Australia’s defense strategy should ‘deter coercion’

Sky News | April 24, 2023

Retired Major General Gus McLachlan says Australia’s current defense strategy deters aggression and has done so for a “long time” but it should go a “step further” and “deter coercion”.

“I think deterrence has been at the core of our defense strategy for a long time; those people who say we’re preparing for a land invasion of Australia from China are missing the point,” Mr McLachlan told Sky News Australia.

“The whole point of a defense force is to deter aggression towards Australia and this set of priorities does that. I would like to take it to have seen it go one step further and that would be to deter coercion of Australia.”