The United States’ and Israel’s military operations against Iran highlight the importance of the Australian Defence Force’s long-range strike and power projection capabilities. The operations also reinforce the need for developing Australia’s naval forces around acquisition of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines and expanding the surface fleet.
Both priorities are being addressed—the former through AUKUS and the latter through the outcome of the 2024 Fleet Review, which recommended expansion to a surface fleet of 26 ships. From that review, the current government announced in August 2025 a decision to acquire 11 frigates of Japan’s upgraded Mogami class. These will significantly enhance the navy’s ability to operate forward in the Indo-Pacific. And although we must wait until the 2030s to see the first nuclear-powered submarines and the expansion of the frigate fleet, the navy is heading in the right direction to ensure the defence of the maritime commons so vital to Australia’s prosperity.
The campaign in Iran illustrates the importance of traditional hard power, notably in the form of carrier strike groups, which are applying naval air power and long-range land attack missiles to hit Iranian targets while staying beyond Iran’s reach. While Australia isn’t likely to invest in traditional aircraft carriers, and the strategic geography of the Middle East is very different to Australia’s area of primary military interest, the ability of surface ships to undertake precision strike is essential for the country’s strategy of denial. This strategy is the basis for defence policy under the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and the 2024 National Defence Strategy and probably will be in the coming 2026 National Defence Strategy.
Power projection is now much more relevant for Australia. In a statement at the ASPI 2025 Defence Conference, the chief of the defence force, Admiral David Johnston said:
… Perhaps finally we are having to reconsider Australia as a homeland from which we conduct combat operations. That is a very different way—almost since the Second World War—of how we think of national resilience and preparedness. We might need to operate and conduct operations from this country—everything from our northern infrastructure, our supply chains.
That reinforces the importance of northern Australia to our security, and it also highlights that our strategic environment now requires the ADF to move beyond focusing on a notional strategic moat of the sea-air gap to the north of Australia. Geography no longer protects us from near-term threats as China develops its own power projection capability across multiple operational domains. This is perhaps best highlighted by China’s two naval deployments in 2025. In one, a flotilla that included a unit of China’s most powerful surface-combatant class, the Type 055 Renhai class, circumnavigated the continent. The other included an amphibious assault ship of the Type 075 Yushen class.
China thereby signalled to Australia its intent to undertake blue water naval operations in far seas, with the goal of projecting power and influence. It also showed China’s ability to threaten vital sea lanes of communication that Australia depends on.
In confronting a challenge such as that posed by China, it is best for the Royal Australian Navy and the ADF more broadly to seek to project power forward from the sea-air gap in our northern approaches. Ideally, it would do this as part of a coalition.
In fact, the sea-air gap to the north should be seen not as a front line but as a main rear area from which the ADF, across a multi-domain operational environment, can project power forward. The aim would be to deny an adversary the chance to project power against us.
In the same way that US naval forces now project power against Iran, the RAN, with the nuclear-powered submarines as the tip of the spear and supported from the air, from space and cyberspace and from the littoral, should project effect decisively against a threat before that threat can be employed against Australia itself. We should seek to shoot the archer before he releases his arrow. That demands power projection of the type, if not the magnitude, that we are seeing arrayed against Iran.
Certainly, there is much work to be done on how different types of capabilities can contribute to this role. In a multi-domain operational environment, the ADF must aspire to capabilities including long-range air power and precision strike, advanced autonomous systems and resilient command, control, communications, surveillance and intelligence. Sea power alone is not a solution.
But the importance of naval forces—and specifically a larger and more powerful navy, including advanced surface combatants and nuclear submarines—will allow sustained forward presence and that’s vital for deterrence by denial.
The strategic geography of our region is maritime and archipelagic, structured around strategically important island chains. Naval forces that Australia is seeking to develop will allow Australia to undertake impactful projection necessary for deterrence by denial along these island chains, defend vital sea lanes of communication, and work with allies to constrain the ability of China to project power against us coercively.
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