Opinion | Why Australia’s northern region is gaining strategic importance amid US-China rivalry

There are several challenges making Australia’s national security strategy more complicated these days – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the impacts of climate change, its green energy transition and economic uncertainty.

But at the top of this list is Beijing’s increasing influence in the region and intensifying competition between China and the United States.

In this context, the nine-month-old Anthony Albanese government will soon release a defence strategic review. It is unclear if this will be followed by a more holistic examination of Australia’s national security interests, such as the integrated review conducted in Britain two years ago, or the regular national security strategy in the US.

But it does not take a formal document like this for Australia to further invest in the kind of grand strategic thinking demanded by contemporary challenges. Grand strategy can capture, as the UK scholars Andrew Ehrhardt and Maeve Ryan argue, “a conscious attempt to look beyond the confines of short-term requirements of national defence or day-to-day, immediate foreign policy, and to the pursuit of national interests in a more systematic and synchronised way”.

Developing this type of thinking requires a focus on the long-term place of our key alliances – such as the new Aukus alliance with the US and Britain – as well as regional partners. But it must also consider the domestic context of our security, such as the role of important regional centres around Australia.