“If We Can’t Fix What We Fight With – We Don’t Own the Fight”: A Review of ‘No Higher Priority’ Through the Lens of an Engineer

by David Walter, Executive Director – Innovation & Strategy, Secora

A Practitioner's Perspective on a Strategic Provocation

I’ve spent much of my career in multiple industries not only undertaking asset centric acquisition conversations, but also execution and management of sustainment activities—where mission and commercial success, or failure, is often determined. This book is not just for defence, but many other industries I work within. So I read No Higher Priority with a practitioner’s lens around pragmatic possibilities.

Released after the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) and 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS), the book enters a national conversation already underway, and also in the election cycle. It was well timed for maximum sales volumes, and media discussions. But I found myself reflecting deeper into the technicalities—especially in the areas that, from personal experience, are most often undervalued: sustainment, local capability, and innovation at the tactical edge.

The book is not a technical manual that could be enacted, and is careful not to be a political rant. Whether meant to or not, I found it’s a call to rethink what “capability” really means. This is one point that I suspect will strongly resonates with those of us who’ve had to deliver it.

Three Takeaways That Hit Home (From the Inside Looking Out)

1. Sustainment Isn’t Support. It’s Strategy.

In my time working with platforms both at sea and ashore, it was clear that readiness isn’t just about what’s delivered from acquisition and commissioned—it’s about what stays working. The book elevates this idea: if we can’t repair or regenerate assets in-country, they’re not sovereign—they’re liabilities.

“We’ve confused ownership with access. Real capability is what we can use, fix, and evolve ourselves.”

I’ve seen first-hand how difficult it is to sustain advanced platforms without local tooling, supply chains, or delegated authority. That’s a strategic risk, and every risk is also an opportunity.

2. Procurement Needs to Reward Outcome, Not Just Oversight

The DSR already hints at the problem—slow acquisition, heavy reliance on foreign primes, and risk-averse contracting. No Higher Priority actually goes further. It argues for a cultural reset where procurement is an enabler of capability, not a gatekeeper of process.

From the engineer’s seat, I’ve often seen how innovative Australian firms get side-lined not because they can’t deliver, but because they don’t tick the legacy boxes. That’s not just unfair—it’s strategically short-sighted.

Local solutions may be smaller and without legacy—but they’re often faster, more responsive, and better aligned to operational need. The risk is also the opportunity.

3. Innovation Can’t Be Reserved for 2035

The NDS lays out a vision of long-term capability, especially under AUKUS and the missile enterprise. But No Higher Priority pushes for disruption now. It asks: what could we do within 12 months—not 12 years?

This really was a significant discussion from my perspective. As roads to failures have been paved with good intentions. I’ve seen how incremental changes at the sustainment level—smarter diagnostics, modular upgrades, or in-field fixes—can have outsized impact. This is not a unique challenge for defence, and all asset centric industries have this experience. Can real changes be implemented tomorrow, without massive reviews and transformation projects?  I say yes, and in doing so the innovation is actual in our strategically planned actions, and not a specific technology.

Not an Opposition to the DSR—But an Acceleration of It

This isn’t a binary debate. I don’t see No Higher Priority as replacing or contradicting the DSR or NDS. If anything, as I read it as complementing them by injecting urgency, pragmatism, and a sovereign-first mindset. As such, it is more of a challenging mindset change book than a expert advice or direction.

It invites the reader to:

• Rethink what meant by the abused term of “capability”

• Reframes local innovation as essential, not experimental or a cottage industry.

• Realigns the approach to procurement should be about speed and relevance, not just risk management (avoidance).

Final Reflection (Engineer to Engineer)

As engineers in asset centric businesses, many of us know what needs to change—but I am sure many of us felt constrained by process, precedent, and culture. No Higher Priority gives voice to those thoughts, but with policy, plans, processes and people targeting thought challenges.

For anyone who’s spent time in uniform, in engineering, operations, and/or sustainment: this book validates those lived experiences. However, if you choose to read it, it needs to be noted that it does tap into emotive elements, and in doing so the authors miss some of the complexity of change within a large bureaucratic, and traditionally cultured, organisations. In light of this, with a level of realisation, you will start to ask yourself – What if real capability is the ability to act, adapt, and recover – then why is that not the priority?

The future fight isn’t just about what’s on order. It’s about what we can sustain, here, now, with the talent and tools already available.

If we can’t fix what we fight with, we don’t own the fight.

And, that is my take away from this book.