Australia must learn from past guerrilla insurgencies and adopt an “unconventional deterrence” policy in facing down threats from China, Russia and elsewhere, one of the country’s leading think tanks said Wednesday.

Australia, under the tripartite AUKUS pact with the United States and the United Kingdom, will acquire at least three Virginia class submarines from the United States within 15 years, with an eye to eventually build its own.

Until then Canberra faces a major gap in its defences, warned the report by the non-partisan Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which receives funding from Canberra’s defence ministry as well as the US State Department.

“Australia’s traditional reliance upon ‘great and powerful friends’ and extended nuclear deterrence now seems no longer assur

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