17 December 2025

It is an honour to be here in Tokyo today: to speak to you about the Australian Army’s friendship with Japan, and about the role of land power in deterring conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

At first glance, Japan and Australia seem very different, distant countries.  The casual observer might say that our two nations have little in common.

I was born and raised in Perth in Western Australia.  One of the world’s most beautiful cities, it is also one of the most isolated.

The next closest city is Adelaide, over 2,000kms away.  The land between the two - known as the Nullarbor Plain - is arid and unforgiving … endless desert that defies the imagination and challenges the senses.  

Only a few thousand hardy Australians live on this plain, a life-style that has changed only a little this last hundred years.

Perth, and the Nullarbor Plain, feel a long way from Tokyo … and not just in distance.  Tokyo is a mega-city, in every sense of the term.  The whole population of Australia, all 27 million of us, could fit in the Greater Tokyo Area, and there would still be space for all 5 million New Zealanders to join.  

Australians and Japanese use different alphabets, and our languages have different roots.  Our art and architecture are wholly distinct from each other.  I travelled from summer to winter to get here.

And yet, the casual observer would be wrong.  Despite all these differences, we are two nations that seem remarkably alike, in our tone, character and outlook.  The peoples of Australia and Japan seem instinctively comfortable with each other, wherever we meet.  

I feel entirely at home here, no matter the distance from Perth.  This is thanks to you, your hospitality, your warm welcome, your enduring friendship and the depth of trust built through shared experience these past few years.

And I know that our soldiers, Australian and Japanese, feel increasingly confident, connected and strong when they stand side by side in the Indo-Pacific.

I contend there are three aspects that connect us together, as both soldiers and citizens of our nations.

The first aspect is shared, and indeed interconnected, interests.  

We are both great trading nations, particularly with each other.  Japan is regularly Australia’s third-largest trading partner, and Japanese investment in Australia often exceeds a quarter of a trillion dollars each year.

In return, Australia provides around a third of Japan’s energy needs, with up to eight hours of Japan’s daily energy consumption coming from Australian sources.

As island nations, albeit of very different sizes, we share a common reliance on the sea for our national wellbeing.  Over 99% of both Australian and Japanese trade from across the world moves in and out of our countries on commercial shipping, and via ports.

It is no surprise, therefore, that we share a common interest in the freedom of navigation, and in a maritime-centric defence strategy.  The ocean is, and has always been, the lifeblood of our nations.

These shared interests are underpinned by shared values.  Both Japan and Australia seek a peaceful and stable world, one where nations resolve their differences through agreed rules and norms, rather than through violence.

We agree on what the future should look like.  Australia was one of the first to adopt the Japanese idea of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’, an artful phrase that continues to capture our shared vision for the region.

As democracies, we are inherently defensive in our military strategies and transparent about our military investments.  

We share a determination that no country should succeed in achieving its regional objectives through coercion, or through using military force.

We resolve our issues at the negotiating table, not at the barrel of a gun.

Japan’s commitment to this vision, and your investment in underwriting a peaceful region through defence transformation, is admirable.  We thank you for it.  Japan is on the right course, and Australia needs you to succeed.

The third aspect that connects us is that we, as armies, share the common value proposition of land power in the Indo-Pacific in the 21st Century.  

To us as soldiers this is the most important of the three, in helping us achieve our shared goals.

The land power we generate as armies offers, I believe, five advantages that can help deter conflict in the region.

The first advantage is presence.  Our soldiers are deeply connected to the societies we serve, and we tend to be weaved into and throughout that society.

The Australian Army I am privileged to steward is present in 157 bases across the full breadth of Australia.  As a national institution, we support and underpin the resilience of the nation: a symbol of stability in a crisis.  

I know the five regional armies of the Ground Self-Defence Force do the same.

This national presence is important.  But Australian soldiers are also increasingly present across the Indo-Pacific region, working with like-minded armies to express shared will, shared commitment, and resilience in the face of natural disaster, coercion or aggression.

This presence is supported by the second advantage: our persistence.  Strong partnerships and relationships do not come quickly: they are built patiently, over time.  

Our soldiers are the ultimate all-terrain, all-weather asset, able to persist in their presence both at home and across the region.

Should conflict emerge, I contend that armies are also amongst the most survivable of forces.  The Australian Army is re-learning the art of fighting and hiding in the ‘clutter’ of the littoral, an environment that challenges the ‘technological edge’ of the most advanced militaries.

We are hard to find, and even harder to dislodge and defeat.

Our ability to survive, to persist, and then to prevail is one of land power’s greatest strengths.

The third advantage is asymmetry.  This is our ability to apply the strengths of land power against the weaknesses of adversaries, ideally in ways in which they cannot respond.

The anti-access / area-denial systems that predominate in parts of our region are optimised to target ships, planes and infrastructure.  Land forces, set in the defence and hiding among the clutter of the land and the electro-magnetic spectrum, are far harder to identify and target.

The evidence is building that our cutting-edge, land-based long-range strike capabilities are creating genuine dilemmas for those seeking to manoeuvre with aggression in the region.  

This has clear value for defensive strategies such as those of Japan and Australia, where even modest ground formations can create disproportionate challenges, if those formations are well-placed, carefully-fortified and well-provisioned.

Fourth is versatility.  I contend that land forces are among the most versatile of military forces.  

Any well-trained and equipped Army unit or formation can achieve a wide-range of military tasks, from combat to humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

They can adapt between tasks with minimal notice, and with limited re-equipping: able to escalate or de-escalate as the situation demands.

This versatility is all the more important in our region, where the ‘tyranny of distance’ dominates and must be overcome.

The Army I am privileged to steward considers this versatility to be vital, so much so that we have placed the concept of ‘continual adaptation’ at the very core of our transformation.

And finally, but by no means least, is value.  When you aggregate the benefits of presence, persistence, asymmetry, and versatility, it becomes clear that armies offer a significant return on investment.

Some of this is about value for money, which is of course always important in the considerations of the cost of national defence.

But it is also about the collective value of land power amongst allies and partners in our shared region.  

It is about the capacity of our soldiers to build relationships, to underpin trust between nations, to deter conflict, and ultimately to maintain a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’.

These five advantages of land power connect our armies together.  Yes, we may employ them differently, but they form a common mindset and approach that we can use to defend our shared interests.  

And we are becoming increasingly practised at doing so together.  I consider our combined exercises of 2025 to be signature successes in achieving our common strategic goals for the region.

Australian soldiers came to Japan this year for Exercise Orient Shield, bringing with them the tools of their trade … their weapons and ordnance … for the first time in generations.  

The 1st (Australian) Division’s involvement in Exercise Yama Sakura is now well proven, helping us to see the region in the same way, and to consider Corps-level planning with a common mindset.

And exercises in Australia, including Exercise Talisman Sabre as our nation’s pre-eminent combined and joint training event, have demonstrated to all the remarkable capabilities of the Japanese Ground Self-Defence Force.  

Soldiers from the 7th Surface to Ship Missile Regiment firing three Type 12 SSMs, all of which accurately struck their maritime targets with the support of precision data from the Australian Defence Force.  

Armoured units of the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade conducting complex amphibious lodgements alongside Australian and US forces, proving our collective ability to synchronise and project force into the littoral.

The Middle Army’s 37th Regiment executing enduring operations under demanding combat conditions over several weeks, including hundreds of kilometres of manoeuvre and live fire, on Exercise Southern Jackaroo.

This new sophistication of our combined training is no temporary measure: it is the pattern of the future.  We are now beginning to realise the full potential of the Reciprocal Access Agreement between our two countries, and what it might offer.

And of course we take these steps as armies supported by another common benefit: our separate but complimentary alliances with the United States.  

The US Army in the Pacific is the foundation of the ‘Strategic Land Power Network’ that I believe personifies both our shared will and cohesion, and the value of land power in deterring conflict and maintaining the peace.  Long may our collective relationships continue.

So, to conclude, I want to return briefly to the last time we stood together as armies, at the LANPAC conference in Hawaii in May.  

I spoke in my keynote then of the agency of middle powers.  I reflected back two and a half millennia, to the Peloponnesian Wars, and to the role played by allies and partners in navigating the tensions and frictions of great power competition.

The important conclusion from that history is that middle powers have agency.  

Australia and Japan are two influential middle powers which anchor the Indo-Pacific … Japan in the north, and Australia in the south.  

We are nations more alike in character, and in our views of the world, than the casual observer would recognise.

Together we are island nations, guarded and sustained by the sea.  Our geography is complementary to each other’s interests, Japan protecting vital lines of communication, and Australia offering both strategic depth and space to train with allies and partners.

Our armies share a common value proposition of land power in the Indo-Pacific in the 21st Century.  

It now falls to us collectively to use this land power to deter conflict: to ensure no nation seeks to achieve its goals through coercion, or through the use of military force.

I know that we will seek to do this as friends, stood alongside other great nations in the region that also seek a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’.

I looks forward to serving with you in this honourable goal.  Thank you.