A new agenda for national security

/in

Release of ASPI Special Report  

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new Special Report on Australia’s national security. Defining national security priorities in the current international environment is a complicated task. National security concepts that focus on military threats and responses are no longer sufficient to deal with the range of security risks that Australia faces in this new environment.  This paper addresses four critical questions highlighting the key challenges for the Australian Government as it seeks to implement a national security agenda: 

  • What is the definition of national security?
  • Why do emerging security issues such as organised crime, pandemic diseases and climate change pose a national security risk?
  • How have other countries such as Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom approached national security planning?
  • What bureaucratic changes are necessary in Australia in order to deal with the contemporary security environment?

 In answering these questions, the paper puts forward a number of recommendations including the publication of an annual security risk assessment and the creation of a single national security budget to be administered by the new Office of National Security. Author Dr Carl Ungerer says ‘At its core, the concept of a national security policy requires governments to think about three interrelated questions; the trajectory of the international and domestic security environment and its implications for the modern democratic state; judgements about the likely probability and consequences of events across the emerging threat spectrum; and the range and combination of policy instruments needed to meet those risks today and into the future’.