Australia’s 2026 National Defence Strategy (NDS) has advanced a strategy of denial with the focus being on deterrence as ‘Defence’s primary strategic objective’. The underwater domain is, and will increasingly be, a critical consideration. It will rely on the industry that supports this domain and industrial participation will therefore be a key factor in Australia’s deterrence strategy. The session will argue that deterrence requires a belief that a Nation is resilient and that resilience requires a sovereign capability and therefore a sovereign Industry. This Industry will need to be resilient through, science, innovation, research, development, design, production, sustainment, improvement and eventually disposal.

Critical to sovereignty will be the need for Australian science and innovation. The session will use a particular research example to explain the need for science, the facilities and innovative approaches necessary for research and use an example to demonstration the type of approach necessary to lead in the underwater domain.

Framed against the 2026 National Defence Strategy and the Integrated Investment Program, the session moves between the strategic architecture of national resilience and the affordable, replicable, sovereign capability that gives it substance.

Overall, the session will explore ideas around building and improving a National Resilience Model.