Australia is vulnerable to attack: War expert sounds alarm as defence probe is launched into country's weaknesses for first time in 80 years

Published: 02:22, 10 August 2026 | Updated: 02:22, 10 August 2026 Australia has been warned the country is vulnerable to attacks for at least the next ten years as an urgent defence probe is launched into the nation's weaknesses. Former Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs Mike Pezzullo told Daily Mail that the decade-long wait for major defence programs such as AUKUS to come online placed Australia in a 'window of vulnerability'. If war were to break out in the region - specifically between China and the US - it would likely spell disaster for Australia, with some predictions putting a Pacific-based conflict as soon as 18 months away. 'All of our defence programs are geared to the building of quite a significant force that arrives from the 2030s onwards, which means for a ten-year window where the kinds of capabilities that will help protect us simply won't be around,' Pezzullo said.  'There's a window of vulnerability opening up - (former Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd has a theory that (Chinese President) Xi Jinping might decide to move on Taiwan after the Taiwanese presidential elections in January 2028 - that's 18 months away.'  The warning comes off the back of an announcement last week that a new parliamentary committee will probe Australia's civil defence preparedness for the first time since World War II. Its objectives will include an assessment of how crucial goods and services - such as fuel, medicine, and food supplies - can continue to flow into society during a prolonged conflict.  'It's been observed that really this is not something that we have done in Australia, probably since the Second World War,' Defence Minister Richard Marles said, addressing reporters last Thursday in Darwin.  Mike Pezzullo warns Australia is opening a 'window of vulnerability' for at least the next ten years Australia has geared its defence planning around American-built nuclear submarines procured under the AUKUS agreement - but before they arrive, Australia is extra vulnerable to attack 'It is simply a prudent means by which we think about the way in which our civilian economy, our private economy, would interact with the defence force in the event of any contingency. 'We want to look at what world's best practice is, see how we can walk down this path better.'  Pezzullo said that the probe was important as a prolonged conflict would be like the 'Covid pandemic x 1000' for Australians.  'Unlike the pandemic that can be subject to a certain degree of control …. war presents a different challenge altogether because your adversary has a consciousness, a will and an ability to hurt you and anticipate how you might react and be ready to hurt you again,' he said. 'Even if war is a ten per cent chance to happen - at that level of probability you would insure your house for longer odds than that.'    China claims that US-allied Taiwan is a renegade breakaway province that is part of its sovereign territory; Jinping has repeatedly vowed to 're-unify' the island with the mainland and has not ruled out the possibility of military force. A Chinese takeover of Taiwan could bring the US into direct conflict with China, given Taiwan's strategic importance to Washington's Pacific influence.  Such a conflict would almost certainly embroil Australia, with American troops currently stationed at several points around Australia, including Perth, Darwin, and Pine Gap. Experts say China could launch an invasion of Taiwan as soon as 2028 'It wouldn't necessarily be the case that Australian forces were committed to going north and fighting in the seas around Taiwan, but it might be that if America decides to confront China, American forces based in Australia could well be drawn into the conflict, which of course then means we potentially become a target,' Pezzullo said. 'Our ports might get mined, and if missile strikes came into our airbases our internet cables might be cut - so military defence and civil defence can become somewhat blurred.' Pezzullo said that, despite the tensions, he thought it was likely the US and China would step back from any full-blown conflict, but that there could be increasingly perilous flashpoints, mirroring the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 'My gut tells me that we're more likely to see a crisis such as the Cuban Missile Crisis (in 1962),' he said. 'The question then is, does it go to the next step and do people start pressing buttons? My gut tells me that before that finger hits the button, people will think "There's got to be a better way". 'We've never conducted that live experiment (of two nuclear powers firing warheads at each other) in the history of the planet, and hopefully we never will.' Pezzullo's comments came as another former Prime Minister - Malcolm Turnbull - prepared to address a non-parliamentary public inquiry into the AUKUS agreement on what to do if the nuclear submarines procured under the AUKUS agreement failed to arrive. In a submission provided in advance to the Sydney Morning Herald, Turnbull said that Australia was risking 'a period of zero submarine capability', given concessions by officials that the three submarines procured will likely not be delivered on time.  Chinese President Xi Jinping has insisted he wants to 're-unify' Taiwan with mainland China 'This would be the most serious failure of Australian defence planning in modern history,' he said.  'AUKUS will stand us very good stead in the 40s, 50s, and 60s ... but more immediately, we really need more drones,' Pezzullo said. 'Not necessarily the drones you see in Ukraine, because they tend to be fighting over a land border, whereas we have an ocean, but the philosophy is still the same … we need lots of them, they need to be rapidly produced and distributed widely.'