Defence strategic review looks at how to protect Australia’s trade routes in challenging world

Australia’s reliance on maritime trade and the need to protect shipping routes have shaped a major strategic review that will set the picture for the nation’s military for decades to come, Defence Minister Richard Marles says.

The Defence strategic review by former military boss Angus Houston and former minister Stephen Smith will be released on Monday.

The pair were tasked with working out how the Government and Defence should make sure Australia’s forces are best placed to respond to the circumstances outlined in the 2020 strategic update.

That update warned Australia could no longer assume there would be a 10-year period to prepare for conflict in the region.

The new review would “restate Australia’s strategic posture for the first time in more than 35 years”, Mr Marles said.

The minister noted the world and strategic environment had changed considerably since Paul Dibb’s 1985 review, which coloured assumptions about Australia’s Defence needs in the decades since.

Trade was now a much higher proportion of Australia’s economy.

“That means that we’re much more reliant upon those sea lanes, which in turn means we’re much more reliant upon the rules of the road, the global rules-based order,” Mr Marles told Sky News on Sunday.

“If you think about the South China Sea as an example of this … that body of water is now clearly central to Australia’s national interests in a way that it wasn’t back in 1985.

“And so all of that shapes the strategic landscape in which we exist, and therefore the strategic posture that we need to adopt.”

The strategic review makes 108 recommendations, most of which are expected to be released with the unclassified report. The Government is understood to agree or agree in principle with all the recommendations that are being made public, although it has emphasised the independent report is not Government policy.

Mr Marles said projection – the ability to deploy and sustain forces outside of Australian territory – was more important than ever before.

“If we need to protect our connection to the world, and if we need to play our part in providing an underpinning of the global rules-based order, these are ideas and things which are well beyond our border,” he said.

To this end, the review is expected to include recommendations to turn away from land-based warfare in favour of acquiring more missiles along with the nuclear-powered submarines already detailed under the AUKUS pact.

This will include slashing the $27 billion Land 400 program to acquire army vehicles to a third of the original plan, and dumping another project to build and maintain 30 self-propelled howitzers.

However, Mr Marles said the Government had been clear the overall Defence budget would grow.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese discussed the strategic review and the overall global environment with New Zealand counterpart Chris Hipkins during a meeting in Brisbane on Sunday.

New Zealand has been less hawkish on China than many in Australia’s military and political circles.

But Mr Albanese said Australia and New Zealand would remain close allies “in perpetuity”.

Mr Hipkins said the two countries were both clear-eyed about the challenging strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific.

“We’re close friends who work together to defend these essential values in an increasingly complex world,” he said.