Australia's new Defence Minister, David Johnston, says he wants to keep the military battle-ready for further possible conflicts in the unstable Middle East and south Asia.

Senator Johnston said that after 14 years of involvement in overseas conflicts from East Timor to Afghanistan, the Australian Defence Force had a strong fighting momentum that should not be lost as troops return from Afghanistan.

Defence Minister David Johnston. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

In an interview with Fairfax Media, he said he plans to maintain and ''augment our readiness'' for future fights, which will most likely be in the unstable region stretching from Pakistan to the Levant, including even fresh trouble in Afghanistan.

''It will be Pakistan across to Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan. That's the area where there will be instability and that's the area that we might need to go back into at some point in the future.