Launching Australia’s Defence Industry Development Strategy (DIDS) yesterday, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy argued that ‘the goal of growing our self-reliance is deterrence.’ It is an important proposition, but self-reliance on its own does not deter, nor do capabilities. The relationship between self-reliance, national defence and deterrence deserves greater precision, particularly in how defence industry contributes to those objectives. Clearer understanding lies in both the National Defence Strategy (NDS) and the DIDS, but the conceptual connection between them is largely implicit.

The defence industrial base contributes to deterrence through its ability to enable the Australian Defence Force to generate and sustain military power in a protracted conflict. The DIDS should therefore be judged less on whether Australia produces more capability and more on whether it supports industry to ensure Defence can continue fighting in times of crisis.

The NDS and DIDS are complementary. The NDS defines the military functions required to increase self-reliance by enhancing ‘Australia’s ability to employ and sustain credible military power to defend Australia.’ That is achieved through national defence investment in a sovereign defence industrial base that strengthens Australia’s ability to produce, adapt, sustain and replenish the most critical lethal systems and munitions capabilities needed by the ADF in the event of conflict, which may require rapid force expansion. Read together, the two concepts of self-reliance and national defence describe different but complementary functions. The NDS explains what Defence must be able to do, while the DIDS explains how industry enables Defence.

In a deterrence context, the ADF must persistently prevent unwanted actions over the long term by shaping the environment and influencing the behaviour and perception of its military power. It does so by generating systemic deterrent effects derived from their capabilities. In this way, effective deterrence requires a force that is scalable, responsive and combat credible, with capabilities that can be generated, sustained and adapted as strategic circumstances change. For Defence, preparedness, both through readiness and sustainability, is a measurable capacity. Defence industry capacity also supports preparedness, but this is harder to measure.

If the NDS identifies the military functions that enable greater self-reliance by employing and sustaining credible military power, through the requirements of the sovereign defence industrial capabilities that can produce, adapt, sustain and replenish, then the DIDS becomes the implementation mechanism for achieving those objectives. This is why Australia’s defence industrial base is essential to its deterrence strategy: industry generates capability. The military employs it.

The more important question is whether the DIDS strengthens the industrial functions identified in the NDS. How will Australia build an industrial base capable of producing, adapting, sustaining and replenishing the capabilities Defence requires? Those functions ultimately determine Defence’s capacity to generate and sustain military power over time.

The DIDS could strengthen its implementation by providing a clearer framework that links the industrial functions of production, adaptation, sustainment and replenishment to its key initiatives. At present, programs such as workforce development, scalable manufacturing and industrial investment are not clearly connected to the seven Sovereign Defence Industrial Priorities (SDIPs). Greater transparency around this alignment would help businesses better understand where gaps exist, support more informed Defence resource allocation, and ensure balanced progress across the SDIPs. Ultimately, the value of the DIDS lies in how effectively it strengthens industry’s capacity to produce, adapt, sustain and replenish capability. Those industrial functions increase Australia’s self-reliance, enabling the ADF to employ and sustain military power with greater credibility.

A sovereign defence industrial base does not contribute to deterrence simply because it expands domestic manufacturing or reduces dependence on overseas suppliers, nor is self-reliance an end in itself. Rather, the defence industry contributes to deterrence by enabling Australia to generate, adapt, sustain and regenerate the capabilities the ADF requires to employ and sustain military power now and, if deterrence fails, in the event of a conflict. Self-reliance is therefore the bridge between industrial capacity and deterrence credibility. As deterrence becomes the organising logic of Australia’s defence strategy, greater precision in how we connect concepts such as national defence, self-reliance and military power is more than semantics.