The final report of the Defence Strategic Review, due to be handed down any day, will reveal how Australia plans to meet its security challenges in an increasingly contested security environment.
This is an environment that requires technology integration at scale to achieve and maintain decision superiority. There also needs to be a step change in the speed and agility with which Australia responds to actual and anticipated threats.
Critically, the review allows Defence to grasp the clear opportunities technology offers to overcome many of the known shortcomings it has in cybersecurity, ICT infrastructure, training, skills, and procurement
Currently, Australia is highly vulnerable to coercion in cyberspace, space, and disruption to critical infrastructure and energy supplies. The environment in which we find ourselves requires partnerships between nations and technology integration at scale to achieve and maintain decision superiority, which is critical to successful campaigns.
Meanwhile, Defence remains in transition from an analogue system to a modern digital networked system. It is going through the most difficult phase of this transition.
The defence minister inherited an Integrated Investment Plan that does not give him the tools for the ‘porcupine’ strategy he has embraced, which requires Australia to be fortified with enough lethal weapons to deter an attack from a hostile rival. It is equally vital for the Review to prioritise the integration of a range of technologies to build decision superiority.
The ability to ingest, analyse data and make the results available to analysts and operators in real-time, enhances decision superiority. Sadly, the enterprise ICT systems that support decision superiority have long been considered merely as administrative capabilities. This can no longer be the case.
So significant is the tech debt in ICT infrastructure that it undermines operational capability. It is time that back-end-enabling technology is treated as essential as the hardware used to gain operational advantage.
We cannot afford to see a repeat of the problems recognised and addressed in the Defence Strategic Reform program of 2009 that were abandoned three years into a 10-year program because of budget cuts. Funding dedicated to ICT infrastructure cannot be redirected to equipment for strategic competition.
We believe that Defence has an opportunity to focus on readiness and develop uniform and civilian capability to be available to respond to the associated risks across the digital domain in Australia. Procurement, access to data, quantum computing, talent and governance are some critical areas to be prioritised.
Procurement needs to be faster. This will allow Defence to keep pace with the rate of technological change and the opportunities presented by AI and digital connectivity. The Australian people will always expect strong governance over mega projects, and a sustainable accelerated pathway should be developed where increased risk can be managed to deliver capability more quickly, particularly in the new domains where technology is evolving faster than traditional procurement methods can cope.
To achieve decision superiority, Defence needs to prioritise investment in the ICT enterprise systems. These are the organisational spine enabling the analysis and secure dissemination of all-source intelligence in real-time to leaders from the terabytes of data harvested from Defence systems.
Quantum computing will render western encryption and communications with our five-eyes partners ineffective, as quantum computing accelerates from the experimental to operational phase in the next five to seven years. This impact goes well beyond the traditional functions within Defence and national security. Banking, stock exchanges and e-commerce will be similarly vulnerable, and Defence should lead national efforts to anticipate and respond to its challenges.
Australia is in a global war for talent to develop and staff advanced digital systems. We cannot rely on others to grow the talented staff we need. A digital academy for both Defence and the APS would upskill and expand the public service workforce, expanding the training to include all facets of technology required to evaluate, procure and manage services from industry.
The uniformed services of the Australian Defence Force are already heavily stretched to meet some of the greatest challenges our region has faced since World War II so new partners are needed to help achieve the rate of change needed to stay ahead of the threat. Embracing industry partners who are willing to stand alongside the men and women of Defence to develop the systems we need should be a key recommendation of the Defence Strategic Review.
The governance of any investment is fundamental to achieving the aims of the Review. It is, for this reason, we believe that a National Industry Advisory Board should be established quickly.
Such a board could review and advise whether proposals are achievable and can be delivered.
To ensure that it has breadth of expertise, it should include Australian and global experts with defence, industry, ICT and cyber expertise and be mobilised as quickly as possible.
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