Countering Australian Defence’s Systemic Learning Disorder

A new Australian National Defence Strategy is coming soon. Hopefully, the government will incorporate learning from modern wars, something they did not do in 2024. My new commentary in The Australian.

The need for national resilience, for industrial depth, more defence spending, a better understanding of our adversaries, and the need for integrated deterrence – these are not novel ideas. They are truths that successive Australian governments have chosen to treat as someone else’s problem. The next NDS must end that pretence and address the Department of Defence’s systemic learning deficiency.

When Australia’s next National Defence Strategy arrives in the coming months, it will land in a world far more dangerous than the one its 2024 predecessor was written for.

The previous document had shortfalls including its failure to learn from modern war. It did not once mention Ukraine, a consequential protracted conflict that has up-ended many assumptions about modern war and deterrence. Japan and Taiwan have absorbed those lessons, updated their procurement plans and restructured their forces. Australia, not so much.

That oversight cannot continue. We are living through an accelerating convergence of threats, including the rise of Chinese military and economic power, the resurgence of Russian aggression, and a technological revolution in drones and artificial intelligence moving faster than governments can absorb. Australia is also adrift in a new interregnum: the post-Cold War order is over, and the world that comes next has not yet fully revealed itself. In that void, the weak, the feckless and the ­unprepared will pay a high price.

Learning from other people’s wars in this interregnum is crucial for the defence of Australia. Several lessons from ongoing wars must be understood by the politicians who will consider the next NDS in federal cabinet. National resilience is not optional.

Successive governments have refused to meet the minimum energy stockpile requirements set by the International Energy Agency. That is not a bureaucratic oversight – it is a strategic failure that will be felt acutely in any prolonged conflict.

When Iran retaliated against the US-Israeli campaign by targeting energy infrastructure across the Middle East, Western governments – especially Australia – were caught flat-footed. But resilience in our own military production is also vital. By early 2026, Ukraine was launching indigenous long-range drone strikes into Russia at a rate that matched – and on some nights exceeded – Russian strikes on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine also developed drone interceptors that are an order of magnitude cheaper than Russian Shahed and Geran attack drones.

There is a lesson here for Australia: a credible deterrence posture must balance imported strike systems with the capacity to mass-produce indigenous mid-tier weapons at scale.

War is not transparent. It is highly visible, with sensors, satellites and drones providing unprecedented volumes of data – but visibility is not the same as wisdom. Surprise remains an enduring feature of war.

Those who minimise defence spending or cannot have honest conversations with their citizens about the true nature of threats are most vulnerable to it.

You can read the full article at this link.