.

Defence industry in national defence: rethinking Australian defence industry policy, a new report by the Australian Industry Group and the Australian National University, argues that a new way of looking at the domestic industrial base is required. Put simply, industry needs to be considered as a national capability, rather than simply a means to produce individual military capabilities.

The report highlights that, although the government has repeatedly acknowledged the strategic value of certain capabilities and the critical contribution of local industry to delivering those capabilities, the focus has remained on achieving value for money and minimising project risks through the acquisition of military-off-the-shelf solutions.

While attempts have been made to build specific industrial capability (shipbuilding and the guided weapons enterprise are examples), they have been hampered by a lack of clear purpose and intent, a lack of direct connection between strategic objectives and industry policy, and a continuing project-by-project approach. The result is a domestic defence industry that is poorly structured and not equipped to deliver what the ADF is likely to need in a major conflict.

This is simply not good enough for the situation in which Australia finds itself. As one observer of US policy recently commented: ‘You go to war with the industry base you have, not the industry base you want.’

Instead, Australia must consider industry as a capability. Drawing on the approach to defence industry in France, Sweden, Israel and Canada, the report argues that this will require substantial changes in both defence industry and the broader national industry policies. It will require the government to define clear industry requirements as part of its overall defence planning and force design process.

Defence industry must be embedded within and managed as part of Australia’s broader national industry structure and policy. That will require strategically prioritised defence industries to be actively supported to achieve scale and be positioned for surge and flexibility. It will also require changes to the way that value for money is assessed. If industry is a capability, the government needs to appoint a capability manager for it who is resourced and empowered to monitor and develop Australia’s defence industrial base.

The government has an array of powers that allow it to shape and foster the industrial structure that it wants to develop, and to control and incentivise industrial behaviour. It is not just a contractual partner to industry, but can also be legislator, regulator, provider of direct or indirect support, landlord and part or full owner. If the government is to develop and manage defence industry as a national capability, it is important that it make use of the full range of these tools.

A sovereign but internationally linked defence industry is a necessary asset during a period in which the risk of major conflict is rising. Action needs to be taken now to set the nation on the path to the industrial capability it needs to meet the challenges of today’s strategic environment.

Part 1 of this series examined how the Royal Australian Navy contributes to the new national defence strategy of deterrence by denial. This part analyses the primary tasks the RAN must be capable of. A third post will address the required primary force structure.

The 2023 defence strategic review (DSR) reinforced objectives in the 2020 defence strategic update to shape Australia’s strategic environment, deter actions against Australia’s interests, and respond with credible military force, when required. These are the navy’s primary tasks.

The RAN has long been a major contributor to shaping Australia’s strategic environment. Participation in international exercises of varying levels of sophistication at home and throughout the region have been a hallmark, as have regular, lengthy goodwill visits, sometimes involving half a dozen ships or more and submarines.

An important component of these activities in shaping regional perceptions—and contributing to a deterrent mindset—is that the RAN is seen as a highly professional fighting force that is well-equipped for sustained combat operations in the region, if necessary.

The navy plays a highly valued role supporting regional humanitarian operations. Australia’s gifts of patrol boats to Pacific island nations, with supporting RAN operational and technical advisers, have helped small nations become more self-reliant in sovereignty protection and law enforcement.

These activities demonstrate our national capability, capacity and willingness to respond, while helping build confidence that we pose no threat. All are vital in shaping perceptions that Australians consider themselves part of the region. Reinforcing this view is essential for our security as some neighbouring nations’ economies surpass our own.

Australia must also demonstrate its willingness to look after its own sovereignty, especially in its vast exclusive economic zone. Maritime patrol and response is always a major naval task, no matter the circumstances. This is why the RAN is equipped with small patrol boats that are relatively inexpensive to operate and well suited to assisting the Australian Border Force in operations. The navy has been forced occasionally to supplement the patrol boats with larger and more sophisticated ships, but this drives up the cost dramatically and contributes little to the navy’s combat efficiency and effectiveness.

As the DSR implies and this discussion shows, achieving deterrence by denial has many strands, some of which are more nuanced than delivering a warhead, but all are important to its accomplishment.

The nature of potential military operations in the region is hard to predict, but an Australian government will always look for options to respond. Whatever hard power Australia might have to counter, the DSR sets out a response that will be in mass, extremely lethal and swift.

The DSR notes that Australia may have little warning of a regional conflict. If our efforts to achieve deterrence have failed, the RAN’s contribution to denial combat operations and impactful projection must be in place already. Operations extending possibly from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands across northern Australia into the Coral Sea would necessarily be part of a very large Australian Defence Force effort to defend the nation.

Use of the advanced sea mine capability being sought would help close off southbound routes, and our submarines would help close off choke points north and south of Indonesia and eastwards. But the overwhelming effort of Australia’s firepower would be delivered against any adversary through precision guided missiles from all three services. For the navy, the main contributors would be its surface combatants and submarines.

Developments in long-range precision weapons mean surface combatants and submarines can play a wider role. The navy’s destroyers with Aegis combat systems can contribute to the air defence and the land campaign over considerably longer distances than a few decades ago.

Several other capabilities are highlighted in the DSR as critical for ADF success. They are networked sensing and targeting for long-range strike in all three dimensions, integrated air and missile defence, an upgraded operational logistics capability and appropriate theatre command and control. Strongly implied also was an expeditionary air operations capability and a ‘fully enabled, integrated amphibious-capable combined-arms land system’. It has to be assumed that these operations will not be against a strong opposing force, but the ADF will be required to undertake forward-deployed operations for which the RAN is a critical enabler. Its associated lift ships are very lightly armed, placing greater onus on escorting forces for protection.

Distributed maritime operations can avoid or reduce the effectiveness of an adversary’s surveillance and constrain its ability to neutralise our forces through massed attacks. But these concepts require sophisticated, resilient, high-capacity communication networks to coordinate our own attacks. This poses significant technical and doctrinal challenges. Well-armed, suitably equipped surface combatants and submarines capable of long endurance are needed in sufficient numbers to participate in networked missile attacks. All require communications for command, control and coordination—and they must be able to defend themselves. As the technologies mature, uncrewed surface, air and submersible vehicles may enhance the volume of lethality and extend the length of time a presence can be achieved.

Our navy exists to fight at sea if we must, with as good a chance of winning as we are willing to afford. Owning a navy that is consistently capable of winning is difficult, complex and expensive. An unfaltering national commitment is required. It demands consistent investment in equipment and its upkeep, constant training and renewal, assessment and evaluation of performance, research and development, experimentation and sometimes taking risks with untried technologies in search of a capability edge, perhaps asymmetric.

Most of all, a navy requires a motivated, skilled and dedicated national workforce comprising uniformed, public service and blue and white collar private sector people. The RAN must ensure Australians want to be part of that endeavour.

Large vessels axiomatically contribute greater endurance and larger magazines that provide the firepower for distant, higher-end operations. They are also generally better suited to the environmental conditions faced in this region.

Adoption of the DSR’s vaguely worded tiered typology for warships implying that more but smaller vessels should be acquired has not met with support from experienced practitioners. The review of the RAN’s surface combatant force, still to be made public, could reset its combat capability to meet its future needs. Public commentary suggests there’s scope for serious and long-lasting mistakes.

Protection of shipping is a major task of the navy and air force, and interruption of fuel, largely imported from Southeast Asia, would have a major impact on our economy and military operations. In 2010 the RAN concluded that shipping was best protected by creating a safe corridor and umbrella for selected ships carrying strategically important cargoes. Our submarines, large surface combatants, and air surveillance and air combat capabilities will have to create and keep those routes secure. Mine countermeasures forces would ensure the safe passage of shipping through or around potentially mined areas. Naval marine science ships would gather data to help evaluate risks on shipping routes and define areas in which ship sensor performance is enhanced or degraded. The quantity and geographic distribution of ships requiring protection implies that several concurrent dispersed and demanding operations would be required.

Creation of a plausible anti-access and area-denial capability for the ADF is essential to convince any potential adversary that Australia can inflict much damage on a force intending to strike our nation. All the peacetime efforts of the ADF must be applied to prevent hostilities—with the ability to immediately switch to combat operations if required to help force a return to diplomacy.

A RAN equipped with heavily armed ships and submarines, complemented by an effective logistic support force, with other capabilities in prospect for the ADF’s four other domains, will give Australia confidence in its ability to withstand coercion—and will give any adversary pause for thought.

Part 3 will propose what the primary force structure of the RAN should become.

We tend to look for winners and losers in any Australian government announcement, and the defence strategic review (DSR) is no exception. Reading the headlines about the two-thirds reduction in infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and cancellation of a second regiment of self-propelled howitzers, it sounded at first blush like the army had been deprioritised.

But some of those who contributed to writing the DSR—including former Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, who co-led the review with former defence minister Stephen Smith, and Peter Dean, who served as senior adviser to Smith and Houston and co-led the review secretariat—have entered the public debate to challenge the view that the army has been gutted or sidelined. On the contrary, Dean says, the army has a critical role in the ‘integrated force’ that the ADF will become, which includes projecting force further into Australia’s northern approaches to deliver deterrence through denial.

Dean’s view gels with Defence Minister Richard Marles’s call at the launch of the DSR for ‘reshaping’ the army to have a ‘more focused mission, with a much more enhanced capability’.

To deliver those enhanced capabilities, Defence will accelerate and expand the acquisition of the army’s landing craft (littoral manoeuvre vessels) and long-range fires, including land-based anti-ship missiles, repurposing funds from the IFV and howitzer programs.

So far, this narrative is familiar, framed in media coverage of the DSR as Australia entering the ‘missile age’ at the expense of armour. But a closer examination of the DSR and information released since its publication reveals a fuller picture.

Far from abandoning armour, the DSR is emphatic on the crucial role of the IFVs, advising that ‘only by concurrently delivering these capabilities—littoral manoeuvre vessels, long-range fires (land-based maritime strike) and infantry fighting vehicles—will Army be able to achieve the strategic and operational effect required of the ADF for National Defence and a strategy of denial’.

While the IFVs are reduced to a single mechanised battalion, that capability will be oriented to littoral manoeuvre, around which the army ‘must be transformed and optimised’. This littoral manoeuvre capability will be provided by sea, land and air, including leveraging the mobility provided by a new suite of helicopters.

The emphasis on littoral manoeuvre reflects the fact that the maritime domain, as Dean put it in his interview with ASPI’s Jennifer Parker, is Australia’s ‘dominant geography’, as an island whose adversaries would project force against us though the archipelago to the north. In this archipelagic environment, land is important for projecting and sustaining military power and influence.

Emphasising the littoral dimension of the maritime domain has important implications for the ADF’s force structure and operations. In the past, coordination between the navy and air force was central to denying the so-called sea–air gap, which underpinned the 1986 Dibb review and 1987 defence white paper, while the army would tackle adversaries that made it to Australian shores. By developing littoral manoeuvre and long-range strike, the DSR gives the army a key role in denying what some analysts have long argued is really a land–sea–air gap in the archipelago to Australia’s north.

To picture the army’s maritime role, analysts like Michael Green at the United States Studies Centre have drawn parallels with the US Marine Corps, which Dean has also studied. But the differences in circumstances are important—not least the fact that the US Marines operate alongside the US Army, with its armour and logistical networks, whereas the Australian Army must cover both roles.

The unclassified version of the DSR understandably doesn’t go into detail on specific contingencies and threats, but for public understanding it’s helpful for analysts to translate abstract concepts like the army’s role in the maritime domain into plausible scenarios. So, let’s consider how the Australian Army could help counter China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy.

One of the ‘missile age’ threats Australia faces is a new generation of Chinese surface warships equipped with large numbers of vertical launch cells that could stay offshore and target Australia or its supply routes. As the DSR notes, ‘the use of military force or coercion against Australia does not require invasion’, and so deterrence through denial requires that we threaten China’s surface fleet at range, including limiting undue Chinese influence on land around Australia’s northern approaches.

But Chinese warships present a hard target, protected by their own air and undersea defences. An integrated ADF, focused on the threat from China, could approach this problem from multiple angles and domains, with the army contributing to the mix of tactical options.

Offensively, the army’s land-based anti-ship missiles provide new strike vectors, exploiting Australia’s vast northern coastline and potentially working from forward locations in the archipelago. The army, including special forces, will also contribute to the ‘integrated targeted capability’ called for in the DSR, supporting strike by the navy or air force and vice versa.

Defensively, as Chief of Army Simon Stuart told an audience in Canberra in March, the army offers ‘persistence’ to the ADF, which improves deterrence by signalling that Australia could withstand a surprise attack. While a potential adversary like the PLA may believe it can pinpoint the Australian navy’s and air force’s relatively small numbers of ships, planes and bases, the same cannot be said for the army assets, which can disperse and conceal. The army also contributes to integrated air and missile defence, improving national resilience.

Technology is important to the army’s transformation, but only in conjunction with people. Addressing the Army on Anzac Day, immediately after the DSR was published, Stuart explained that the character of war is being reshaped by technology, which will require the army to incorporate uncrewed systems, AI and quantum capabilities; but the nature of war will remain ‘a truly human endeavour’, especially on the land and among populations.

As with any transformation, the DSR vision for the army includes capability trade-offs, which carries risk.

Shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie cautioned that the ‘degradation of land power’ undercut the overall strategy of the DSR because long-range fires depend on land forces to protect them. On this point, the DSR foresees enhanced Army Reserve brigades—hopefully freed from natural disaster relief roles—protecting and expanding northern bases, enhancing the survivability of the ADF and visiting forces.

In a similar vein, retired Major General Mick Ryan is among the land warfare experts who have noted that the DSR has little to say about the close fight, which remains integral to war. That’s true, although we know the classified version of the DSR was much longer. And the DSR does say that the army must still prioritise ‘close combat capabilities, including a single armoured combined-arms brigade, able to meet the most demanding land challenges in our region’.

Viewing the DSR in context, the government continues to invest in advanced close combat platforms. After the DSR was published, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy confirmed new orders for Abrams main battle tanks, which maintain unique capabilities in high-intensity environments. Equally, Australia remains committed to acquiring Apache armed reconnaissance helicopters, which some analysts had speculated might be trimmed. Hopefully, Hanwha or Rheinmetall would stick to plans to manufacture IFVs in Australia if it wins the contract, which allows for scaling up supply onshore if Australia’s needs change.

In terms of land warfare scenarios, the army must continue to plan for regional stabilisation and assistance missions, such as those in Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands in recent decades, which may become more frequent and complex as climate change drives instability. It would be dangerous to assume that these stabilisation missions and counter-insurgency operations will only be ‘low intensity’, especially for those involved, when measuring intensity in terms of the frequency and scale of engagements. Equally, the army may need to conduct joint operations to defeat technologically advanced land forces, including, for example, if the PLA developed a base close to Australia.

But caveats aside, it’s important to recognise that the DSR will affect Australia’s capacity to fight large-scale land engagements by reducing the army to a single combined-arms brigade. In theory, some of the risks this causes could be mitigated by not asking the ADF to fight certain kinds of wars. By stressing the importance of our northern approaches to Australia’s ‘primary area of military interest’, the DSR indicates that the ADF should be spared the burden of sending expeditionary contingents to US-led coalitions in the Middle East. It also implies that the ADF’s focus would stay closer to home in a Taiwan contingency.

Understandably, some will remain sceptical that this is achievable. At various points throughout its history, the Australian Army has weathered the consequences of being told to prepare for a certain type of conflict and then ordered to fight in very different circumstances. Those making these points should be heard respectfully; for too long, many of those engaged in Australia’s debate on the army have talked past each other.

The acid test will be whether the transformation advocated in the DSR will be properly resourced by the government and embraced by the army. For instance, it’s essential that strike, littoral and close combat forces have the resources to train together—on the field and through simulations. And the logistical challenges in posturing select capabilities in northern Australia can only be overcome through close engagement with northern governments and people, including First Nations communities, as well as US visiting forces.

As Stuart told the army on Anzac Day, he is relying on every soldier to meet the challenges and opportunities of this ‘inflection point’. After all, institutional change, like war, is ultimately a human endeavour.