Cost of Defence’s roadmap for spending 3 percent of GDP on defence (Marc Ablong – The Strategist)

The current debate on Defence funding, sparked by our 29 May report The Cost of Defence: ASPI Defence budget brief 2025–2026, and a subsequent US request for Australia to spend more, has swung between a call for increasing funding as a percentage of GDP and a call for making individual funding decisions on specific capabilities that the nation needs. As demonstrated by The Cost of Defence, both sides of that debate are, in fact, right. The report set out specific and necessary capability recommendations that would immediately require spending of at least 3 percent of GDP. That ratio is not merely arbitrary; it has concrete justification.

Cost of Defence’s roadmap for spending 3 percent of GDP on defence | The Strategist