Dateline: Canberra, Australia
By Robbin Laird
The Australian Government released its 2026 National Defence Strategy (NDS) and the accompanying 2026 Integrated Investment Program (IIP) in mid-April 2026, just days before the Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminar in Canberra. Together these documents represent the most ambitious defence planning exercise Australia has undertaken in the post-Cold War era.
Much commentary has already focused on what the strategy does not do or does not adequately address.
But before rendering that verdict, it is worth understanding clearly what Canberra says it is trying to accomplish, what capabilities it is prioritizing, and what strategic logic drives its investment choices.
What I am doing in this article is providing an overview of the recently released 2026 documents and discerniing what the indicated priorities are. I will follow up on this article after the sminar presentations and interviews I will do while in Australia until early May.
I will then go back to the stated strategy, objectives and priorities and highlight some of the key challenges between asiration and reality.
The Strategic Framing: A World More Dangerous Than Expected
The 2026 NDS opens with a stark assessment that goes beyond anything in its 2024 predecessor. The document states bluntly that Australia will face levels of exposure to force projection and military coercion not seen since the Second World War. This is not rhetorical flourish. The document notes that at the start of 2024, more states were already engaged in armed conflict than at any point since 1946. The rules-based international order, on which Australian security and prosperity have depended for decades, is described as being “in transition”, a careful formulation that signals the government understands it is navigating structural change rather than a temporary disruption.
China is identified by name as the primary driver of changing Indo-Pacific security dynamics. The document catalogs Chinese military advances with unusual specificity: nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missiles, hypersonic anti-ship missiles, stealth attack drones, AI-enabled military systems, laser electronic attack systems, and advanced robotic platforms unveiled as recently as 2025. China’s nuclear arsenal is expected to exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030. The PLA’s increasingly frequent and “unsafe and unprofessional” intercepts of foreign military vessels and aircraft operating in international waters are noted as a concrete manifestation of the coercive behavior the strategy must counter.
Importantly, the document acknowledges that the United States, while remaining Australia’s closest ally and the indispensable strategic partner in any realistic defence scenario, increasingly expects its allies to reduce their reliance on American military power and invest substantially in their own defence. This expectation shapes everything that follows. Australia is not being asked merely to spend more; it is being asked to become more genuinely self-reliant.
The Financial Commitment: A Historic Escalation
The investment numbers are large enough to demand attention on their own terms. The 2026 NDS and IIP commit to approximately $425 billion in capability investment over the decade to 2035–36. When combined with the additional investment committed under the 2024 NDS, the total additional funding represents $30 billion over the next four years and $117 billion over the decade. For comparison, the 2020 Defence Strategic Update projected $270 billion over its planning decade; this program represents a $155 billion increase over that baseline.
Annual defence funding, including the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Submarine Agency, and the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator, is projected to grow from $63.4 billion in 2026–27 to $112.1 billion in 2035–36. Acquisition of new capability alone is projected to nearly double, from $22.4 billion in 2026–27 to $47.5 billion in 2035–36. These are not planning aspirations; they are published funding profiles with year-by-year appropriation figures attached.
The government has also acknowledged that a portion of this investment, identified as roughly $5 billion over the forward estimates and $15 billion over the decade, will need to be financed through alternative mechanisms, including equity-based financing through Commonwealth bodies and private financing. This reflects a sophisticated understanding that defence industrial capacity at the scale required cannot be built through traditional appropriations alone.
The Navy: First Among Equals
If there is one service that the 2026 NDS and IIP unmistakably prioritize, it is the Royal Australian Navy. The investment in undersea warfare alone totals $94–130 billion by far the largest single capability investment priority in the document. This encompasses conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines through the AUKUS pathway; undersea warfare and uncrewed maritime systems; the Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle; the Bluebottle uncrewed surface vessel; and underwater range systems. The AUKUS nuclear submarine pathway remains the centrepiece of Australian long-term deterrence planning, reflecting a fundamental judgment that undersea warfare will define the strategic contest in the Indo-Pacific.
The surface fleet is not neglected. Maritime capabilities for sea denial and localised sea control operations are funded at $62–77 billion, covering upgraded Mogami-class general purpose frigates, Hunter-class frigates, and Hobart-class destroyers including early investment in their replacement in the 2040s. The contracts signed on April 18, 2026, for the first three upgraded Mogami-class frigates built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and scheduled for first delivery to the RAN in 2029 give concrete substance to what has previously been an aspiration. With a range of 10,000 nautical miles, a 32-cell Vertical Launch System, surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles, and compatibility with the MH-60R Seahawk helicopter, the Mogami-class represents a serious general-purpose combatant rather than a compromise platform.
The decision to build the first three frigates in Japan with subsequent vessels to be constructed at the Henderson Defence Precinct in Western Australia reflects the tension the government is managing between speed of delivery and the sovereign industrial base objective. Canberra wants ships in the water by the late 2020s, and it wants to develop the domestic capacity to build them continuously thereafter. The “Mogami Memorandum” signed between the Australian and Japanese defence ministers formalizes the bilateral commitment to both goals.
Long-Range Strike: A Fundamental Doctrinal Shift
The second most consequential investment priority, both in financial terms and strategic significance, is targeting and long-range strike, funded at $28–35 billion. The scale of the range extension being pursued is remarkable. Sea-based strike capability is to increase from 120 kilometers to 2,500 kilometers. Land-based strike is to grow from 40 kilometers to 500 kilometers, then transform further to 1,000 kilometers. Air-based strike capability is to extend from 370 kilometers to 1,000 kilometers. Hypersonic weapons are included in the investment program, as is a dedicated targeting enterprise to integrate sensor-to-shooter networks across platforms and domains.
This is not incremental improvement. It is a doctrinal reorientation. Australia is explicitly moving toward a force capable of holding potential adversary forces at risk at distances that matter strategically denying freedom of maneuver to any adversary contemplating force projection into Australia’s northern approaches and maritime economic lifelines. The 2026 NDS describes this as the “Strategy of Denial,” and the long-range strike investments are the operational embodiment of that concept.
The lessons of Ukraine and the Middle East conflicts are explicitly cited as informing these choices. The document notes that missile systems, including more sophisticated data-driven sensor-shooter networks, have matured in ways that give states the reach to impose strategic effects far beyond their borders. Australia is drawing the conclusion that a credible denial strategy requires the ability to impose costs at comparable ranges.
Army: Optimized for the Littoral
The Army’s investment priorities reflect a deliberate doctrinal shift toward littoral operations in northern land and maritime spaces. The amphibious capable combined-arms land system is funded at $48–59 billion, the third largest capability investment priority. This encompasses landing craft; infantry fighting vehicles; combat reconnaissance vehicles; M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks; Apache attack helicopters; Black Hawk helicopters; and uncrewed air and ground systems with counter-unmanned systems capabilities.
The emphasis on littoral manoeuvre and northern orientation signals that Australia’s land force is being configured for a different operational environment than its Cold War or Middle East expeditionary posture. The investment in landing craft and amphibious logistics, combined with the attention to northern bases, suggests a force designed to operate in an archipelagic environment projecting presence into and through Australia’s near region rather than simply defending the continental landmass.
The autonomous and uncrewed systems investment, which totals $12–15 billion across domains, with up to $8.1 billion in the air domain, $4.5 billion in maritime, and $2.4 billion on land, reflects the lessons both from Ukraine and from more recent Middle East operational experience. Autonomous systems are not being treated as a separate capability category but as integral to all three services.
Air Force: Sustaining Integrated Air Power
The Air Force investment under expeditionary air operations is funded at $34–41 billion and centers on the platforms that have defined Australian air power for the past decade: the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, the EA-18G Growler, and the C-130J Hercules. New additions include the MQ-28A Ghost Bat and other uncrewed air systems, and enhanced air intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.
The Ghost Bat is worth particular attention. As a loyal wingman concept that combines autonomous teaming with manned aircraft, it represents Australia’s most advanced indigenous contribution to uncrewed combat aviation. Its inclusion in the expeditionary air operations investment priority, alongside established crewed platforms, signals that the Air Force’s concept of operations is evolving toward human-machine teaming rather than simply replacing manned aircraft with drones.
Missile defence, funded at $21–30 billion, adds a new medium-range ground-based air defence system, counter-small uncrewed air system capabilities, an airborne early warning and control replacement aircraft, a joint air battle management system, active missile defence, and Jindalee Operational Radar Network enhancements. The Jindalee investment in particular reflects Australia’s unique geographic situation: its over-the-horizon radar network gives it early warning reach that most allies cannot replicate.
Resilience and Sustainability: The Strategic Depth Question
One of the more significant themes in the 2026 documents is the explicit attention to resilience and sustainability as first-order strategic priorities rather than afterthoughts. Theatre logistics and health receives $14–21 billion, covering theatre logistics upgrades, improved fuel resilience, and deployable logistics. This directly reflects the lesson that the documents draw explicitly from Ukraine: that protracted combat consumes materiel at rates that peacetime planning systematically underestimates, and that logistics and industrial depth are as important as the quality of front-line platforms.
The Northern Bases investment, at $13–16 billion, is specifically aimed at hardening and expanding RAAF Bases Darwin, Learmonth, and Tindal, along with Townsville and other facilities. The emphasis on resilience, redundant infrastructure, dispersed basing, enhanced fuel storage, reflects a force design that assumes its bases will be contested rather than sanctuaries. The document’s acknowledgment that Australia’s geography no longer protects it against long-range missiles, cyber attacks, or space-based disruption makes this investment logic explicit.
The Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise, funded at $26–36 billion, addresses the munitions depth problem directly. The program targets sovereign ability to produce, maintain, repair, and overhaul selected weapons; enhanced stockpiles; and the supporting storage and distribution infrastructure. The document notes that the GWEO enterprise is maturing to the point where it will move into targeting and long-range strike capabilities, suggesting a trajectory toward genuine industrial self-sufficiency in advanced munitions rather than dependence on imported stockpiles.
Cyber, Space, and the Information Domain
Space and cyber investment at $27–38 billion reflects the government’s recognition that these domains are not supporting enablers but contested warfighting spaces. The investment includes cyber capabilities, a resilient multi-orbit satellite communications capability, space sensors, space control, and electronic warfare. The explicit inclusion of space control, not merely space situational awareness, signals an ambition to defend and, where necessary, contest Australia’s space-based assets rather than simply accepting their vulnerability.
The theatre command and control investment, at $14–19 billion, covers land, maritime, and air command systems; air traffic management; warfighting networks and strategic communications; and decision advantage and intelligence systems. The framing around “decision advantage” connects to the broader ADF objective of achieving integrated effects across all five domains simultaneously, the operational concept that underpins the “integrated, focused force” formulation used throughout both documents.
Self-Reliance and the Industrial Base
Running through the 2026 NDS like a spine is the theme of self-reliance and the development of a sovereign defence industrial base. The document is candid about what has changed in the strategic environment: off-the-shelf procurement no longer guarantees speed to capability, global defence supply chains are struggling to meet demand, and Australia can no longer assume it will have access to the materiel and support it needs when it needs it. The Mogami frigate decision — building the first three offshore for speed while transitioning to domestic construction — is one expression of this logic. The GWEO enterprise is another.
The commitment to tens of billions of dollars invested in Western Australia over the next two decades, supporting an estimated 10,000 high-skilled jobs at the Henderson Defence Precinct, is the most concrete expression of the government’s industrial base ambitions. The planned establishment of a Defence Delivery Agency to streamline and accelerate acquisition and sustainment reform indicates an awareness that the institutional machinery for delivering this program needs to change, not just the funding levels.
Australia Advancing Its Own Interests
Perhaps the most significant evolution in the 2026 NDS compared to its predecessors is the explicit framing around Australia’s capacity to act independently in its own interests. The document states directly that greater Australian investment in defence is needed because allies and partners are “a necessary but not sufficient condition for Australia’s defence.” Self-reliance is defined formally as “enhancing Australia’s ability to employ and sustain credible military power to defend Australia in a crisis or conflict, including when support from allies or partners may be limited.”
This is a meaningful shift. The Strategy of Denial is oriented primarily around denying any adversary the ability to project force against Australia through its northern approaches, a defence of Australia’s own approaches and maritime economic connections, not merely a contribution to collective allied deterrence. The five government-directed tasks for the ADF, defend Australia and the immediate region; deter through denial; protect economic connections; contribute to Indo-Pacific collective security; contribute to global rules and norms, are ordered in a way that puts Australia’s direct defence interests first.
The framing of “National Defence” as a whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach harnessing all instruments of national power reflects an ambition that extends well beyond the military domain. Civil preparedness, national resilience, the defence industrial base, diplomatic partnerships, and intelligence cooperation are all brought under the same strategic umbrella.
Conclusion: Ambitious but Contingent
The 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program represent the most coherent and substantial Australian defence planning framework in a generation. The priorities are clear: the Navy, particularly undersea warfare, is the dominant investment; long-range strike is the decisive doctrinal shift; Army is being reshaped for northern littoral operations; resilience and the industrial base are treated as strategic requirements rather than administrative functions; and self-reliance is elevated from an aspiration to a driving principle.
What the documents describe is an Australia that is taking its strategic circumstances with unprecedented seriousness, making investments of a scale it has not contemplated since the Cold War, and articulating a strategic logic that is coherent on its own terms.
Whether the institutional machinery, the workforce, the industrial base, and the political will exist to execute this program is a different question, one that deserves sustained scrutiny. But before that scrutiny is applied, it is worth establishing clearly what Canberra has actually committed to and why. The 2026 NDS, read carefully, makes that clearn. But closing the aspirational gap is a challenge worth examining more fully.