Australia has developed a balance of power grand strategy that will be of a scale “sufficient…to deter aggression and coercion” and generate “a strategic equilibrium”.

Such a grand strategy assumes that others can be stopped from achieving their ambitions by being as, or more, powerful than them.

Power is gained by building up military and economic power, by forming collective defence alliances with others, or by doing both.

This grand strategy is clearly focused at the great power level and implicitly at China.

The balance of power grand strategy is steadily being implemented.

Diplomatically, AUKUS is strengthening the US alliance and UK partnership. Internally, Canberra is hardening societal resilience by criminalising foreign interference, blocking specific foreign telecom firms, toughening foreign investment laws, strengthening critical infrastructure regulations and countering misinformation and disinformation actions.

Looking beyond the great powers, Australia has also devised an engagement strategy focused on middle and smaller powers. This grand strategy involves working with others to achieve common goals.

Australia will work with Southeast Asia and the Pacific “to enhance our collective security and prosperity”. Supporting regional states to be more resilient to outside pressures aligns with a balance-of-power grand strategy.

In recent years Australia reached numerous bilateral and multilateral economic agreements with Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, India, Japan and South Korea.

Australia also aims for greater trade and investment with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the two sides have deepened ties with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and its associated Aus4ASEAN Futures Initiative.

The two grand strategies are ‘mutually reinforcing’. Having different strategies to achieve different outcomes is necessary as a single grand strategy cannot achieve all a state seeks and combining them has proven problematic.

The balance of power grand strategy will not solve the problem of a possible great power war. Instead, the strategic equilibrium must be maintained indefinitely until the risk of major war fades.

Australia has little control over what the great powers do, meaning its grand strategy must maintain a high level of defence expenditure and industry as well as a focus on major high-technology wars.

Australia is effectively trapping itself within a narrow range of possible domestic and foreign policy options.

On the other hand, a great power war in the region is critically important to avoid. Reduced autonomy in the international system may be a price worth paying.

The engagement grand strategy brings its own complications. Australia’s new trade and investment strategy with Southeast Asia needs a whole-of-nation effort.

It calls for better Southeast Asia literacy across Australia’s business, government, education and community sectors, proposing sectoral business missions to the region, more capable business chambers, deeper SME links with the region, more professional exchanges and internships, and for Australia to be a substantial regional investor using monies from its corporations, capital markets, national savings and superannuation funds.

The two grand strategies set out a path, even if their success is uncertain. More definite, is that over time they will impact all Australians.

* Dr Peter Layton is a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the author of the book, Grand Strategy, available here from Amazon.