We’re Not in Peacetime Anymore – So Why Are We Still Acting Like It?

24 June 2025 | By: Rachel Falzon

The world is hurtling toward a geopolitical inflection point, and yet, inside too many rooms, it’s still business as usual.

We’ve heard for years that Australia’s ten-year strategic warning time is no longer reliable. But unless those words are immediately followed by action, they’re just noise. The clock has already run down, and we’re pretending we still have time.

Where is the urgency? Where is the sustained, deliberate focus?

We should be seeing plans that span the short, medium, and long term, plans that reflect the gravity of the moment. Instead, we’re still treating capability development as if we’re operating on pre-crisis timelines. We’re not. The luxury of time has passed.

This is not peacetime, no matter how comfortably we pretend it is. Threat actors are moving fast, adapting faster and leveraging every weakness, be they bureaucratic, industrial or psychological.

Don’t tell me about the innovation showcase happening in six months. Show me what’s happening today, tomorrow and every day after that. Defence innovation must be agile, continuous, and responsive to real-time threats and not scheduled around calendar-year milestones.

Right now, we’re discussing future capability scenarios with the tone and pace of a five-year procurement cycle. But the threats are on our door step.

The disconnect between situational awareness and institutional action is widening by the day. And that gap could be the difference between deterrence and disaster.

This moment, right now, will be the one that determines how prepared, how resilient and how secure we truly are.

Our strategic behaviours, planning frameworks and political will must reflect the era we are in, not the one we wish we were in.

We don’t need more warning time commentary. We need leadership.