By Sally Burt, David Kilcullen, Ian Langford and Andrew Maher
As Australia prepares its 2026 National Defence Strategy (NDS), the nation must recognise that a window of strategic risk exists now and will do so into the early 2030s. The first AUKUS submarines—US Virginia-class boats—will not be delivered until 2032, while the purpose-built SSN-AUKUS will not arrive until the early 2040s. Similar timeliness challenges exist elsewhere within the Integrated Investment Program. (From: The Strategist. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.)
Australia’s traditional reliance upon ‘great and powerful friends’ and extended nuclear deterrence now seems no longer assured. There is no equivalent to NATO’s Article 5 for Indo-Pacific security. Even if there were, adversaries’ demonstration of grey-zonecapabilities—aiming to weaken alliances, isolate targets, erode resolve and impose costs—suggests formal alliance commitments may be insufficient.
Conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East are demonstrating that smaller players—both middle powers and non-state actors—can generate strategic asymmetry against major powers, in turn deterring them from initiating conflict or escalating in conflict. As recently identified in Britain’s Strategic Defence Review, Ukraine is pioneering a new way of war; British decision-makers have recognised the need to rapidly adapt and are using Special Operations capability to drive this adaptation.
In a new paper titled Unconventional deterrence in Australian Strategy, we explore asymmetric and emergent methods of deterrence and ask whether they might be appropriate for Australia. We organise these concepts under the term ‘unconventional deterrence’ to differentiate them from traditional concepts of conventional and nuclear deterrence, which broadly conform to the logics of deterrence by punishment or deterrence by denial. Today’s technologies, however—along with the emergent realities of information and influence operations in a post-industrial information age—offer new asymmetries, new ways to create and apply both military and non-military elements of national power, and thus new mechanisms to deter beyond-peer adversaries from armed aggression.
In this context, ‘unconventional’ means concepts and capabilities that lie outside conventional military warfighting (state-on-state, force-on-force, battlefield-centric) and indeed, outside conventional manifestations of state power through diplomacy and statecraft. Unconventional methods operate indirectly against an adversary’s vulnerabilities, exerting influence and imposing costs through a target population or audience. Exemplar methods include resistance warfare, guerrilla operations, unarmed or armed propaganda, subversion and sabotage.
Most recently, unconventional deterrence logic was shown by US, NATO and Ukrainian special operations forces before and during the current conflict in Ukraine, through deterrence-by-detection, asymmetric strike and support to resistance concepts. As Australia considers the implementation of the NDS, such adaptations are worth considering as ways to generate the asymmetry that Australia’s situation demands.
An expanded concept of unconventional deterrence might operate independently from, or in concert with, conventional deterrence, responding flexibly to counteract an adversary’s approach. Former US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin’s challenge to allies—of generating collective integrated deterrence—could partly be addressed in this manner.
We do not suggest that unconventional deterrence can replace traditional, conventional deterrent capabilities. Rather, we argue that conventional and unconventional concepts executed together, whether unilaterally or alongside allies and partners, might yield an integrated deterrence effect greater than the sum of its parts.
There is also a competition gap as Australian concepts of deterrence do not address the nature of competition as currently practised by China and other autocratic regimes such as Russia, North Korea and Iran.
A competition gap can be addressed by illuminating lessons from our historical experience of strategic competition, including successes and failures. One way we could compete is by supporting regional partners and like-minded countries to realise their total defence strategies. Indeed, in terms of Australia’s relations with our neighbouring continent, the strategic premise for unconventional deterrence is the need to develop security with Asia, as opposed to security against Asia (as in the Defence of Australia strategy of the 1990s) or security in Asia (the Forward Defence strategy of the 1950s to 1970s).
Our paper explores these options, offering the concept of unconventional deterrence as an organising principle for special operations, cyber, and other specialised capabilities that might be rapidly fielded by Defence and other agencies, and could best be orchestrated through an empowered national security adviser reporting directly to the National Security Committee of Cabinet. It also offers a comparative analysis, demonstrating that like-minded middle powers have embraced unconventional deterrence concepts in their military strategies, and are using these to face down their own beyond-peer threats.
