Australia can no longer rely on its geographic isolation to protect it from conflict, retired Major-General Mick Ryan AM has warned.
“Distance does not give us the security we once had,” he told the Reveille 2026 defence investment conference at the Gold Coast.
Ryan delivered the message during his keynote address, “The Speed of War,” at the start of the event where he described the “three ‘A’s of modern warfare”: Autonomous systems (drones and counter drone tech), Artificial intelligence, and Adaptation.
Ryan pointed to BRAVE1–an online platform launched by Ukraine’s government that brings together manufacturers and investors to rapidly create new weapons.
One example of this speed was how Ukraine’s armed forces doubled the range of its missiles in the span of just four years.
In 2022, it struck Russia’s Engels-2 air base, about 650 kms from the Ukrainian border.
By 2026, Ukraine’s missiles were able to hit targets about 1,750 kilometres away.
Major-General Ryan further pointed to growing risks posed by adversaries of the West, notably China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK).
He said allies in the CRINK axis were collaborating on industrial production and sharing knowledge, arguing Australia needs to be faster at adapting to warfare.
Reveille brought together investors, defence leaders, and industry representatives.
Hosted by Beaten Zone Venture Partners, the event was created to encourage greater private investment into Australia’s defence sector and connect Australian companies with investors from the USA, UK, and continental Europe.
Beaten Zone founder and tech entrepreneur Steve Baxter argued that Australia needs more private capital flowing into defence/national security technologies, saying the conference was intended to bring investors closer to companies developing weapons.
“There’s a hesitancy amongst the Australian investment community to back defence-centric businesses,” Baxter told The Epoch Times.
“Everyone is taking defence a lot more seriously … Australia is behind the curve.”
Entrepreneurs working across hypersonics, autonomous systems, AI, robotics, and space technology were among those represented at the conference.
Tim Neale, co-founder of agriculture company, DataFarming, also attended to explore how technologies developed for defence could also be applied to agriculture.
“We see that new technology goes across different industries, and a lot of the technology that we use in agriculture has actually come from defence,” Neale said.
He pointed to satellite imagery, GPS guidance, and communications systems as examples of technology with broader application.
“Automation is big in agriculture,” Neale said. “Remote sensing, automation, robotics, AI. It’s all the same but just in a different context.”
“We’re seeing opportunities for collaboration, particularly around the USA., because I think the U.S. is really where the capital lies, and we don’t have enough capital in Australia,” he said.
“So, it’s really about how do we access that and work together.”
This dual-purpose opportunity to improve our defence capabilities as well as agricultural productivity should appeal to potential investors as it provides a broad-based market for products and systems produced with their money.
And it comes at an important time as China emerges as a growing serious threat to our nation’s security.
China is undertaking the biggest conventional and nuclear military build-up globally since World War 2, fundamentally reshaping the Indo-Pacific balance of power.
Its rapid military build-up and strategic projection pose significant indirect and direct security concerns for Australia, although many experts believe that an outright physical invasion remains unlikely.
Nonetheless, China possesses the naval capacity to disrupt vital Australian maritime trade routes running through regional chokepoints like the Indonesian archipelago.
This would lead to Australia literally running out of diesel, petrol, jet fuel and oil within just a few weeks!
Australia is structurally dependent on foreign oil, importing about 90% of its refined fuel. While much of this fuel is processed in major Asian refining hubs like South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia, the physical transport routes are a major vulnerability.
Roughly 83% of Australia’s maritime imports travel through or around Indonesia’s archipelagic sea lanes, such as the Lombok, Sunda, and Malacca straits.
And we are currently maintaining some of the lowest domestic oil stockpiles among developed nations. Current physical reserves generally sit at around 30 to 40 days of normal consumption for diesel, petrol, and jet fuel.
China also retains robust capabilities to execute advanced cyber operations targeting critical Australian infrastructure and to sever essential undersea communication cables.
While a direct landmass invasion is not anticipated, developments like the DF-27 intermediate-range ballistic missile and regional military outposts mean northern Australia is within range of conventional missile threats.
Despite all these obvious threats, the Albanese government is doing virtually nothing to improve our immediate defence capabilities. All its plans are 10-20 years into the future when it could well be too late.
Their left-wing ideology demands that ‘saving the planet’- with its ridiculous net zero obsession – is more important than ensuring the safety and security of Australians.
And this is despite the fact that nothing we do as a nation will have any impact on global CO2 emissions as we only produce just over 1% of those emissions.
Thanks to Jerry Zhu writing for The Epoch Times. Images are courtesy of Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images, SMH and Australia Defence Association
