21st Century War and Strategy: New "Balances" Required
21st century wars will have many differences from those of the 20th century. The coming 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy offers the chance for different balances of capability.
A generational challenge demands a generational response.
Over the coming months, the development of a new National Defense Strategy will be progressing in the United States. This congressionally mandated activity, which replaces the old Quadrennial Defense Review, aims to align America’s strategic objectives with its defence and national security activities and resources.
At the same time, the Australian Department of Defence will be undertaking a review of its 2024 National Defence Strategy. Like the U.S. National Defense Strategy, this Australian defence strategy will be released in 2026. Unlike their American ally, the Australian publication will be produced by the same government that released the preceding strategy.
Despite this, the planners who are involved in developing these strategies have many things in common. Both must deal with the significant changes in the global security environment that have occurred since the 2022 and 2024 documents were released. These changes, in the activities and capacity of potential adversaries, the politics and international engagement of America, and accelerating technological developments, will have a major influence on the direction of both documents. The extant strategies of America and Australia, which embrace deterrence as a core idea, must evolve based on these changes.
At the same time, the military forces that will be required to underpin these defence strategies require a thorough review. This is being driven by accelerating technological changes which are enabling more state and non-state actors to access capabilities which allow for greater visibility of contested spaces (not just the battlefield), place legacy systems at greater risk, and allow for a much larger array of long-range strike operations against deployed forces and homeland infrastructure.
The need to evolve strategy and military force design therefore will require a careful balancing act to ensure the right resources are applied in the right priorities so America and its Australian ally might achieve its desired national security objectives in the coming years. A new series of ‘balances’ – in strategy and force structure – are necessary.
The aim of this article is to propose the areas where a difference balance of priorities might be required in the new National Defence Strategies for America and Australia.
Balanced Strategy
Both the 2022 US National Defense Strategy and the 2024 Australian National Defence Strategy place deterrence at their core. The American strategy embraces what it describes as Integrated Deterrence, listing a series of areas such as deterrence by denial, deterrence by resilience, and deterrence by cost imposition. The Australian strategy, designed for a nation with more limited resources and much more limited outlook about its role in the world, embraced a strategy of denial.
The coming strategies for 2026 are likely to continue these approaches to deterrence, even if the language may evolve to take account of changes since the publication of their 2022 and 2024 predecessors. Both will need to achieve a different balance in a couple of areas: resourcing deployed military versus homeland protection; and balancing standing forces versus mobilization plans.
