10 April 2026 | Jennifer Parker *Originally published in The Conversation on 10 April 2026 Image: A photo released by the Royal Thai Navy showing the Thai-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree shortly after it was hit by Iranian projectiles 11 nautical miles off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, Mar. 11, 2026. Royal Thai Navy Share article Print article Wednesday’s ceasefire announcement by President Donald Trump, linked to Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz, prompted immediate optimism shipping would quickly resume. It didn’t. The following morning, traffic remained minimal . A handful of vessels, largely linked to Iran, made the transit. But most of the ships waiting in the Gulf stayed put. Iran announced shortly afterwards that it would effectively close the strait because of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. The reality is the strait was never closed . Framing the issue as “open” or “closed” misses the point. Ships are not being physically blocked. They are being deterred . Over recent weeks, Iran has demonstrated both the capability and intent to target commercial shipping. Attacks and credible threats against vessels have driven daily transits down from around 130 to just a handful. Until that risk changes, ships will not return in meaningful numbers. So what can be done to turn this around? Both walking and talking The ceasefire declarations have added to the uncertainty rather than resolved it. Washington has asserted that the strait is open . Tehran’s messaging has been more ambiguous, including references to requiring vessels to inform Iranian authorities before transiting. Some interpret this as a precursor to attempts to exert control over the waterway through a toll . This ambiguity matters. Shipping is a commercial activity driven by risk calculations. Operators and crews will not move on the basis of political statements, particularly when recent experience suggests those statements may not hold. The importance of reassurance In practice, restoring traffic through the strait will likely occur in two phases. The first is reducing the threat. That can occur through military means, diplomacy, or a combination of both, but it must materially degrade Iran’s ability and willingness to target shipping. The second is reassurance. Even if Iran’s attacks on civilian shipping stop as a result of the ceasefire, shipping will not immediately return. Confidence has been shaken and will take time to rebuild. A credible reassurance effort would include limited naval escorts, at least initially. It’s notable the US did not move immediately to demonstrate confidence in the ceasefire by escorting US flagged and crewed commercial vessels out of the Gulf. That would have sent a clear signal to industry, helped restore confidence in transits and undercut subsequent Iranian claims that ships require approval from its armed forces. Given Iran’s interest in maintaining the ceasefire, it would have been unlikely to challenge ships under US naval protection. The US hesitation has instead created space for Iran to entrench its position, pushing vessels closer to its coastline and reinforcing its ability to shape how the strait is used. An effective reassurance campaign would also involve a broader international presence to provide surveillance, information-sharing and rapid response capability. The international community should move quickly to establish this. Its very establishment would help restore confidence in transits. We have seen this model before. The International Maritime Security Construct , established in 2019 following Iranian attacks in the Gulf of Oman, focused on transparency, coordination and reassurance rather than large-scale convoy operations. I served as the construct’s Director of Plans in 2020. A similar, but more effective, approach is likely to be required again. It is not a silver bullet, but reassurance is layered, and this would at least provide the clarity and communication shippers need. Diplomacy will also matter. Clear, coordinated messaging from the international community, backed by explicit economic consequences for any renewed attacks on merchant shipping, will be essential to rebuilding confidence. The question of tolls There has also been speculation about whether Iran might seek to impose a toll on vessels transiting the strait. The legal position here is clear. The Strait of Hormuz is an international strait under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Ships enjoy the right of transit passage through the strait. Charging vessels for passage would cut directly against that principle and set a dangerous precedent for other strategic waterways. There are early signs Iran is testing the boundaries. Reports of radio calls warning vessels they require approval to transit, and suggestions that ships should notify Iranian authorities before transiting, point to an attempt to exert greater control over the strait. That should be resisted. Allowing a toll, or even limited restrictions, to take hold in the Strait of Hormuz would have far-reaching consequences, undermining the central principle of maritime trade: freedom of navigation. Regardless of Donald Trump’s flippant comments , the international community is unlikely to accept any enduring Iranian toll system. If Iran attempts to pursue one, it should face clear economic consequences, including sanctions. Questions remain about whether mines have been laid in or near the strait. Even the suggestion adds to uncertainty and reinforces the need for a coordinated international response, including transparent assessments of the threat environment. A clear, public assessment from the international community on whether the strait has in fact been mined would go a long way. It should be an early priority for any coalition effort. The bottom line Ultimately, shipping will return to the Strait of Hormuz not when it is declared open, but when it is assessed to be safe enough. That will require a sustained period without attacks, a visible international effort to secure the waterway, and clear signalling that the rules governing international straits will be upheld. Until then, the ships will wait.

Jennifer Parker | 1 April 2026 *Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald 31 March 2026 Image: The Astute-class submarine HMS Anson arrives at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for a scheduled Submarine Maintenance Period (SMP). Australians feeling the sting of high fuel prices at the bowser, or seeing supplies struggle to reach regional communities, are being reminded just how dependent Australia is on the arrival of supplies by sea. That dependence sits at the centre of our economic prosperity and our security. It is why AUKUS, and the move to nuclear-powered submarines, matters. Most Australians would know by now that concerns about global oil supply are, at their core, a maritime problem. The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow body of water between Iran and Oman, carries about 20 per cent of the world’s oil. Despite some reporting, the strait is not closed. But Iran has effectively deterred much of the traffic that would normally pass through it, including about 30 oil tankers and more than 100 other vessels each day. This disruption has not required large-scale attacks. Iran has struck about 21 ships, but it has been enough to unsettle shipping and drive up risk. It has done this despite the presence of the United States military, because geography is on its side. Iran’s coastline runs along the northern edge of the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf of Oman, giving it a natural advantage. In maritime security, geography matters. For Australia, as an island nation spanning three oceans, it defines our exposure. Our critical supplies, fuel, fertiliser, pharmaceuticals, plastics and more, all arrive by sea. In a conflict involving Australia, the challenge is not just a single chokepoint, although some would matter. It is the scale of the maritime domain around us, the distances involved, and the difficulty of protecting trade against capable naval forces. If that were to occur, the impact would go well beyond higher fuel prices. It would mean disruptions to the flow of critical supplies across the economy, with real consequences for how Australians live. Australia’s ability to protect these seaborne supplies will be critical in any crisis or conflict. That is a demanding task given the scale of our maritime domain and the length of our trade routes. To operate across those distances, Australia needs the right capability. That is why Australia is acquiring nuclear-powered submarines. There are many advantages to nuclear submarines, but two matter most for Australia. The first is speed. Distance is our defining challenge. A Collins-class submarine takes around eight to 12 days to transit from Perth to Sydney, or to the Sunda Strait, a key route for Australia’s trade through the Indonesian archipelago. A nuclear-powered submarine can do the same in around four to five days. A conventional submarine would also need to raise a snorkel mast multiple times during that transit, increasing the risk of detection. A nuclear-powered submarine does not. Nuclear-powered submarines are not the only capability required, but they are central to operating across the distances that define Australia’s maritime domain. Australia’s debate on AUKUS is increasingly filled with claims that the program is failing or “headed for a train smash”, as a former submarine commander warned. The three-phase pathway does carry risk, and no one has suggested it will be easy. But much of this criticism is long on assertion and short on analysis or credible alternatives. The challenges facing AUKUS are real, but are not unique. The US and UK are working through constrained industrial bases, and those same pressures exist across every submarine-producing nation. Walking away would not remove these constraints, it would simply delay capability and deepen the very gap critics warn about. The risk is real. But in complex defence capability, risk is managed, not avoided. Abandoning it because it is difficult is not a serious option, particularly as, despite alarmist rhetoric, the program remains on track. For Australia, the question is not whether AUKUS is difficult. It is whether there is a more credible way to deliver the reach, endurance and persistence needed to operate across our maritime domain. To date, no alternative has answered that. Calls to cancel AUKUS avoid the harder question of what comes next. They do not solve the problem, they risk leaving Australia without a credible submarine capability for a period of time. As the war with Iran has shown, it does not take much to disrupt a key maritime corridor. Australia faces a different geography, but the same logic applies. Our vulnerability is defined by our reliance on seaborne supply, and the distances involved in protecting it. The answer, therefore, is also maritime. It requires the ability to project power across our approaches and protect the flows our economy depends on. As Australians are seeing, even a limited disruption at sea has immediate consequences at home. As our strategic environment deteriorates, this fuel shock will look minor compared to the economic and security impact of disrupted maritime trade. That is the risk Australia faces. A stronger focus on maritime power, including nuclear-powered submarines, is about ensuring we can protect it. It is also a question of confidence. Australia has built and sustained complex defence capabilities before. There is no reason to assume this one is beyond us.

Jennifer Parker | 26 March 2026 *Originally published in War on the Rocks on 26 March 2026 Image: US DOD. Sinking of IRIS Dena A U.S. submarine recently sank an Iranian warship in one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors. Many overlooked the incident’s significance. Others misunderstood what had occurred. The sinking of the IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, roughly 40 nautical miles off Sri Lanka’s southern coast, was a graphic reminder of the brutality of war on the high seas. Footage of the ship’s stern exploding and images of Sri Lankan Navy personnel rescuing survivors quickly circulated online, prompting fierce debate about the legality of the strike and the nature of combat at sea. It also exposed a broader problem. Naval warfare remains poorly understood outside naval circles. The IRIS Dena was a lawful target under the law of naval warfare. It is also long recognized in international law scholarship that modern submarines cannot safely surface to rescue survivors. Their obligation is instead to notify appropriate vessels or authorities so that rescue can be undertaken as soon as practicable. Yet, misunderstandings of these aspects dominated early reporting. The wider conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran had begun on Feb. 28, only days before the IRIS Dena was sunk. Within days, degrading Iranian naval capability had emerged as a key operational objective. The sinking of the IRIS Dena did not occur just anywhere. It took place along one of the world’s most consequential trade routes in the Indian Ocean, a corridor critical to global energy flows and to China’s economic security. The engagement was not only a tactical success but also a broader strategic signal. In the immediate online reaction to the sinking, narrative often overtook fact. So, what happened in the Indian Ocean, and why was it lawful? Iran’s Naval Presence Beyond the Gulf Just after 5 a.m. on March 4, approximately 40 nautical miles south of Galle, the IRIS Dena was sunk by a Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo fired from the USS Charlotte . The ship was a relatively new multi-role frigate, launched in Iran in 2015 and commissioned into service in 2021. One of seven Moudge-class frigates operated by the Iranian Navy , the vessel displaced roughly 1,500 tons, placing it closer in size to a corvette or offshore patrol vessel than a traditional frigate. Despite its modest dimensions, it carried a crew comparable to many larger surface combatants, with a normal complement of around 140 personnel. Reports suggest between 130 and 180 personnel were onboard when the ship was sunk. Despite claims that the vessel was unarmed , the IRIS Dena was reasonably capable for its size, though no realistic match for a nuclear-powered attack submarine. Open source assessments indicate the ship carried a 76 mm naval gun, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, triple 324 mm torpedo launchers, and a hull-mounted sonar . Warships rarely transmit on hull sonar while transiting unless a submarine threat is suspected. In practice, this distinction is unlikely to have mattered. The attacking submarine likely fired from well beyond detection range. The IRIS Dena would therefore have had little warning of the strike, and even if contact had been gained, its lightweight torpedoes would have offered only limited defensive options. Since commissioning, the IRIS Dena had become a visible instrument of Iranian naval diplomacy. A 2023 deployment with the converted tanker IRIS Makran was designed to signal Iran’s intent to operate well beyond the Persian Gulf and build a more credible blue water naval capability. In February 2026, the frigate was operating in the Indian Ocean after participating in India’s International Fleet Review in Visakhapatnam and the multilateral Exercise MILAN alongside the Iranian landing ship IRIS Lavan . It was reportedly transiting back toward Iran when attacked. Another Iranian tanker, the IRIS Bushehr , was also operating in the region in support of the task group. Misinformation in the Maritime Domain Shortly after the sinking, inaccurate reports circulated claiming that the IRIS Dena had been unarmed , with some suggesting that participation in India’s International Fleet Review required vessels to sail without weapons. The fleet review and Exercise MILAN brought together more than 60 ships and aircraft from around 70 countries. While there would have been guidelines governing conduct during the events, there was no requirement for participating warships to be unarmed or to sail without ammunition. In years of planning and participating in multinational naval exercises across the Indo-Pacific, such a requirement is not one I have encountered. The sea phase of Exercise MILAN also appears to have included live-fire activities, further undermining claims that participating vessels were required to be unarmed. Although the precise loadout of the IRIS Dena cannot be confirmed from open sources, it would be highly unusual for a warship to transit the Indian Ocean to a multinational exercise without its normal weapons and ammunition, particularly at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the United States. For a commanding officer to deploy and remain at sea in such circumstances without an appropriate combat load would raise serious professional questions. More broadly, the episode illustrates how quickly misinformation can take hold in the modern information environment, especially when naval operations occur far from public view and public understanding of maritime warfare remains limited. A Submarine Engagement at Range The IRIS Dena was reportedly seeking permission to enter Sri Lankan waters when it was engaged by the USS Charlotte. Washington has not publicly outlined the sequence of the engagement. Media outlet Iran International claimed that one sailor who died in the sinking contacted his parents to say the vessel had been warned by American forces to abandon ship. This account has not been verified and would be unusual in the context of a submarine engagement. The attacking submarine is understood to have fired a Mark 48 torpedo, detonating beneath the stern of the IRIS Dena. Following the sinking, the Sri Lankan Navy conducted rescue operations with initial reports indicating the recovery of 32 survivors and 87 bodies, with a further 61 crew members still missing. The speed of the response suggests local authorities may have been alerted before the vessel sank. Some reports indicate the ship transmitted a distress call shortly after 5 a.m., while the U.S. Navy has confirmed that it notified Sri Lankan authorities of the incident. The engagement also attracted attention in Australia after the prime minister confirmed that three Australian sailors were embarked on the U.S. submarine at the time, though they were not involved in the strike. What the Law of Naval Warfare Permits The sinking also prompted debate about neutrality and the legal implications of Australian sailors embarked on the attacking submarine. These issues warrant separate consideration but do not alter the lawfulness of the strike. The more immediate questions are straightforward: Was the Iranian warship a lawful military target, and was there an obligation to rescue survivors? Established principles of the law of naval warfare provide clear answers. The law of naval warfare forms part of the broader law of armed conflict and applies specifically to the conduct of hostilities at sea. Under this framework, warships of a belligerent state are lawful military objectives by virtue of their status. Once an international armed conflict exists between states, their military vessels may be attacked wherever they are encountered on the high seas or in belligerent waters, subject to the rules governing the conduct of hostilities. In practical terms, this means that a vessel such as the IRIS Dena could be lawfully targeted because it formed part of the armed forces of a belligerent state and contributed to its military capability. The fact that the ship was operating in the Indian Ocean rather than close to Iranian waters does not alter this legal assessment. Naval warfare has long been conducted across vast maritime spaces, and belligerent warships have historically been engaged wherever they are found on the high seas. A second issue concerns the obligation to rescue survivors. The law of armed conflict at sea recognizes a duty to assist those who are shipwrecked, wounded, or otherwise no longer able to take part in the fighting. This obligation, however, is not absolute. Commanders are not required to undertake rescue operations where doing so would place their own vessel or mission at serious risk. This qualification is particularly relevant in submarine warfare. Unlike surface combatants, submarines rely on stealth for survivability. Surfacing to conduct rescue operations may expose them to detection and attack. In such circumstances, humanitarian obligations may instead be met by alerting nearby authorities or other vessels capable of conducting rescue operations. Reports that the United States notified Sri Lankan authorities of the sinking of the IRIS Dena would be consistent with this obligation. In naval warfare, the duty to assist survivors must ultimately be balanced against the operational realities of fighting at sea, a limitation generally recognized in international law. Conflict Along Critical Sea Lines of Communication The sinking of the IRIS Dena was more than a tactical success in the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. Conducted along one of the world’s most important maritime trade corridors, the engagement carries strategic implications that extend well beyond the immediate belligerents. The incident occurred along a particularly consequential stretch of the Indian Ocean. Trade routes south of Sri Lanka carry significant volumes of global energy and container traffic linking the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. For China in particular, these sea lines of communication are central to sustaining economic growth and long-term energy security . The willingness and demonstrated effectiveness of the United States in employing force in this space will not have gone unnoticed. The engagement also served as a practical reminder of the continued effectiveness of U.S. submarine capability. While few observers doubt the lethality or reach of American undersea forces, the sinking demonstrated in operational terms the difficulty surface vessels face in detecting and countering modern submarines. In this sense, the incident was not only about Iran. It also sent a broader signal about the willingness and ability of the United States to employ military force at range in defense of its interests. For some audiences this reinforces deterrence — for others it heightens concern about escalation along critical maritime trade routes. Naval Warfare’s Enduring Logic The sinking of the IRIS Dena was a stark reminder that naval warfare follows its own logic. Engagements can occur far from home waters, unfold with little warning, and carry consequences well beyond the immediate tactical exchange. In this case, a single submarine strike intersected with global trade flows, alliance dynamics, contested information environments, and the legal realities of conflict at sea. For policymakers, the episode underscores the need to understand maritime warfare not as a peripheral concern but as a central feature of contemporary strategic competition. For naval commanders, it reinforces enduring truths about stealth, reach, and the unforgiving nature of combat at sea. More broadly, the incident signals that the United States remains willing to employ force along critical sea lines of communication when it judges such action lawful and strategically necessary. Maritime power is again shaping strategic outcomes in the Indo-Pacific.

Jennifer Parker | 20 March 2026 *Originally published in the Australian Financial Review on 19 March 2026 The conflict in the Middle East has sharpened concerns about Australia’s fuel supplies. Increasing stockpiles is necessary, but does not deal with the lack of coherent maritime strategy. Image: HMAS Warramunga sails while the ship’s helicopter MH60-R call sign “Fenrir” conducts a sortie off the coast of Queensland. Defence images. Paranoia about fuel supplies has suddenly entered Australia’s mainstream debate, as Canberra wakes up and starts counting how many frigates and destroyers the Royal Australian Navy actually has. It is a familiar pattern. Australia rediscovers its maritime dependence only when events force the issue. We are a trading island nation whose prosperity and security rely on ships arriving safely from distant ports. Fuel, fertiliser, ammunition and other essential supplies move through increasingly contested sea lanes that Australia does not control. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz should be understood not as a distant Middle East problem, but as a warning. In a serious conflict, Australia’s vulnerability will be defined less by threats to the continent than by our ability to protect the maritime lifelines on which the nation depends. While crises often prompt a sudden focus on fleet numbers, Australia’s structural challenges in protecting its maritime domain and critical seaborne supply run much deeper. The problem is not only that the surface fleet is at its smallest and oldest in ship numbers since the 1950s, or that mine warfare and hydrographic capabilities have declined sharply. It begins with a system that has not fully grasped the scale of Australia’s maritime dependence or worked through how to reduce the vulnerability that comes with it. Addressing these vulnerabilities is not primarily a Defence task. It begins with understanding which goods are truly critical to keep the economy functioning and sustain a war effort, and what key partners rely on from Australia. Resilience also means reducing what must transit vulnerable sea lanes through industrial policy and stockpiling. Meeting the International Energy Agency requirement to hold 90 days of fuel reserves is only a starting point. Japan has a minister for ocean policy and a cabinet-level headquarters led by the prime minister. Australia has no comparable mechanism. Maritime strategy should be driven from the centre of government. Australia’s central security problem does not begin at the coastline. It begins thousands of kilometres beyond it. “Capability gaps that directly affect the protection of trade must be addressed urgently.” The next step is to better protect Australia’s ports and coastline, and to stop using the navy as our default maritime police force. A serious coastguard would help do both. The Defence Strategic Review argued that Defence should not be the default responder to domestic crises, yet at sea the navy still carries much of the burden for border protection and enforcement. In a serious crisis, disruption to shipping, illegal activity and risks to critical infrastructure will increase, not diminish. A properly structured coastguard should carry this burden so the navy can focus on protecting trade and operating forward. Establishing a coastguard would also allow fragmented maritime responsibilities, including search and rescue now led by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, to be better co-ordinated. Once these basics are addressed, attention turns to the navy. Australia needs more frigates and destroyers, and more capable submarines. The Hunter frigate program, the planned acquisition of Mogami-class frigates and AUKUS all point in the right direction. But they are not moving fast enough. Both surface combatant programs should be accelerated, even if this places strain on workforce and supply chains. Accepting risk now is unavoidable. Six years ago, Defence flagged that strategic warning time could no longer be assumed. Now, the fleet is smaller. We should not expect many more reminders. Capability gaps that directly affect the protection of trade must be addressed urgently. Naval logistics, mine warfare and hydrography all require urgent investment. The latter two are areas where Australia can build sovereign capacity relatively quickly, but only if government is prepared to prioritise them. Without access to a strategic fleet of nationally directed shipping, Australia risks having trade routes it cannot use even if sea lanes remain open. A recent taskforce examined the issue, but its recommendations reflected compromise rather than the scale of the strategic problem. Momentum has since faded. The current conflict in the Middle East has sharpened concerns about Australia’s fuel supplies. Increasing stockpiles is necessary, but it deals only with the symptom, not the problem. Australia still lacks a coherent maritime strategy and the national structures needed to implement one. That is the issue we must now confront. The steps are clear. As outlined, they begin with recognising our maritime dependence, building resilience at home and organising government to protect the sea lanes on which our security and prosperity depend. The question is not what needs to be done. It is whether we will act before the next crisis forces us to relearn the lesson.

Jennifer Parker | 10 March 2026 *Originally published in the Australian Financial Review on 10 March 2026 Image: A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail comes in to land as it arrives at Nellis Air Force Base, United States, for Exercise Bamboo Eagle 26-1. Defence images/ LACW Nell Bradbury Eight days into the escalating conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, Australia has announced a limited contribution to help under-attack Gulf states detect and shoot down Iranian missiles and drones. While the outcome of the conflict remains far from certain and few people would pretend to know how a war of this scale will unfold, Australia is right to support the United States and the defence of the Gulf states under attack, within limits. Within these limits is Australia’s contribution of an airborne early warning aircraft and air-to-air missiles to help defend Gulf partners from Iranian missile and drone attacks. Tehran has spent decades building the capability and networks needed to destabilise the region, threaten maritime trade and project coercion well beyond the Middle East. Much of the Australian debate has focused narrowly on whether the use of force complies with international law . That question matters. But a binary fixation on the letter of the law risks missing the broader strategic reality: Iran’s behaviour has long posed a challenge that the international community has struggled to address decisively. Under the United Nations Charter, the lawful use of force is confined to two situations: self-defence or authorisation by the UN Security Council. While legal scholars debate the boundaries of collective or pre-emptive self-defence, actions that fall outside those criteria are meant to sit within the authority of the Security Council. Historically, the Security Council has authorised major military action, including the defence of South Korea in 1950 and the liberation of Kuwait during the first Gulf War in 1991. But in 2026, the Security Council has largely ceased to function as an effective mechanism for responding to major threats to international peace and security. This paralysis has been most obvious in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, carried out by a permanent member of the Security Council itself. But it was evident earlier in the Security Council’s failure to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons before its first test in 2006. In the absence of a functioning Security Council, the international system lacks a clear mechanism to address emerging security threats. Iran has become one of those threats through both its advancing nuclear capabilities and the network of proxies it supports across the Middle East. “A disciplined US intervention in Iran serves Australian, regional and global interests, even if it brings short-term economic costs.” This is the delicate legal and political dance national leaders are now performing, one rarely stated openly. As Mark Carney observed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “the story of the international rules-based order was partially false”. International law has served middle powers like Australia well, underpinning decades of security and prosperity. But there are moments when the legal framework struggles to deal with emerging threats. Even without a clear self-defence justification, action against Iran still serves Australia’s security interests. This does not mean that might makes right, or that international law should be abandoned. But there are moments when the international system simply struggles to deal with regional and global threats. It is in this context that degrading Iran’s military capability and proxy network is in Australia’s interests. The government’s position of qualified defensive support to the Gulf states is therefore the right one. Not because Australia automatically backs everything the United States does, but because doing so advances Australia’s own security interests. A limited Australian deployment to help defend Gulf states from Iranian missile and drone attacks would also be consistent with that approach. But the key word is limited. Australia should not provide open-ended support. Lengthy Middle East commitments have often undermined Australian Defence Force preparedness and distracted from China’s growing military challenge in our region. A targeted contribution helping detect and defend against missile and drone attacks on Gulf states is strategically sensible. A further naval contribution to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, as Australia has done previously, would also support global trade and energy security. The strait remains one of the world’s most important maritime choke points. Done properly, this approach allows Australia to achieve several objectives at once.

Jennifer Parker | 6 March 2026 *Originally published in The Strategist on 6 March 2026 Image: Rodney Braithwaite/Department of Defence . Fifty years after the Tange reforms created the modern Australian Defence Force, Australia faces a structural problem that few are willing to confront: steady erosion of the service chiefs’ authority. Over successive reviews and reorganisations, the chiefs have kept responsibility for generating, preparing and sustaining the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force. But they have progressively lost the authority needed for this. In an era described by our leaders as the most challenging strategic environment since World War II, this dilution of authority risks leaving Australia less prepared for crisis or conflict. If the government is serious about structural reform, restoring meaningful authority to the service chiefs must be part of the conversation. Defence Minister Richard Marles told The Australian ’s Defending Australia conference in June that structural reform was coming, insisting everything was on the table to ensure Defence was fit for purpose. The government delivered in December, announcing a new Defence Delivery Agency and calling it the most consequential defence reform in 50 years. It is indeed significant. But the most consequential change of the past half century has been the progressive centralisation of authority away from the services themselves. It was half a century ago that the Defence Force Reorganisation Act implemented the recommendations of the 1973 review by defence secretary Sir Arthur Tange. That reform abolished the separate departments of Navy, Army, Air Force and Supply, created a single Department of Defence and consolidated the services under what is now the chief of defence force, forming the Australian Defence Force. The next major shift came with the 1997 establishment of Headquarters Australian Theatre, now Joint Operations Command . It greatly improved joint operations but also moved operational responsibility from the service chiefs to a joint commander. The chiefs were left responsible for generating, training and sustaining their forces but increasingly without the matching authority. Almost every review since Tange has deepened centralisation. Among the most significant was the 2023 creation of the Military Personnel Division , which shifted career management and broader workforce issues to a joint three-star role, leaving the service chiefs with limited influence over their own people. Many of these reforms were driven by a peacetime search for efficiency. But Australia is no longer in a business-as-usual environment. The most challenging strategic circumstances since WWII demand a force that is effective, not merely efficient. A lesson from the war in Ukraine is that over-centralisation can become a serious liability, while decentralisation is a major source of resilience and adaptability. Australia learnt this the hard way at the outbreak of WWII. In 1939, the government was forced to create a standalone Department of the Navy because the existing Defence Department could not expand the RAN fast enough and support national coordination efforts. This model may not be viable in 2025, but our own wartime experience shows that excessive centralisation does not work when rapid adaptation is required. Authority is dispersed across Defence, and accountability for preparing the services is blurred. This only deepens the challenge of preparing the ADF for the real possibility of conflict in our region and, as the chief of defence force warned in June, the prospect of fighting from Australian soil. Each service must rebuild its culture, workforce, capability and preparedness to meet the prospect of potential conflict, or a military crisis short of it. Only the service chiefs can provide that. There is an additional national responsibility. In a crisis, the services are critical in managing national requirements, ports, airspace, coastal shipping and more. Such tasks are too vast to be managed fully by Joint Operations Command. They also demand domain expertise and clear leadership, but the continued erosion of the chiefs’ authority leaves them unable to meet that obligation. This is not a call to return to the pre-Tange era or to move away from joint operations, both of which have brought important benefits. There is clear value in commonality and in centralising some elements of capability and workforce, but common processes do not require removing overall control from the service chiefs. This is a call to examine our Defence structure, as Tange did in 1973, and ask whether it remains the most effective model for the challenges ahead. Within that structure, we must determine what role the service chiefs should play as heads of profession in preparing their forces and in supporting the nation during a broader security crisis. This should include serious consideration of restoring four-star rank to the service chiefs, subordinate by function to the chief of defence force but clearly positioned above other groups, to re-establish authority over the forces they are charged to prepare. This would be consistent with the structures used by many of our key partners. The Defence Delivery Agency is not the most significant reform in 50 years, but the willingness to rethink Defence at the scale proposed above would be. If we are serious about preparing for the challenges ahead, any structural reform must restore real authority to the service chiefs so they can build and shape their forces to be ready to fight.

Jennifer Parker | 1 March 2026 *Originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 1 March 2026 Image: President Donald J. Trump Monitors U.S. Military Operations in Iran: Operation Epic Fury, February 28, 2026. White House Twitter Account Last night, a missile struck the United States 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, a base where I served in 2023. That strike is a reminder of how much the strategic landscape has hardened in recent years. The United States and Israel have struck Iran. Tehran has responded immediately, targeting US and Israeli forces across the Gulf. This is not a limited reprise of last year’s strike on Iran’s nuclear program. The objective now appears broader. Washington appears to be attempting something far more ambitious than its limited strike in June 2025. It is seeking to remove what it views as a persistent source of instability in the region: the regime of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei , who US President Donald Trump says was killed in the strikes on his compound. It is a significant gamble. Whether it succeeds will not be clear for some time. How did we get here, and what does it mean for Australia? The answer to both is complex. Much will be written in coming days about the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1983 bombing of US Marines in Beirut, and the attack on USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. But the more relevant point is what Iran has represented strategically over the past two decades. In recent years, Iran has acted as a destabilising force across the Middle East, relying on proxies to conduct attacks in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, with Iranian-linked activity also reported in Australia last year. This has been reinforced by direct action, including the 2019 missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and persistent harassment of commercial shipping. Some incidents make headlines. Many do not. Iran’s 2019 campaign of attacking merchant vessels in the Gulf of Oman, including the seizure of a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, had tangible consequences. War risk insurance premiums rose sharply for vessels transiting the strait, a waterway through which roughly a quarter of the world’s oil flows. It was this pattern of attacks that prompted my 2020 Royal Australian Navy deployment to the Middle East as part of the International Maritime Security Construct , helping protect freedom of navigation through one of the world’s most critical chokepoints. Since 1979, the US and its allies have repeatedly surged forces to manage instability linked to Iran, while also in the past two decades sustaining major commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Middle East has consumed strategic attention, military resources and political capital. That sustained focus constrained Washington’s ability to compete as effectively as it might have with China. The Indo-Pacific was emerging as the central theatre of strategic competition while the US and its allies remained absorbed elsewhere. Washington has attempted to step back. During my time at the US 5th Fleet in Bahrain from 2022 to 2023, US naval force flow in the Middle East was at its lowest level in decades. Yet the Middle East still matters. The US has enduring allies and economic interests there, and Iran’s destabilising activity continued to draw American forces back. In 2025 and 2026, aircraft carriers were diverted from the Indo-Pacific, where they were intended to deter China, to respond to crises in the Middle East. For a country that identifies China as its primary strategic competitor, that reallocation sits uneasily with its stated priorities. Iran has also advanced a nuclear program with long-term weapons ambitions. There is no publicly available evidence that it was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, and many assessments suggest it remained years away, if at all. Even so, Iran’s hardened and dispersed nuclear infrastructure ensured that it would remain a persistent strategic complication for the US. Facilities constructed deep underground and bolstered against air attack are difficult to reconcile with a purely civilian nuclear intent. In his address following the strikes, President Trump indicated that regime change in Tehran was an objective, though not the sole one. That rhetoric raises the stakes. Moving from degrading capability to seeking political transformation alters the scale and risk of the undertaking. There is no widely accepted historical example of air power alone producing regime change without ground invasion, internal uprising or elite defection. US efforts at regime transformation in the Middle East have produced mixed results at best. This is therefore a high-risk strategic play. If this succeeds, it could remove one persistent adversary from the US’ strategic calculus and allow greater focus on the Indo-Pacific. For Australia, China’s military modernisation and coercive behaviour in our region represent the most consequential long-term security challenge. Sustained US attention there matters to our strategic outlook. Periods of American distraction have carried costs. While Washington was absorbed in the Middle East, China accelerated island building and militarisation in the South China Sea. More recently, weapons support to Ukraine and operations against the Houthis have drawn down stockpiles and strained force availability. This attack on Iran may be an attempt to consolidate commitments rather than expand them. It may fail. It may deepen instability. But if it succeeds, it could strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and, in doing so, enhance Australia’s security.

Jennifer Parker | 27 February 2026 Image: Image of the battle cruiser HMAS Australia : Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Centre . 1 March 1901 marked the establishment of Australia’s Commonwealth military and naval forces, the foundation of today’s Royal Australian Navy and Australian Army . The sea service’s initial title was ‘Commonwealth Naval Forces’; a decade later King George V granted the title ‘Royal Australian Navy’. When the new fleet steamed through Sydney Heads in October 1913, Australians lined the harbour to witness a visible expression of sovereignty that had long rested with Britain. From the outset, some of Australia’s strategic thinkers understood a simple truth: the nation’s prosperity and security would rest on control of its surrounding seas. As an island continent dependent on maritime trade, Australia’s economic lifelines have always run across the sea. In the early decades of federation, that burden was largely carried by the Royal Navy. The fall of Singapore in 1942 exposed the limits of that assumption. The Royal Navy was not coming. Australia turned to the US Navy instead. The underlying reality did not change. Maritime power sits at the centre of Australia’s security. One hundred and twenty-five years after federation, the RAN faces a demanding decade as it seeks to renew its surface fleet and submarine force. The maritime domain is more contested than at any time since World War II. Attacks on maritime infrastructure and merchant shipping, rapid naval build-ups and the erosion of restraints on the use of force all point to intensifying strategic competition at sea. Yet it is across this domain that Australia’s critical lifelines travel: fuel, fertiliser, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other essentials on which both the economy and the ability to fight depend. For decades, distance has been described as Australia’s strategic advantage, the sea cast as a moat. But Australia’s early strategists recognised a harder truth that remains valid today. The sea is also our vulnerability. Access to secure seaborne supply is not peripheral to national security. It is central to it. Yet Australia’s naval force structure has not always kept pace with that reality. The growing willingness of states to resort to military force and the resulting contestation of the maritime domain therefore represents Australia’s central military challenge. That reality was underscored in 2025 by the arrival of two separate Chinese naval task groups operating near Australia. It marked a significant shift: a regional power demonstrating the capacity to operate sustained naval forces in Australia’s approaches and, if required, put maritime lifelines at risk. Australia faces its most demanding strategic environment since WWII, and the RAN arguably confronts its most consequential period of reform. It must operate in an increasingly contested maritime domain while simultaneously recapitalising its fleet and introducing new capabilities. As technology evolves and the methods of warfare adapt, the RAN will be required to shoulder a broader set of responsibilities than it did in either of the world wars, while adapting to long range strike, uncrewed systems, intensified undersea competition, cyber operations and contestation in space. All of this is unfolding at a time when Australia is a fundamentally different country—demographically, politically and industrially—from the one that fought the world wars. The default reliance first on the Royal Navy and then on the US Navy no longer sits comfortably with contemporary expectations of sovereignty and responsibility. The alliance with the United States remains central to Australia’s security, but the notion that Washington would assume primary responsibility for Australia’s defence, as it effectively did in 1942, is unlikely to be acceptable to a modern Australia. After decades of delayed decisions , Australia now fields one of its smallest and oldest surface combatant fleets since WWII, alongside an ageing Collins-class submarine force and limited surge capacity in the Naval Reserve . Plans are in place to arrest that decline through the Hunter-class frigates, the acquisition of Japanese-designed Mogami-class frigates, and  the transition to nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS. But these capabilities will not arrive until the 2030s, and each brings its own workforce, industrial and operational challenges for the RAN. Amid this period of change and challenge, the RAN must also reconnect with the Australian public, as it did in 1913 when the first fleet unit, a formation led by the battle cruiser HMAS Australia , sailed through Sydney Heads. Naval power has always required public understanding and political backing. Acquiring the first fleet unit was not inevitable. It was argued for forcefully in the national press by the then Captain William Creswell , the architect of Australia’s naval foundations. That same clarity of purpose will be required again to bring the public along on AUKUS and continuous naval shipbuilding. The RAN must be present in the national debate. The 125th anniversary of the RAN is more than commemoration; it is a reminder that maritime security remains central to Australia’s national survival, and that the choices made in this decade will determine whether the RAN can meet the demands placed upon it. One hundred and twenty-five years on, the RAN enters a decisive decade. It demands resolve from the navy and the nation it serves.

Jennifer Parker | 19 February 2026 *Originally published in the Lowy Institutes The Interpreter on 19 February 2026 The silence around a second Chinese naval deployment near Australia cost the public a chance to understand the risks. Image: A People’s Liberation Army-Navy Jiangkai-class frigate of the type that accompanied an amphibious ship (ADF/Defence Imagery) In parliamentary hearings earlier this month, Australia’s Chief of Defence Force confirmed for the first time that a Chinese navy amphibious ship had operated weeks beforehand in Australia’s near region. The deployment formed part of a second Chinese naval task group that operated close to Australia in 2025, following the circumnavigation of the continent by three Chinese warships in February and March last year. The earlier voyage drew attention. This one did not. That does not make it less significant. It represents a further demonstration of China’s growing capacity to project naval power toward Australia. Why does this matter? Because China is a major power in the region with which Australia’s national security interests are not aligned , and it now possesses the maritime capability to operate in ways that expose Australia’s greatest structural vulnerability, dependence on the sea. At Senate Estimates hearings on 11 February, the Chief of Defence Force confirmed that the December 2025 task group, comprising a Yushen class amphibious assault ship, a Renhai class cruiser, a Jiangkai class frigate and a Fuchi class replenishment vessel, transited into the Pacific, operating through the southwest Pacific near Noumea and north through the island chains and Papua New Guinea. It then approached Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, coming within five or seven nautical miles before heading north. Chinese naval vessels are entitled under international law to enter Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone and may conduct exercises there, including gunnery activities . But Australia’s northeastern Exclusive Economic Zone is not a transit corridor. It is not analogous to the Taiwan Strait en route to Japan or the Exclusive Economic Zones of Southeast Asian states. This doesn’t mean China should not operate there, but it does mean Australia should pay explicit attention to why it would want to operate there. Few countries have historically possessed both the capability and the intent to operate naval forces in proximity to Australia. China is now demonstrating both. China’s two task group deployments near Australia in 2025 underscore how fundamentally Australia’s strategic environment has changed. Each demonstration of capability was intended to send a signal to Australia and the neighbourhood: that China now possesses a modern and comprehensive maritime capability able to reach and sustain operations in Australia’s near region. These specific task groups were not a threat. But they were not trivial. They are a reminder that Australia should weigh this evolving capability carefully when making decisions that may run counter to China’s interests. The issue is not whether Chinese ships should operate in or near Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Under international law they can. To argue China should not do so would undermine Australia’s long-standing support for freedom of navigation, the very principle that underpins Australian naval deployments. The issue is what this development means for Australia’s security as the regional balance shifts. The ability to reach and operate near Australia is historically significant. Distance from major theatres of conflict has long been seen as a strength. Yet Australia’s geography has also created vulnerability because of a deep dependence on maritime trade and secure sea lines. Few countries have historically possessed both the capability and the intent to operate naval forces in proximity to Australia. China is now demonstrating both. This is unfolding in a world that has changed markedly from the relative stability many assumed in the 1990s, early 2000s and even the pre-Covid period. The erosion of post-Cold War restraint on the use of force, the weakening of multilateral institutions and increasingly transactional politics point to a more contested era. As Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney described it, this is a rupture – a view echoed by European leaders at last weekend’s Munich Security Conference . In this environment, Australia must adjust. There is work to be done in strengthening military capability, and defence spending remains underwhelming . But the most significant shift required is in national resilience and psychological preparedness. That means strengthening supply chains, improving civil preparedness and ensuring Australians understand the risks inherent in a more contested region. These elements of preparedness have received far less attention than platforms and budgets. There are many practical steps that Australia can take to strengthen resilience and psychological preparedness. But it begins with honesty about the challenge. Australians should not be learning only through Senate Estimates hearings – and weeks after the fact – that a foreign naval task group intentionally operated close to the country’s waters as a demonstration of capability. This event could have been an opportunity to build public understanding of how the region is changing, using a concrete example people can grasp. Not to provoke alarm or overreaction, as occurred during the first transit, but to explain clearly what it signifies. The phrase deployed by Australian politicians that the country faces “the most challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War” risks becoming abstract. Events like the Chinese naval deployment give it meaning. If Australia is serious about preparedness, the public must be treated as capable of understanding the strategic environment it now faces.

5 February 2026 | Jennifer Parker *Originally published in The Australian on 5 February 2026 Image: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence the Hon. Richard Marles MP and Assistant Minister for Defence, the Hon Peter Khalil MP with Minister for Finance Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher speaking at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. (Kym Smith / Defence Images ) The release of the Defence Estate Audit marks another milestone in the Albanese government’s effort to reshape Australia’s defence posture. It seeks to rationalise the commonwealth’s largest infrastructure portfolio and is a long-overdue step in that reform agenda. Much of its logic is sound. But taken as a whole, the review entrenches three strategic mistakes that risk weakening our defence preparedness. Much of the attention will rightly focus on the 67 Defence-owned sites slated for divestment or partial divestment, the sustainment funding the government expects to recoup, and future capital returns from property sales. History suggests, however, that some of these returns may take decades to materialise. There will also be reflection on the history of the bases being lost. While the government is correct that history should not determine the structure of the defence estate, these decisions will land hard for many who have served. Service is not easily reduced to financial ­incentives. The government is right to make difficult decisions about the estate. The challenge is that decisions about Australia’s defence posture, which should drive estate planning, depend on a clear understanding of how the force would mobilise in a crisis or conflict, and what role the reserve force is expected to play. Neither question has yet been resolved. Reducing the defence estate without clarity on mobilisation or reserve force structure therefore carries strategic risk. The estate review was driven by the Defence Strategic Review and its call for an enterprise-wide audit of Defence estate and infrastructure. This was largely because of the cost of sustaining ageing and underused infrastructure. However, the original terms of reference for the Defence Strategic Review also required it to examine mobilisation in the event of a crisis, including Defence’s ­ability to mobilise at scale for the defence of Australia. Defence leadership warned publicly in June 2025 that Australia should be preparing for this. Yet the unclassified public version of the Defence Strategic Review did not outline a plan to address the challenge. Mobilising at scale requires training facilities, space and locations accessible to the public – requirements that need to be understood before undertaking what the government has described as the most significant change to the Defence estate in Australia’s history. The Defence Strategic Review also recommended a comprehensive strategic review of the Australian Defence Force reserves. This was necessary because the reserve structures of all three services have changed fundamentally since the last time Australia prepared to fight from its own territory. In the navy, for example, there is very limited recruitment of civilians ­directly from the street. There are serious questions about how the Naval Reserve could be employed in a crisis beyond reinforcing administrative functions. The original purpose of the Naval Reserve was to retain and mobilise a mariner base drawn from the civilian population. It no longer performs this function. The 2024 Strategic Review of the Australian Defence Force Reserves was not, in practice, a strategic review, failing to address the strategic contribution of the reserves. Any genuine review would require restructuring across all three services reserve forces, with clear implications for the ­Defence estate, particularly for ­facilities located close to major population centres. The absence of this work before the estate audit calls into question whether the current estate is suited to the force structure Australia needs, not what it has. The final, and perhaps most fundamental, of the three strategic issues is the review’s emphasis on integration. Since the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, integration has become a catch-all concept used to describe the ability of the services to operate seam­lessly together, but in practice frequently pursued through decisions that drive centralisation and ­diminish the role and identity of the individual services. This is reflected in two recommendations contained in the Defence Estate Review. The first proposes further due diligence on consolidating all domain command headquarters into a single location to accelerate the transition to an integrated force. The second recommends renaming bases in a way that removes service identity. Together, these measures go to the heart of how integ­ration is being interpreted and ­implemented. The army, navy and air force are not interchangeable. They perform distinct operational functions and play different roles in supporting mobilisation of civilian capability. While joint operations will remain central to Australia’s future defence, history offers a clear warning against excessive centralisation. The Defence Estate Review is welcome and important. But without first resolving how Australia would mobilise in a crisis, or what reserve force role and structure is required, it is impossible to determine the defence posture and estate Australia actually requires. These questions are urgent. The continued erosion of the services’ authority through overcentralisation risks introducing a critical vulnerability in crisis or conflict. That is a risk Australia should not bake into its defence structure during the most testing strategic circumstances we have faced in generations.

3 February 2026 | Jennifer Parker *Originally published in the Lowy Institute's The Interpreter on 3 February 2026 Image: Royal Australia Navy (Susan Mossop/Defence Images) Australian maritime security is entering a period of profound change. The planned expansion of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface combatant fleet, the introduction of nuclear-powered submarines, and the reality of having no strategic warning time are forcing a hard look at how the Navy generates and sustains its workforce. Yet one element remains under-examined: the Naval Reserve. Long treated as a mechanism for individual backfill rather than operational effect, the Naval Reserve has the potential to play a far more important role in Australia’s maritime defence, if it is properly re-imagined. The 2023 Defence Strategic Review was explicit that the ADF Reserves must provide the expansion base for the force in times of crisis, calling for a comprehensive review of reserve service, including consideration of a Ready Reserve Scheme. The Department of Defence delivered with its December 2024 Strategic Review of the Australian Defence Force Reserves , but its recommendations lacked ambition and stopped short of defining a clear strategic role for reserve forces. Instead, the Review leans heavily on centralisation while sidestepping the harder question of how reserves should be structured to deliver operational effect. As the 2024 Strategic Review notes, with limited specialist exceptions only the Army Reserve recruits directly from the civilian workforce at scale, while Navy and Air Force reserves are overwhelmingly drawn from former permanent members. For the Naval Reserve, this is a strategic limitation and constrains the size and diversity of Australia’s mariner pool at a time when Australia should be actively building mechanisms to enable future mobilisation of this workforce, a marked departure from past practice. Historically, the Naval Reserve was explicitly conceived as a mechanism to expand Australia’s mariner base for mobilisation, a role it fulfilled decisively in the Second World War. Navy and Air Force reserves are overwhelmingly drawn from former permanent members. During this period, the Royal Australian Naval Reserve played a central role in enabling Australia to expand its naval power at speed and scale. Reservists were mobilised in large numbers to crew auxiliary and patrol vessels, operate harbour and coastal defences, and provide essential seamanship, engineering and logistics skills across the fleet, forming the backbone of wartime mariner generation. This effort was enabled through port-based reserve organisations in major ports, which recruited, trained, administered and mobilised reservists, a system formalised after the war period as Naval Reserve Port Divisions. These structures allowed the Navy to draw directly from the civilian population, expanding the mariner base in peacetime and allowing for the rapid mobilisation of trained personnel in war. This shift supported a deliberately slimmed down force shaped by Cold War peace dividends and the assumption that major conflict was remote. That context has changed, and the Naval Reserve must change with it, including a return to directly recruiting reserve members from the civilian workforce into formed units designed to deliver clear operational capabilities. As the 2024 Strategic Review notes, the Naval Reserve is almost entirely comprised of former permanent force personnel who fill individual “backfill or round-out” roles within existing Navy structures or Defence groups. The Review is equally blunt about the consequences, observing that “further training opportunities are generally not afforded to Navy reservists and career progression is limited”, resulting in an inability to maintain currency or attain the qualifications required for promotion. By contrast, the US Navy Reserve recruits from scratch, trains to active duty standards, and provides a standing mobilisation and surge capability. When it comes to the Naval Reserve, Australia must learn from its own history. So what is the solution? The starting point must be to clearly define the roles the Royal Australian Navy expects its reserve force to perform. Initial priorities could include port and critical infrastructure protection, including the operation of uncrewed surface and undersea vessels; underwater battle damage inspection and repair; the provision of maritime security for Australian and allied merchant vessels; and the crewing and sustainment of coastal and auxiliary craft. Framing the Naval Reserve around defined operational tasks rather than ad hoc supplementation would allow it to function as a credible contributor to maritime security and mobilisation. Restructuring the Naval Reserve around defined capabilities and regional commands would enable from-scratch recruiting and give the reserve force a clear strategic purpose. Such a model would also support coherent training pipelines, the maintenance of professional currency, and meaningful career progression, while allowing broader skill sets to be managed deliberately to supplement capability gaps across the fleet. When it comes to the Naval Reserve, Australia must learn from its own history. The Reserve delivers its greatest value when it is designed as a strategic capability, not when it is confined to individual supplementation in predominantly administrative roles. The current Naval Reserve structure is a product of an era in which major conflict was seen as remote. That assumption no longer holds. As I have argued elsewhere , the Navy will be unable to grow the mariner base required for its future roles or to support broader mobilisation through recruitment and retention alone. A structural rethink is required, and the Naval Reserve is the obvious place to begin.

Jennifer Parker | 23 January 2026 *Originally published in the Australian on 23 January 2026 Image: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney 21 January 2026 (on X) It is not even the end of January, yet 2026 is already marking a decisive break in the global order, and in Australia’s place within it. China ended 2025 with its largest military activity around Taiwan under Exercise Justice Mission. The United States has escalated pressure on Venezuela through a high-profile intervention, but it is the maritime pressure campaign behind it that should most concern Australia. And NATO unity is fraying as President Trump reintroduces coercive power politics, including threats against Greenland. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it bluntly at Davos this week: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” Australia can no longer afford to treat this moment as abstract. The implications for our security are immediate. Instinctively, Australia is a country that prefers to look inward, But that instinct is dangerous. Australia must pay far closer attention to how the world is changing and what those changes mean for our security and prosperity. The international system is being reshaped by several forces, most notably renewed great-power competition. Too often this is reduced to a false binary choice between the United States and China. It is not, and never has been. That oversimplification has plagued Australian strategic thinking for too long. President Trump’s threats against Greenland, and what they reveal about the United States in 2026, do not lessen the risks posed by China’s military build-up or its increasingly assertive use of force in the region. Australia must confront both realities at once. These realities are further complicated by Australia’s greatest strategic vulnerability: its dependence on maritime trade. Recent US interdictions of shadow-fleet tankers linked to Venezuela demonstrate how easily a trade-dependent nation can be economically coerced through targeted maritime disruption. Australia is systemically exposed. Nearly 99 per cent of Australia’s imports and exports move through the maritime domain. So how should Australia respond? Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered a clear answer in a speech that is likely to be studied for years to come. “We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers.” Australia is one such middle power, with significant regional and global standing. Yet we have underinvested in key elements of national power. Addressing that gap is now an urgent strategic priority. Australia’s standing ensures it is routinely invited into key rooms. That access must be used more deliberately to build issue selective regional minilateral and multilateral partnerships. For too long, Australia has assumed diplomacy can be done on the cheap. It cannot. Diplomatic power will be central to navigating an uncertain world and strengthening the collective voice of middle powers. Although the Albanese Government has increased DFAT funding, Australia’s diplomatic heft has not been restored. Our foreign service remains thinner, more stretched, and less influential than it was in the 1990s, despite a far more complex and contested strategic environment. Increasing Australia’s diplomatic heft is also essential to diversifying our external relationships and reducing systemic vulnerability. Australia has begun to do this with partners such as Japan and the Philippines, but this effort must go much further. Deeper and more sustained engagement is needed with India, South Korea, Indonesia and Europe. Diplomatic diversification must also be matched by a harder conversation at home about economic vulnerability. That includes a serious examination of industrial policy, but also Australia’s central Achilles heel: excessive trade dependence on China. A stable relationship with China remains critical, but the scale of Australia’s economic exposure is no longer prudent. Rebalancing will be difficult and gradual, but allowing such concentrated dependence to persist constitutes a clear strategic vulnerability. Diversification must be matched by the deliberate building of domestic resilience, economically, technologically and, critically, institutionally. For too long Australia has taken the strength of its institutions for granted. As ASIO Director Mike Burgess repeatedly warned in 2025, Australia’s institutions face growing pressure from both foreign interference and domestic fracture. Building national resilience in a world defined by power politics also requires stronger military resilience. The United States remains Australia’s central security ally. That alliance has endured shifts in global order, policy disagreement and changes of leadership in Washington. Australia should not step away from it. But we have become overly dependent, not by choice, but through strategic complacency. Australia must strengthen its capacity for self defence and pursue greater self reliance within the alliance. That will require increased defence investment and bolder leadership. Australia is a fortunate nation, but fortune is not strategy. The fractures reshaping the global order are no longer abstract or distant. It is not even the end of January, yet 2026 is already proving to be a pivotal year. Australia must respond as the influential actor it is, by rebuilding the balance of its national power, strengthening diplomatic heft, investing in military capability and reinforcing domestic resilience. This moment demands action, not nostalgia. Australia must seize it.