Over the coming week, our team will release a series of insights describing the domain-by-domain implications and practical considerations resulting from the DSR. In particular, the commercial, legal, contractual, and procurement related considerations for projects across all stages of delivery. In this Part 1 of our series, we provide an overview of the key strategic and capability priorities set out in the DSR, and set the scene for the more detailed analysis to follow.
Defence’s strategic priorities
At its core, the DSR sets out three key strategic priorities that will have effects across the entire Defence procurement, geopolitical, and operational landscape. Those are:
Capability and investment priorities
The DSR also made a number of significant capability investment recommendations, such as:
A military strategy of ‘denial’
The DSR’s most consequential strategic recommendation is the adoption of a military strategy of denial. This is a significant geopolitical and strategic change from Defence’s previous strategy of access and influence. This change in strategy gives rise to lasting changes in the operational, force structure, and capability requirements of Defence.
Since the 2020 Defence Strategic Update, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has implemented a strategy of building access to our immediate region, and exercising influence within the Indo-Pacific in support of shared security interests. A strategy of denial is described by the DSR as:
“… a defensive approach designed to stop an adversary from succeeding in its goal to coerce states through force, or the threatened use of force, to achieve dominance” (paragraph 7.1, page 49).
This transition to a strategy of denial represents a hardening of Defence’s approach to countering coercion, in particular through greater emphasis being placed on the acquisition of Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) capabilities such as long-range strike missiles, undersea warfare equipment, and surface-to-air missiles. As part of this strategy of denial, the DSR emphasises the importance of defending Australia’s northern approaches, formally recommending major upgrades to ports, bases, and barracks in the north of Australia.
Force structure - balanced joint force vs. focused integrated force
Flowing from the adoption of a targeted strategy of denial is the recommendation for the ADF to transition from a balanced joint force to a focused integrated force. The recommendation for the ADF to also transition its force structure from a joint force to an integrated force further demonstrates the significance of the strategic recommendations made by the DSR.
The current ADF force structure is a balanced force, meaning the ADF is designed to respond to a varied range of threats that are specific to each of the three traditional military domains, being land, air and maritime. The DSR notes that, as a result of the major changes to Australia’s strategic environment, the assumption that a joint force structure can achieve military deterrence is no longer valid. This is because the current joint force structure of the ADF assumes that the combined (but separate) effects of the land, air, and maritime domains will result in the mitigation of all conventional military risks to the defence of Australia.
Under a focused force, the ADF will instead be structured across all three services to respond to the nation’s most significant threats (including in the cyber and space domains), in a complementary and integrated way. For example, the impact that this transition to a focused force will have on the ADF is the redirection of the Australian Army’s mission to provide greater ground-based support to the air and sea domains via long-range strike and air and missile defence capabilities. In practice, this means that each service within the ADF will seek to strengthen the defensive capabilities of the others against identified military threats focused on cross-domain support, rather than focusing on domain-specific threats that may not carry the greatest risk to the defence of the nation.
Ultimately, the DSR recommends that the ADF transition to an integrated force structure that harnesses effects across all five domains of warfare, being land, air, maritime, space, and cyber. This new focused integrated force structure will require the ADF to acquire and deploy cross-domain capabilities in order to ensure that all three services can successfully implement a coordinated strategy of denial.
Capability and investment priorities
The changes to Defence’s strategic approach, as set out in the DSR, necessitate a number of consequential changes to Defence’s capability acquisition processes and investment priorities. The DSR recommends a number of capability and investment priority changes, which have now been agreed by the Government.
In the diagram below, we set out the links between the changing strategic priorities and their effect on capability outcomes and procurement priorities.
The most significant of these new capability investment priorities and changes to Defence’s capability acquisition requirements are:
Practical implications across the legal, procurement, and contractual context for Defence
Over the coming week, Aldermane will be publishing a series of articles analysing the major capability recommendations made by the DSR across all domains. As part of this series, our team of defence specialists will assess what impacts each of the new capability priorities and recommendations made under the DSR will have on Defence from a legal, procurement, and contractual perspective.
We will take a domain-by-domain approach to our analysis of the recommendations made by the DSR, and their potential commercial and legal implications for Defence as follows:
If you have any questions, or would like specific advice on the Defence Strategic Review, please feel free to contact us.
For more information about the DSR’s capability investment priorities and recommendations, stay tuned for the upcoming entries in Aldermane’s DSR in Detail series.
Authors:
Rory Alexander, Principal
Nick Faulks, Senior Associate
Brenton Lam, Associate
