How can a national support approach strengthen Australia’s national defence by integrating defence preparedness with national civil preparedness?

By David Beaumont, PhD.

This article is the third in a series on the strategic rationale for national support in Australian defence planning. Part I argued that military power depends on Defence access to national resources, industrial capacity and logistics capability. Part II explained how competition, crisis and conflict place pressure on that national support base. This article extends the argument by examining how military preparedness and national civil preparedness can be connected through a Defence approach to national support.

Australian policy has traditionally treated Defence preparedness as a military responsibility and has given limited direct attention to civil inputs. Civil preparedness, by contrast, has largely been managed through emergency management and resilience frameworks. That separation is becoming harder to sustain. Emerging threats affect the systems and institutions that support both the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Australian society. If future crises place greater demands on the nation, Defence and civil preparedness must be treated as parts of the same challenge.

The 2026 National Defence Strategy recognises that Australia’s security depends not only on the ADF’s ability to respond to a threat, but also on the resilience and preparedness of the national support base that sustains it. In terms of policy rhetoric, the central question is therefore not whether Defence preparedness and national civil preparedness are related. The strategic context requiring National Defence has already linked them. The question is how Australia should organise that relationship before crisis exposes weaknesses that cannot be fixed at a time of pressure

A Defence approach to national support is potentially the most practical mechanism for linking Defence preparedness with national civil preparedness. This approach may translate National Defence into clear requirements, shared responsibilities and, over time, tested arrangements. It makes Defence requirements visible to the nation, connects those requirements with civil systems and authorities, and helps Australia prepare for military and non-military crises as part of one national preparedness challenge.

The convergence of military and national civil preparedness

The separation between military preparedness and civil preparedness has troubled Australian governments, policy-makers and defence planners since the end of the Vietnam War. Apart from Defence Minister Kim Beazley’s 1980s push to involve the Australian community more directly in national defence, and formative work on national support during the 1990s, military and civil preparedness largely diverged.[1] Over the past three decades, Defence focused on generating military capability through long-term acquisition programs and preparedness systems designed mainly for smaller, sustained expeditionary deployments. Civil authorities focused on essential services, economic activity and social stability, usually in relation to natural disasters and other national emergencies. These functions were connected, but they were often managed through separate planning systems and institutions. As a result, the relationship between them remained incidental rather than deliberate.

Contemporary strategic conditions now challenge that separation. As noted in my previous article, the 2026 National Defence Strategy points to long-range strike, cyber disruption, space vulnerability, disinformation, supply-chain coercion and attacks on critical systems as realistic features of contemporary competition.[2] In practical terms, Australia’s strategic depth now depends less on geography and more on the capacity of the national support base to respond to unusual levels of Defence demand. The scale and nature of contemporary threats make mobilisation preparedness increasingly important, and a high level of national civil preparedness a virtual necessity. That preparedness depends on how quickly Defence can access and use national resources.

This is the first and most important reason national support planning – dealing with such access – can bring military and national civil preparedness together. A second reason is that it supports a deeper conversation about national self-reliance as an element of civil preparedness. Australia’s economic prosperity underpins its ability to generate and sustain military power. Yet much of that prosperity depends on global production networks and supply chains that may become unreliable during crisis or conflict. Complex military capabilities, such as submarines and fighter aircraft, are built through international consortiums. Each nation owns part of the production puzzle and often part of the permanent supply chain. The same applies to many other parts of Australia’s economy; it is somewhat ironic that much of Australia’s domestic industrial capability can only reach its potential through access to the global commons and other sources of globalised production.

Market access in peace, however, is not the same as having assured access in crisis. Complex global supply chains may be efficient in ordinary times, but they are vulnerable to interruption, interdiction and political manipulation. They can fail when strategic conditions deteriorate, and unstick when strained by the heightened demand experienced during a crisis or conflict. They may also come under pressure when allies and partners prioritise their own national production over ensuring capacity is available for others. If Australia needs assured industrial access during a crisis or conflict, it cannot assume that global markets will deliver on demand. Australia therefore needs new ways to scale, pivot, disperse, substitute and restore industrial output. This matters beyond Defence. The same capacities that allow industry to absorb shock, redirect production and restore supply during conflict also strengthen Australia’s resilience in civil, economic and societal crises.

A national support approach connects the economic, industrial, social and institutional dimensions of preparedness. It identifies what Defence may need in crisis and where those needs intersect with civil systems. This makes military requirements visible to governments, industry and the broader community before a military crisis occurs. National support also helps the nation build response arrangements that are useful beyond military crises, as seen in national responses to pandemics, natural disasters and other major disruptions. With a mature national support approach, Defence can help other government agencies clarify priorities, authorities, responsibilities and capacities. This strengthens the systems that sustain Defence and the society those systems serve.

This is not a problem unique to Australia. Close partners have faced similar questions. They have assigned roles before crisis, tested civil-military systems, linked logistics with national resilience, and treated society, industry and infrastructure as contributors to defence preparedness. Their experience offers useful points of comparison for Australia. They are not models to copy slavishly, even if they were achievable under current Australian policy or financial settings. Instead, they show the deliberate organisation required if national support is to be applied credibly in practice.

How Australia’s partners integrate defence and national civil preparedness

Australian analysts have already described how other nations, shaped by their own strategic needs and threats, have approached defence preparedness. These examples are useful because they show how different nations connect military preparedness with civil systems, industry, infrastructure and society under approaches analogous to the national support approach proposed here. They also offer points of comparison for Australia as it considers how national support can link Defence preparedness with national civil preparedness.

Finland’s comprehensive security model is the most developed and often cited example of an ‘all-hazards’ approach to national preparedness.[3] Finland defines preparedness around the protection of the vital functions of society. These include leadership, defence capability, internal security, the economy, infrastructure and security of supply, public services, international activity and psychological resilience. It provides a practical governance system, adapted from a total defence approach in response to the Soviet and Russian threat.[4] Authorities, business, organisations and citizens share responsibilities, prepare together and exercise the continuity of society under pressure. The lesson for Australia is that national preparedness becomes credible when civil systems are given strategic roles before crisis. Preparedness also grows when the population, industry, government and other groups understand how their actions contribute to national defence.

Sweden offers a second model through the revival of total defence. Swedish policy treats total defence as the combined activity of military defence and civil defence, with the whole of society expected to contribute during heightened alert or war.[5] This policy was developed due to the proximity of threat, but also shaped by its history of being outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) until relatively recently.[6] Its recent direction for 2025–2030 increases investment in both military and civil defence, emphasises the ability to defend Sweden and allies, and frames municipalities, companies, agencies, civil society and individuals as necessary participants in national defence. For Australia, the Swedish example reinforces that national civil preparedness requires declared planning assumptions, public guidance, local and regional responsibilities pertaining to the safeguarding of essential services, investment in civil defence capacity, and an explicit connection between social resilience and the national willingness to defend itself.

Logistics provides another way to understand national preparedness in Europe. For example, the Netherlands’ national plan for military mobility treats the country as a transit nation and gateway to Europe. Its purpose is to help allied forces move through ports, roads, rail and air infrastructure quickly and predictably. The approach links military mobility with whole-of-government coordination, infrastructure, regulation, command and control, digital innovation, whole-of-society support and exercises. Germany, too, faces a similar task because its geography makes it a central logistics hub for NATO reinforcement. It must provide military, logistical and civil assistance to allied forces in Germany or moving through it. Since 2024, Germany’s Operational Plan provides a defence-led, but whole-of-government, approach to national defence with a key element being civil-military cooperation.[7] It connects military requirements with civilian support services and defines processes, responsibilities and escalation arrangements for peacetime, hybrid threats, crisis and war – creating the circumstances for a credible deterrent effect.

The United Kingdom shows how preparedness thinking is moving into broader defence reform. Its 2025 Strategic Defence Review explicitly linked warfighting readiness, homeland defence, resilience, industrial mobilisation and a renewed partnership with industry. Both the review and subsequent industry strategy argued that security and defence must become organising principles of government and that the state, business and society must be brought together in a national endeavour.[8] In July 2026, the UK Parliament launched an inquiry into the UK’s resilience and preparedness to meet national obligations under NATO Article 3; this inquiry seeks to examine resilience as a national responsibility and a collective commitment, and civil preparedness must support continuity of government, continuity of essential services and civil support to military operations.[9] The British lesson for Australia is that national civil preparedness must be connected to defence policy, industrial strategy, procurement reform, infrastructure planning and public communication, rather than left in a separate emergency-management silo.

While European nations, with their attention fixed on the east of the continent, are developing new approaches to total defence, strategic tensions in Asia are giving impetus to similar developments. Japan’s Comprehensive Security Framework blends civil defence with economic security, prioritising strategic stockpiles, infrastructure resilience and expanded access to transportation infrastructure.[10] South Korea’s Total Defence Posture is heavily shaped by the enduring North Korean threat and has long relied on a highly mobilised reserve force, civil alert systems and civil defence drilling, and strong public understanding of national contingencies. Importantly, and in a way that mirrors the Australian government’s emphasis on self-reliance, both nations continue to develop preparedness models that account for alliance integration, primarily with the United States.

Taken together, these examples show that many different nations are integrating defence and national civil preparedness. They vary in geography, economic strength, defence needs, alliance requirements and strategic culture. Yet each has moved to connect military requirements more deliberately with civil systems. For Australia, the lesson is practical rather than prescriptive. There is no single model to copy. Australia must instead decide how it best balances military and civil needs, develop suitable laws and arrangements, build governance systems, and make the investments needed for its own version of defence and national civil preparedness – and the characteristics of the national support approach that brings both together.

National support and logistics preparedness

While other nations experiences with preparedness planning can help to identify best practice, it is also useful to consider the desired characteristics of the future national support approach. I have previously mentioned that the five components of logistics preparedness provide a way to assess what a credible national support approach requires: policy and guidance, organisation, plans and planning, capability, and testing and assessment.[11]    

Defence’s approach to national support must identify where new policies and plans are needed. This is a core feature of logistics preparedness, and is the primary way in which defence and national civil preparedness can be linked. Robust policy and legislative arrangements will be needed to govern the allocation of resources during crisis. But policy alone cannot assure fuel access, keep ports open, secure rail corridors or main supply routes, prioritise road movement, protect data services, substitute critical materiel, or decide when military demand should take precedence over civil demand. These decisions require military and civilian authorities, information-sharing arrangements, planning triggers, legal settings, commercial mechanisms and rehearsed processes. National support turns reliance on civil systems into prepared access by ensuring the arrangements needed in crisis are understood, agreed and tested beforehand.

Organisations also matter. Relevant authorities and capabilities often sit outside Defence. State and territory governments control or influence emergency management, health, transport and infrastructure systems. Private industry owns and operates much critical infrastructure and many supply chains. Regulators, departments and agencies shape priority access, continuity requirements, cyber standards, investment settings and public communication. A national support approach gives Defence a way to engage these actors not as occasional stakeholders, but as enduring partners in National Defence.

Testing determines whether that partnership is credible. Exercises, war games, mobilisation trials, infrastructure stress tests, supply-chain mapping, cyber resilience activities and civil-military rehearsals reveal whether Defence planning assumptions can withstand scarcity, disruption and competing demand. If Defence requirements are not tested against civil capacity, and civil continuity assumptions are not tested against Defence demand, both forms of preparedness will rest on untested assumptions.

Seen this way, national civil preparedness is the organised readiness of Australia’s civil systems to contribute to National Defence while protecting the functioning of society. It includes continuity of essential services, resilience of critical infrastructure, assured and diversified supply chains, workforce preparedness, industrial adaptability, cyber and data resilience, health and casualty capacity, transport and logistics access, Commonwealth-state-territory coordination, public communication and the ability to prioritise resources across competing national needs.

National support also has an important deterrence function. Deterrence by denial depends not only on the capability systems that Defence acquires, and the operational concepts it develops to employ them, but on convincing a potential adversary that Australia can absorb pressure and continue acting. Fragile infrastructure, uncertain fuel access, narrow industrial options, fragmented authorities and low public preparedness create opportunities for coercion. Resilient civil systems, prepared industry, assured logistics, trusted public communication and rehearsed Defence-civil arrangements make the nation harder to intimidate and harder to disable.

Conclusion

For that reason, national support should be treated as a central element of the 2026 National Defence Strategy’s implementation. It gives practical meaning to whole-of-government and whole-of-nation preparedness by helping Defence identify what it needs from the nation, helping civil agencies understand how their responsibilities affect military endurance, and helping government balance the protection of society with the generation of military power. It also ensures that investments in fuel, supply chains, infrastructure, cyber, workforce, industry and logistics produce value in peace while strengthening Australia for crisis.

Defence and national civil preparedness are connected – and connected strongly. The question is whether Australia will organise that relationship deliberately before disruption forces the issue. National support provides the most practical basis for answering this challenge. A national support approach is a body of work that provides the concepts, relationships, plans and practical arrangements through which Defence and the civil elements of the nation can prepare together. In the context of the 2026 National Defence Strategy, that linkage is not an administrative convenience. It is the practical foundation for Australia’s resilience, endurance and capacity to defend its interests under conditions of competition, crisis and conflict.

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[1] See Beaumont, DJ. ‘Logistics, national support and the failure to prepare – the ADF’s approach to strategic logistics 1987 – 1999’, thesis, Australian National University, 2024, chapters 6 and 9

[2] Beaumont, D.J., ‘The strategic rationale for national support, part II: preparing the nation for competition, crisis and conflict’ from The Paper War, https://logisticsinwar.com/2026/07/28/the-strategic-rationale-for-national-support-part-ii-preparing-the-nation-for-competition-crisis-and-conflict/ [accessed 11 Aug 26]

[3] Ablong, M., Building national preparedness: a road map for Australia and what we should learn from Finland, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2025 p 30

[4] Medcalf, R & Fjader, C., North star: why Australia should look to Finland on resilience and preparedness, National Security College, Australian National University, https://nsc.anu.edu.au/content-centre/research/north-star-why-australia-should-look-finland-resilience-and-preparedness [accessed11 Aug 26]

[5] Government of Sweden, Total Defence, https://www.government.se/government-policy/total-defence/, [accessed 17 June 2026]

[6] Adamson, E & Alander, M, Nordic-Baltic total defence: easier said than done, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, https://www.boell.de/en/2026/01/13/nordic-baltic-total-defence-easier-said-done, [Accessed 02 Aug 26]

[7] Bundeswehr Joint Force Command, Operational plan for Germany, https://www.bundeswehr.de/en/organization/bundeswehr-joint-force-command/missions/operational-plan-for-germany, [accessed 06 Aug 26]

[8] UK Government, Strategic Defence Review 2025, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-strategic-defence-review-2025-making-britain-safer-secure-at-home-strong-abroad [accessed 05 Aug 26]

[9] UK Parliament, Inquiry launch: how prepared are UK civilians for war, 16 July 2026, https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/24/defence-committee/news/217030/inquiry-launch-how-prepared-are-uk-civilians-for-war/ [accessed 11 Aug 26]

[10] Teraoka, A, ‘Japan’s quiet preparation for war: how to defend its people’ from The ASAN Forum, 20 January 2025, https://theasanforum.org/japans-quiet-preparation-for-war-how-to-defend-its-people/, [accessed 01 Aug 26]

[11] Beaumont, D.J., ‘The strategic rationale for national support, part I: the essential role of national resources and logistics in National Defence’ from The Paper War, https://logisticsinwar.com/2026/07/21/the-strategic-rationale-for-national-support-part-i-the-essential-role-of-national-resources-and-logistics-in-national-defence/ [accessed 11 Aug 26]