If the army’s emerging littoral force is to become effective, the government must create an integrated northern logistics system from military and civilian capabilities.
The Australian Army Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2026 sets out the army’s shift towards littoral manoeuvre and long-range strike across Australia’s northern land and maritime approaches. The army is acquiring new landing craft, long-range battlefield firepower, upgraded armoured vehicles and helicopters, and deployable health and logistics systems. It is also developing or expanding northern bases, infrastructure and regional industry.
But these components do not yet have anything like a complete northern logistics system. The issue is not simply whether Defence has enough infrastructure, but whether the distribution network connects effectively with the civilian and commercial capacity that it relies on. The effectiveness of northern logistics will depend on how these elements work together to move, sustain and regenerate a dispersed force.
This is the next step from my recent analysis of Australia’s northern theatre logistics distribution gap, which examined the challenge of moving military capability from Australia’s industrial and sustainment base into the northern theatre.
ASPI has today released my new report, Making the littoral force operational: The logistics of Australia’s Northern Theatre, which takes the next step, examining what is required to sustain and operate that force once it reaches the north. It examines the northern theatre as a single logistics system, encompassing the principal operating nodes in Darwin, Townsville and northwestern Australia, with supporting depth in Brisbane and potentially Alice Springs and central Queensland.
The army’s northern force will be geographically dispersed. It will need to move across sea, shore and inland environments and remain effective when individual routes, facilities or supply chains are unavailable. That makes logistics an integral part of operational capability, rather than simply an enabling function. Much of that system sits outside Defence.
The Australian Defence Force, allies and regional partners operating in northern Australia depend on civilian and commercial capacity, including ports, fuel, transport, maintenance, engineering, warehousing and workforce. Much of this capacity is shared with the civilian economy and cannot be rapidly expanded when military demand increases.
A port may have sufficient capacity for routine activity but not for a sustained surge. Fuel infrastructure may depend on limited supply routes. Roads and rail may support normal commercial activity but become constrained when civilian and military demand coincide. Maintenance capacity may support exercises but not sustained operations.
These are not separate logistics problems. They are interdependent parts of the same system and a constraint in one can reduce the capacity of the others.
An adversary can create disruption – and so can northern Australia’s climate. Wet-season conditions and cyclones can close routes and constrain access. In a contested environment, these disruptions could be compounded by long-range strike, cyber or electronic attack against Defence and civilian critical infrastructure.
The resilience of the northern logistics system will therefore depend on the capacity, redundancy and connectivity of its network. Darwin, Townsville and northwestern Australia will need to function as complementary operating nodes supported by logistics depth in Brisbane, while remaining connected to the civilian infrastructure, commercial services and supply chains that they depend on.
This does requires not disclosure of operationally sensitive information but sufficient clarity on the functions of major nodes, the movement and sustainment tasks they must perform and the capacity required to support them. This is important because much of this capacity cannot be created quickly. State and territory governments need to know Defence’s future requirements when planning roads, ports, industrial land, energy and workforce, while industry needs sufficient certainty about future sustainment demand to invest in regional maintenance, engineering, recovery, fabrication, transport and maritime services.
Occasional military exercises are unlikely to provide the certainty required for significant private sector investment. If industry is expected to provide capacity beyond exercises, it will need sustained demand, appropriate contracting arrangements, security and technical accreditation, and workforce pathways.
The army’s move towards littoral manoeuvre makes this increasingly urgent. New landing craft will expand the options for projecting combat power between land and sea, but equipment alone does not create operational reach. Their effectiveness will depend on the infrastructure, workforce and commercial capacity available to move, sustain and regenerate a geographically dispersed force across northern Australia.
Making the littoral force operational will depend on whether the northern logistics network can deliver the access, sustainment and resilience the force requires. That means developing the connections between Defence infrastructure, civilian capacity and industry as deliberately as the platforms and capabilities they are intended to support.
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