In 2024, the National Defense Strategy made punishment Australia’s “primary corporate security purpose. ”
With writing today live for the 2026 National Defense Strategy, is Australia actually hinder threats to the country?
Usually, our defense strategy simply asked that our martial capabilities “command value. ” In today’s globe, but, Australia needs a far more effective military posture to protect itself.
To effectively deter an attack, Australia needs the gear, indicators and processes to encourage a potentially hostile country to evaluate the cost of ussr threatening us.
A punishment method promises to reduce the likelihood of issue. It reduces the chances for an attack to report “cheap” wins by communicating how we could “deny ” their main objective and possibly “punish” them for their anger.
It forces an adversary to make a choice: again over or risk failing at your goal and starting a more substantial fight.
While we don’t understand exactly how a potential attack might adapt, Australia must do more to create our objective clear on how we would listen to a provocation. We are part of an international group researching the ways to do this.
This is what we think is needed in the next National Defense Strategy.
What deterrent looks like
Creating a reliable deterrent posture is not easy. The 2024 military technique lists a wide variety of activities that may transform an adversary’s risk assessment.
Some of these things are specific ( surveilling and protecting Australia’s sea lanes of communication ). Others are vague and loosely connected to deterrence ( supporting the global rules-based order ).
To make sure our punishment information is as clear and effective as possible, the 2026 plan will require a little tighter policy platform around where Australia would have the authority to deter an attack, and how we would do so.
It will also need to aspect the particular military preparations Australia has undertaken to properly hinder challenges.
Vagueness in speech or assumptions in proposed behavior will never cut it.
What story can tell us
The scientific literature on how to apply an efficient deterrence is essentially drawn from Cold War history.
Numerous times, the US and USSR made purposeful attempts to take punishment signals to the other side. They did this by acquiring new capabilities ( such as longer-range missiles ) and expanding their nuclear stockpiles, or by conducting military exercises and deploying forces around the world. These information, however, were generally misunderstood.
Often, these signs – such as US President John F Kennedy ’s support of West Berlin with an additional battalion during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 – made political feeling, but less so physically.
One approach for Australia to view this deterrent question is considering the adversary’s theory of victory – how they seek to achieve their goal – and then identifying ways to directly and formally present we can destroy it.
For example, after winning the 1982 Falkland Islands War against Argentina, Britain invested significant resources into the Mount Pleasant Air Base on the islands. They are now home to up to 2,000 personnel, enabling significant and rapid reinforcements in the event of future hostilities.
The use of ‘trip wires’
Australia is now acquiring significant new strike capabilities. However, even if we increase our defense spending beyond the 3 % of GDP currently being discussed, the Australian Defense Force ( ADF) will not be able to defend everything across the entire region and the waters around us. We will need to find low-cost defensive actions.
Deterring an adversary from attempting a “cheap win” against Australia, for instance, might require the “forward presence ” of Australian troops far from our own shores.
Even if they would not be able to defend against an attack on their own, they could serve as a “trip wire ” force. This means if they were attacked, it would likely compel Australia to go to war.
So, let’s say Australia has a “forward presence ” of troops stationed in the Cocos Islands, Papua New Guinea or even the Philippines. This signals a credible commitment to use those forces to protect ourselves and our regional partners against a threat.
And should these soldiers be killed, it would likely generate public anger and a political insistence on a significant response.
While a lot of contemporary military thinking is about how to put robots and drones in harm’s way instead of our fellow citizens, some tasks, such as a “forward presence ” deterrence, can likely only be done by humans.
Clear red lines
All of this means that deterrence is not just about a country ’s capabilities – going to war is ultimately about politics and human emotion.
As such, credibility also depends on practical rituals– such as Britain holding Cabinet meetings in the Falklands and NATO hosting flag parades in the Baltics. These convey a belief over what matters enough to go to war.
For Australian deterrence to be more credible, the next iteration of the National Defence Strategy will have to be more explicit than its predecessor in spelling out what Australia would be willing to go to war over.
If our government cannot address this now, how are we going to communicate this to an adversary – and convince them of it – in a crisis?
The government is understandably reluctant to be specific about the commitments and threats it is willing and able to make in a public document, or to acknowledge the limits to Australia’s abilities.
But deterring without communicating is a contradiction in terms. We need to be explicit about what would cause Australia to resist or retaliate, even at the cost of war, in order to credibly deter an adversary from taking such an action.
This must be at the core of how the 2026 National Defense Strategy approaches deterrence as Australia’s “primary defense objective. ”
Andrew Carr is associate professor of strategy and Australian defense policy, Australian National University and Stephan Fruehling is professor, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.