How is Australia’s changing strategic environment reshaping the requirements for national support, and preparing the current and future force?

By David Beaumont, PhD.

Australia’s strategic environment is no longer simply deteriorating. Australian strategic policy has been clear on this since 2020, when the Prime Minister all but ‘suggested that there are echoes of the 1930’s in the present day’.[1] Six years later, the recently launched National Defence Strategy (NDS26) contends that the international system is under greater strain than at any time since the end of the Cold War and that the coming decade is likely to be defined less by continuity than by ‘fracture, rivalry and disorder’.[2] National strategic policy discourse, through countless channels and reports, is riven with polemics which point to the fact that the norms which constrained coercion and the overt use of force have been weakening at a dramatic rate. The access to global industry capacity, economically vital geography, supply-chains and other aspects of economic strength that have enriched Western nations are increasingly at the heart of rising strategic pressure. Risks are compounding across regions, and state power is being exercised in more coercive and overtly competitive ways. For Australia, this means elevated geoeconomic, geopolitical and geostrategic risk and a growing exposure to strategic coercion at levels not experienced for over fifty years.

The Australian Government’s observation of the strategic environment focusses upon several important strategic dynamics. The 2026 National Defence Strategy identifies the growth of China’s national power and increasingly potent military capabilities as the principal driver of change in regional security dynamics.[3] China’s continued military modernisation, more frequent and at times unsafe military behaviour, and its willingness to employ coercive tools of statecraft are reshaping the strategic balance in Australia’s primary area of military interest.[4] Flashpoints in the Taiwan Strait, the South and East China Seas, the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere create persistent risks of miscalculation, rapid escalation and wider regional instability. At the same time, the Strategy recognises that the United States remains Australia’s principal strategic partner and that alliances and partnerships are indispensable force multipliers.[5] However, it also makes clear that partnerships are necessary but not sufficient. Australia must invest more deeply in its own capacity for self-reliance and national resilience.[6]

The abovementioned aspects of the changing strategic environment are, naturally, the main contexts for defence planning. The important thing to recognise in this policy is that while conflict may be well off, if it occurs at all, the Australian Government clearly accepts that peace is now in doubt, and new preparedness plans are required.[7] Across the spectrum from crisis to conflict, there are numerous ways in which military power could be employed by Australia. Each way – whether it be the air defence of northern Australia, critical infrastructure protection or the deployment of a major land task force in the region – has its own sustainment cost to be borne by the military but will also place its own demand on the broader nation.[8] At a time when strategic warning times for some threats may be very short, Australia now faces significant choices regarding not only military preparedness, but the preparedness of the civil sector which supports it. These choices relate to actions that may take a long period to bare an impact in the nation’s ability to resist coercion, or respond to a military-based crisis or conflict.

While strategic policy increasingly recognises the possibility of crisis and conflict, less attention has been paid to the question of whether Australia can sustain military operations once they begin. Preparedness is not solely a function of force structure; it also depends upon the resilience and responsiveness of the national systems that support military power. Many of the capabilities, capacities, systems and process that create the conditions for a prepared military are targets in their own right, or are only useful if are conditioned in a way relevant to the response the nation might make during a crisis or conflict. This means that the protection of the logistical and national support systems that support Australia’s capacity should be a strategic policy objective in its own right.[9] It is also part of the reason why policy initiatives around the idea of national civil preparedness are important; the ability of Australia to prevent, absorb and recover from disruptions will be an important way by which access to national support will be assured during a crisis.[10]

There are three categories risks that are of especial important to national support whether they relate to the type of support that is required or threats considered. These are influence and coercion, grey-zone attacks, and military conflict. These categories matter because they demonstrate that national support is not simply a wartime problem, but one that requires our attention now so to ensure such risks do not impact Defence at the time it matter most. The national systems on which Defence depends can be shaped, pressured, disrupted or exploited well before open hostilities begin. Defence, and its national support partners, must therefore plan for the strategic conditioning of the battlespace through non-military means. This applies across the full continuum of competition, coercion, crisis and conflict.

The first of these threat categories is coercive influence. Australia has long benefited from a regional environment underpinned by strong partnerships and a relatively favourable strategic balance. This environment is being challenged by the increasing use of economic, political and infrastructural levers to influence the behaviour of states. [11] Nations of all types, and in all times, have employed levers such as trade restrictions, informal import bans, licensing delays, regulatory harassment, investment pressure and conditional access to infrastructure, markets or technology as tools of coercion.[12] These actions can be calibrated below the threshold of war, yet still have strategic effect because they can prove to be logistically consequential. They can disrupt industries, unsettle communities, alter decision-making, and impose pressure on sectors central to national resilience and well as the responsiveness of defence forces. Such coercion may be directed at the Commonwealth level, but its practical effects cascade through state and territory systems, local communities and the national economy.

This matters directly to Defence because the same systems targeted by a State through coercive means are often the systems on which Defence relies. A port delayed by regulatory pressure or foreign ownership, a supply chain impacted by trade restrictions, or a strategic commodity denied through economic leverage can impair Defence preparedness as much as a direct attack. Moreover, due to the interconnectedness of modern supply chains and logistics, Australia could be affected by coercive statecraft even when it is not the main target. In strategic terms, coercion for logistics reasons can therefore be understood as an attempt to shape the operating environment and erode national resilience before a crisis sharpens. Coercion eats at national civil preparedness, and military preparedness by extension. As seen in recent conflicts, disruptions caused ‘deliberate decisions by countries to control the logistics flows’ can affect supply and strategic solvency.[13] Any national support approach should seek to respond to this risk by reducing exploitable dependencies, strengthening resilience in sectors that are nationally significant, and ensuring that Defence is not over-exposed to the coercive manipulation of critical national systems.

The second threat category relates to what is colloquially known as ‘grey-zone’ activity. Grey-zone activities can be defined as actions that sit below the threshold of conventional armed conflict but are designed to influence, coerce or destabilise nations and their societies while preserving a degree of plausible deniability. These include cyber operations, information and disinformation campaigns, political interference, lawfare, maritime and airspace probing, and other forms of direct pressure intended to degrade resilience and shape strategic conditions in advance of conflict. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s 2026 Threat Assessment reinforces this view, noting that espionage and foreign interference are already at extreme levels and that Australia’s critical infrastructure, digital networks, telecommunications systems and seabed communications are increasingly vulnerable to hostile interference and sabotage.[14]

Grey-zone pressure, as with coercion, is especially significant for national support because it targets are usually civilian systems rather than military capability. National economic and social infrastructure include energy grids, water networks, telecommunications systems, transport corridors, health services, and emergency management capabilities may all be targeted or stressed before Defence itself becomes the direct focus. Yet these same systems are integral to Defence preparedness for they impact upon the workforce, industry, infrastructure and social capacities upon which Defence depends. If the energy system is degraded, Defence bases and logistics nodes could be affected. If telecommunications or data systems are compromised, the effect on Defence’s command and control, situational awareness and coordination could be significant. If public trust is eroded through disinformation, the social licence to support the prioritisation of national resources from the economy to defensive measures may weaken. In this sense, national support is not only about sustaining Defence in declared war; it is also about hardening and protecting the strategically vital systems that ensure nations are resilient, and the military sustained.[15]

All this matters because of the final categories of risk – the one that truly necessitates that Australia addresses national support now. As mentioned above, the prospect for military deployments of all natures, but especially conflict up to large-scale protracted operations, is increasing. The 2026 National Defence Strategy makes it clear that the extremes of conflict are not inevitable; it is, however, prudent for a credible military force – Australian or not – to consider what such an event would ‘look like’. The strategic lesson of recent conflicts is that warfare of all scales remain possible and, as shown with large scale combat operations in the past, the cost to sustain a military force can be quite extraordinary. Australia is among the nations grappling with the implications that future conflicts may be of a type that the current force is patently unprepared for.[16]

The war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East have demonstrated the speed at which munitions and materiel can be consumed, how fragile present-day global supply chains, are the importance of sovereign or assured access industry capability, and importance of national resilience in sustaining military operations over protracted periods.[17] Both conflicts demonstrate that technological solutions to military capability challenges, the mobilisation of military forces, and the infrastructure networks required to project combat power all depend on effective access, prioritisation and coordination. And if large-scale combat operations are required, defence forces must look beyond their long-term force generation plans and instead consider a capability approach that also addresses sustainment, repair and reconstitution during conflict.[18]

These threats and risks expose a significant preparedness challenge. Major conflicts can emerge with little warning, while the strategic environment increasingly limits the opportunity to build national capacity in advance. At the same time, the national support base is becoming more vulnerable to disruption. This will make it difficult for Australia to build the capability and capacity it needs, at the time it needs it. But it is important that mobilisation should not be understood solely as the expansion of military forces. It also requires the mobilisation of industry, infrastructure, logistics systems, workforce capacity and government decision-making processes.

If warning times are short, mobilisation cannot begin from a standing start. As Marc Ablong wrote, ‘[n]ational preparedness cannot be an afterthought or addressed piecemeal.’ [19]Industrial partnerships, policy settings, legal authorities, logistics arrangements, infrastructure interoperability, workforce pathways and societal expectations must already be established before a crisis occurs. National support cannot be treated as a wartime improvisation introduced in response to strategic shock. Instead, it must be recognised as a core element of preparedness, developed and maintained during peacetime to ensure it is available when needed under the pressures of conflict.

The idea of ‘logistics preparedness’ can help to conceptualise what Australia and its military might do next. National Defence Strategy notwithstanding, the environment sharpens the need for clearer policy and guidance on national priorities and preparedness assumptions; more coherent organisation and allocation of responsibilities across Defence and its partners in government and the national support base; stronger plans and planning for mobilisation, sustainment and prioritisation under stress; adequate capability and forces, including workforce depth, stockholdings, logistics arrangements and national support capacity; and more realistic testing and assessment of arrangements before crisis. Without attending to these issues concurrently, it is unlikely that threats can be countered, and risks ameliorated.

Defence preparedness is inseparable from national preparedness, and an approach which brings the two closer together policy and planning-wise is necessary. National Defence Strategy 2026 provides further motivation for Defence to further develop its approach to national support. This is because the national capabilities and capacities that truly enable the defence of the nation are themselves at risk unless a new approach to the way they are developed and subsequently employed is undertaken. Australia now faces a strategic environment in which coercion may be economic before it is kinetic; in which critical civilian systems are likely to be targeted or stressed in competition; in which conflict may be more rapid, protracted and materiel-intensive than many post-Cold War assumptions allowed; and in which the systems required to sustain Defence are deeply embedded in the nation itself.

In many respects, Western nations like Australia are already in a contest to assure their access to the resources that will enable their forces to respond to crisis and conflict. Whatever the policy and planning response, it will be important that national support is not relegated to being an adjunct to defence preparedness; it has to be considered one of its essential foundations. After all, ‘logistics readiness’ is not just a ‘budget line’ or ‘warehouse inventory’, but a ‘mental attitude’ that requires its own type of thinking.[20] The strategic environment now demands that Australia prepare not only its military forces, but adjusts its thinking around the preparedness of the national systems that are essential for the forces to exist in the first place.

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[1] Goldrick, J., ‘Defence Strategic Update 2020: a first assessment’, 2 July 2020 from Lowy Institute, The interpreter, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/defence-strategic-update-2020-first-assessment [accessed 29 Jul 26]

[2] Department of Defence, National Defence Strategy, 2026, p 6

[3] ibid, p 12

[4] ibid, p 12

[5] ibid, p 13

[6] ibid, p 27

[7] Betts, RK., Military readiness: concepts, choices, consequences, Brookings, US, 1995, p 35

[8] ASPI, ‘2026 National Defence Strategy views from ASPI analysts’ from ASPI, The strategist, 16 April 26https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/2026-national-defence-strategy-views-from-aspi-analysts/, [Accessed 28 July 2026]

[9] National support is ‘National support refers to the integrated application of the resources of the nation for its defence; it is the provision and coordinated use of national resources to enable Defence to prepare, sustain, and, when necessary, mobilise military responses in crisis and conflict.’

[10] Williams, N., ‘Preparing for disruption – national civil preparedness’ from Australian Naval Institute, 2024, https://navalinstitute.com.au/preparing-for-disruption-national-civil-preparedness/ [accessed 24 Jul 26]; Department of Defence, National Defence Strategy, 2026, p 23

[11] Beaumont, DJ., ‘The fight to supply – what Ukraine and the Middle-east tell us about logistics space and the changing character of war’, The Paper War: Logistics… and everything but the fighting, 25 May 2026.

[12] Gehrke, T. & Scmelzer, N. ‘Beijing hold’em: European cards against Chinese coercion’, 31 March 2026 from European Council on Foreign Relations, https://ecfr.eu/publication/beijing-holdem-european-cards-against-chinese-coercion/ [Accessed 26 July 2026]

[13] Beaumont, DJ, ‘The fight to supply – what Ukraine and the Middle-east tell us about logistics space and the changing character of war’, The Paper War: Logistics… and everything but the fighting, 25 May 2026.

[14] Burgess, M., Director-General’s Annual Threat Assessment 2026, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, 24 June 2025, https://www.asio.gov.au/resources/speeches-and-statements/director-generals-annual-threat-assessment-2026 [accessed 21 July 2026]

[15] Beaumont, DJ., ‘Preparedness planning at a strategic juncture – four considerations for preparing the national support base for conflict’, The Paper War: Logistics… and everything but the fighting, 29 Mar 26, https://logisticsinwar.com/2026/03/29/preparedness-planning-at-a-strategic-juncture-four-considerations-for-preparing-the-national-support-base-for-conflict/,

[16] Beaumont, DJ., ‘Military solvency and signs of a system that might not work’, The Paper War: Logistics… and everything but the fighting, 12 Aug 25, https://logisticsinwar.com/2025/08/12/military-solvency-and-signs-of-a-system-that-might-not-work-why-militaries-must-reimagine-how-they-support-and-sustain-forces-in-a-future-war/ [accessed 27 Jul 26]

[17] Betz, D., Smith, MLR, ‘Smart weapons, dumb assumptions: Western strategic delusions meet industrial reality in Ukraine’, Military Strategy Magazine, 26 Jun 2025

[18] Beaumont, DJ., ‘The fight to supply – what Ukraine and the Middle-east tell us about logistics space and the changing character of war’, The Paper War: Logistics… and everything but the fighting, 25 May 2026.

[19] Ablong, M., ‘Australia is ill-prepared for war and other threats: the time to act was yesterday’, 23 May 2025 from Australian Strategic Policy Insitute, The strategist, https://www.aspi.org.au/opinions/australia-is-ill-prepared-for-war-and-other-threats-the-time-to-act-was-yesterday/ [accessed 19 July 2026]

[20] Ablong, M., ‘From my Bookshelf: Logistics in the National Defense, Rear Admiral Henry E. Eccles’, 03 July 2026, from Si vis pacem, para bellum, https://mablong.substack.com/p/from-my-bookshelf-logistics-in-the, [Accessed 28 July 2026]