Robbin Laird
Dateline: Canberra, Australia
Yesterday, the first seminar of 2025 for the Sir Richard Williams Foundation was held at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
The seminar was entitled: The Imperatives for Cost Effectiveness in Multidomain Operations. The program for the seminar laid out the basic aim for the seminar as follows:
The 2025 seminar series will identify and discuss strategic themes which impact the Whole of Australian Government, Defence and industry, as well as international partners in a multi- domain context. Given the increasingly complex set of threats and operational risks, it is also set within the context of the emerging issues aligned with the development of NDS26 and beyond.
The seminar series will address the need to balance near-term decisions in air and space capability to ensure Defence and industry investment also provides the sustainable foundations for future force structure planning and growth.
In recognition of the increasing pressures on Defence spending, the aim of the May 2025 seminar is to examine the imperative for cost effectiveness in multi-domain operations.
The Chairman of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binsken, provided the opening remarks for the seminar. He underscored that “the global rules-based order that we’ve relied on and benefited from for many decades is now gone” and warning that it “won’t be back in its form that we were used to.”
He highlighted that the international system is transitioning from one governed by the rule of law to one dominated by “rule of strength and rule of threat.” This fundamental shift places enormous pressure on like-minded nations to actively shape the evolving order through “strong national power, trusted alliances and partnerships and collective will.”
As Binsken emphasized, the required response is needed “now, not 2040,” highlighting the immediate nature of the strategic threat facing Australia and its allies.
The seminar’s central theme—the imperative for cost-effectiveness in multi-domain operations— reveals a critical paradox facing modern defense planners. As Binsken noted, “an affordable force may not actually be an effective force,” particularly when the strategic benefits of military capabilities are poorly understood or misapplied.
This challenge manifests in several concerning ways:
- Defense forces risk focusing on single capabilities with limited employment options while neglecting those that could provide government with broader response options at lower operational, strategic, and political risk.
- High-end, exotic capabilities across all domains can distort the cost-effectiveness of military forces, potentially drawing resources away from essential but less glamorous core enabling capabilities.
- Fixed defense budgets combined with unexpected cost pressures create a cash flow problem that inevitably affects force preparedness.
Australian defense planners face the complex task of maintaining two distinct but interconnected focuses. The first involves long-term strategic planning extending to 2040, anticipating how threats and capabilities might evolve over the coming decades.
Simultaneously, they must ensure that current personnel are properly equipped and prepared for immediate challenges. As Binsken pointedly noted, the men and women serving today need to be ready to “compete this afternoon, fight tonight, survive and win.”
The seminar’s strong industry sponsorship underscores the critical role of public-private partnerships in addressing these challenges.
International cooperation remains equally vital, with speakers joining from the UK and the United States (including one virtually due to airline disruptions), reflecting the interconnected nature of modern defense challenges and solutions.
The Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminar represents more than an academic exercise — it’s a critical forum for addressing one of Australia’s most pressing national security challenges. How to build and maintain military forces that are both affordable and effective in an era where traditional strategic assumptions no longer apply?
The collapse of the post-World War II international order, combined with the emergence of new threats and the constant pressure of fiscal constraints, requires defense leaders to make increasingly difficult choices about capability development and force structure.
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