Contested Ground: New Questions for Australia and the West – Defence Connect Podcast with Robbin Laird
In this week’s interview, I join the team at Defence Connect to discuss how Australia and its partners in the West must rethink deterrence, mobilisation, and the use of national power in an era of contested geography and continuous coercive pressure. The conversation focuses on how the character of conflict is changing and what this means for the way liberal democracies organise their defence capabilities and societies. It is part of a continuing dialogue about how to move from legacy, “just‑in‑time” approaches to more resilient, “always‑on” frameworks for defence and deterrence.
You can listen to the full Defence Connect podcast here: https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/joint-capabilities/18157-contested-ground-australia-and-the-west-must-ask-themselves-new-questions-in-the-face-of-the-modern-world-with-robbin-laird
The discussion is framed by the reality that our adversaries are already operating in a permanent “grey zone” between peace and war, using economic pressure, cyber operations, disinformation, and selective military actions to shape outcomes without triggering a traditional crisis response. In such an environment, the old comfort of sharp distinctions between peace and conflict breaks down. Australia and the wider West must therefore ask themselves new questions about how to posture their forces, how to mobilise national resources, and how to sustain deterrence when pressure is persistent rather than episodic.
A central theme in the conversation is the importance of geography and the “contested ground” in and around Australia. Geography is not just about distance or maps; it is about how political, economic, and military realities come together across a region. For Australia, this means understanding both its vulnerabilities and advantages as a key node in the Indo‑Pacific system. The question is how to turn that geography into an asset—through distributed basing, resilient logistics, and closer integration with trusted partners—rather than a set of liabilities that can be exploited by an adversary.
Another strand of the dialogue focuses on mobilisation in a broad sense, not only in terms of raising forces but also in terms of industrial capacity, workforce, and societal resilience. The podcast explores how recent conflicts and crises have exposed the limits of globalised, “just‑in‑time” supply chains for critical defence and dual‑use capabilities. Australia and its allies need to think in terms of trusted industrial networks, secure production of key components, and the ability to sustain operations under stress. This requires policy changes, but also a shift in mindset from peacetime efficiency to wartime robustness.
We also discuss the interaction between nuclear and conventional deterrence in the current environment. Rather than treating nuclear and conventional forces as separate worlds, the conversation looks at how adversaries may use threats across the spectrum to create dilemmas and exploit gaps in Western decision‑making. For middle powers like Australia, the task is to make meaningful contributions to a wider deterrence architecture while retaining sovereign options and freedom of action. This includes investing in capabilities that complicate an adversary’s planning and raise the costs of coercion at the conventional level, while working closely with key partners on broader strategic stability questions.
Throughout the podcast, I emphasise that this is not primarily a platform‑counting exercise. The real issue is how to align strategy, force design, and industrial capacity with the problems we are actually facing. That means being honest about what current force structures can and cannot do, accelerating experimentation and adaptation, and ensuring that new capabilities, whether in space, cyber, autonomous systems, or long‑range strike, are integrated into a coherent operational concept. It also means recognising that deterrence today rests as much on the credibility of our ability to endure and adapt under pressure as on any single high‑end system.
The conversation builds on my recent work on Australian defence and deterrence and on the broader transformation of Western forces. It connects to previous interviews and analyses on this site that have examined Australia’s role in the Indo‑Pacific, the evolution of allied industrial cooperation, and the changing character of joint and integrated operations. Together, these strands point to the need for a more proactive, forward‑leaning approach that treats deterrence and resilience as daily disciplines rather than occasional campaigns.
I encourage you to listen to the full Defence Connect discussion and consider how the questions raised there intersect with Australia’s ongoing defence debates, from force posture decisions to industry policy and alliance management. The stakes are high, but so too are the opportunities for countries that are prepared to rethink their assumptions and act with purpose. This podcast is one contribution to that essential conversation.
For recent podcasts on defence connect, see the following: