Australia needs a new strategy to guide its defense planning

Rebecca Strating is a professor of international relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne and director of La Trobe Asia. Nick Bisley is dean of the university's School of Humanities and Social Sciences and a professor of international relations.

The Australian government laid out plans last month to more than double its naval surface fleet as part of a major overhaul of the nation's maritime war-fighting capacity with the express goal of attaining "enhanced lethality."