The US Air Force is redesigning itself

The Resolute Force Pacific (Reforpac) exercise will be the largest US Air Force non-combat deployment in many years, with more than 300 aircraft involved. The two-week exercise in mid-2025 will coincide with the multinational, biennial, all-domain Talisman Sabre training event.

But it is also an important step in a radical redesign of the force, USAF Chief of Staff General David W Allvin told the Air Force Association Mitchell Institute’s first forum on future airpower on 13 November—one that includes new definitions that remove familiar terms like ‘contested’ and ‘permissive’ from the service’s vocabulary and may change its acquisition goals.

Since the end of the 1990s geopolitical unipolar moment, when the United States faced no real adversary, Allvin notes, the air force has ‘crowdsourced the fight’ to support prolonged operations in low-threat environments, pulling small units from 93 locations ‘because we didn’t want to break the bases.’

Reforpac will draw large forces from fewer units, to provide more intensive and realistic training. It’s a concept, he said, that was battle-tested in part when the USAF reinforced its Middle East strength after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

As air force leadership and the new Integrated Capabilities Command carry forward a process called Force Design, Reforpac is designed generate real-world experience. To keep Force Design focused on results, Allvin says, every question ends with ‘in order to do what?’

One lesson is already emerging: the US Air Force may not be able to afford to structure itself entirely around high-end (read: stealthy) aircraft and systems—and it may not need to. ‘If there are systems there that are less lethal,’ Allvin says, ‘they are there so that we don’t grind the others down facing a cost-imposition strategy.’

An air force can use mass, with uncrewed systems, to impose cost, Allvin adds. ‘Mass may be about having assets that must be addressed, to deplete the adversary’s inventory.’ That’s the theory behind one new effort, a low-cost long-range missile named Project Franklin (because it must be respected) based on an Defense Innovation Unit platform design.

This means big changes in future force structure and equipment plans: for 30 years, since the Desert Storm campaign against Iraq, the end of the Cold War, and the inception of the Joint Strike Fighter program, the USAF’s destination has been an all-stealth force—yet that is still decades away, the last F-35 delivery having slipped into the late 2040s.

No conclusions have been reached—for an Air Force futures conference, the discussion was astonishingly NGAD-free—but Allvin set down some principles for force design. ‘This is a design for the changing character of war. New geostrategic patterns or a new national defense strategy can emerge, and I don’t want people to leave here thinking this is an Indo-Pacific force design.’

Allvin’s principles include:

‘Take back the offensive. You can’t retreat to long range. You have to be able to fight close in, where the partners are.

‘Speed is imperative. The adversary will put effects in immediately. There will not be an iron mountain’—the informal term for massive, centralised supply dumps—‘and we need to disrupt and deny early.

‘Solve for agility. We’ve shown too much hubris about our ability to predict the future, even in our own technology base.’

Terms like ‘denied’, ‘contested’ and ‘permissive’ get lost in arguments over their meaning, and, Allvin says, ‘when you add fractional orbital bombardment systems and cyber, everything is contested.’

In the new force design lexicon, detailed in a document released on 15 November, the air force defines ‘mission area’ capabilities needed to respond to three threat bands, according to density, complexity and distance as mission areas.

—Mission Area 1 (MA1) capabilities can ‘live within and generate combat power from the dense threat area which will be under constant attack’ from missiles or drones.

—MA2 capabilities ‘operate from the defendable area of relative sanctuary beyond the umbrella of most adversary ballistic and cruise missiles … and project fires into highly contested environments.’

—MA3 capabilities ‘create the flexibility and mass to span a range of potential future crises … with positions resilient to limited adversary attack.’

‘It would be great to have all-MA1 forces,’ Allvin said, ‘but it costs too much.’  That point was underscored by Deputy Chief of Staff for Air Force Future MG Joseph Kunkel, whose portfolio includes Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) efforts: ‘If you plan for anything below MA1 as a lesser, included case, you have overkill in MA2 and MA3.’

The new concept is clearly aligned with CCA, but has implications in other areas. High-end platforms can be made more versatile. Doug Young, Northrop Grumman vice president of strike systems, noted that the open systems architecture of the B-21 bomber will support a wide variety of weapon loads, including mixed load-outs, and that the same capability is being retrofitted to the B-2.

The B-2, Young noted, could physically accommodate 240 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, but that was ‘a mission management problem’ when the aircraft was initially developed. We can, he suggested, look at ‘different choices’ now. (Think of eight cruise missiles coming out of one bay and 120 Franklins from the other.)

That capability could be part of a ‘joint long-range kill chain’ concept revealed by Lieutenant General David Harris, deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures. ‘We talked to the navy and realised we were both investing in the same stuff’ for long-range attack, Harris said, ‘and then we brought the Space Force in.’

Big ambitions. But Allvin’s immediate concern is that Reforpac can be funded, given the post-election turmoil in Washington. ‘I hope that we’re not on a continuing resolution next summer’—which occurs if no budget can be agreed on—‘so we can fund it properly.’

Training in Australia is a big chance for Japan. Let’s make it permanent

Valuable training in the Northern Territory for Japan’s key amphibious force from next year should be only a step towards more extensive use of Australian exercise areas by the Japanese armed forces.

Canberra should now offer Tokyo a permanent arrangement for Japanese armed forces to train in the Northern Territory, similar to the initiative for Singaporean troops training in Queensland.

The plan for the Japanese brigade to begin training in the Northern Territory was announced on 17 November during a meeting in Darwin of the three countries’ defence chiefs. Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), a marine unit of Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), will join the training and exercises held by the US Marine Rotational Force–Darwin (MRF-D) and the Australian Defence Force from 2025.

The ARDB incorporates Japan’s former Western Army Infantry Regiment, the dedicated amphibious warfare unit of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. It conducts a full range of amphibious operations and limited training with the US Marine Corps to enhance the skills and doctrine for retaking Japanese territory seized by a foreign power.

To support the ARDB, Japan has bought amphibious assault vehicles. It has also modernised ships for operating F-35B Lightning fighters and MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, both types also used by the USMC.

Peace in Japan since World War II and the country’s pacifist constitution have ensured that its armed forces haven’t fought a war for almost 80 years. Training opportunities of the highest quality are therefore even more important to them than they are for the militaries of other countries.

The Northern Territory provides the space and the multi-domain training that the JSDF needs to better prepare its soldiers and equipment for the battlefield. It is arguably the best place on this side of the world for the sort of unrestrained, combined-arms training the JSDF is seeking.

Japan’s training spaces are limited, because of the country’s high population density. Alternatives in the US don’t have the unique characteristics of the Northern Territory, which provides for multi-domain training across air, land, sea, space and cyberspace.

JSDF presence in the Northern Territory would also be useful in accelerating unilateral, bilateral and multilateral testing and evaluation for dual-use technologies. By adding Japanese systems to those that are already tested an evaluated in the Northern Territory, we can develop a larger and more robust private support industry.

It is good news that the first Japanese Joint Staff liaison officer will be placed in Australia’s Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) in November. Also welcome is the commitment to send an ADF liaison officer to JSDF Joint Operations Command (JJOC) once it is established in 2025.

Australia should continue the momentum of those announcements and focus on initiatives that build the people-to-people linkages.

Canberra should also offer Tokyo a permanent Japan-Australia Training Initiative located in the Northern Territory along similar lines to the long-standing Australia-Singapore Military Training Initiative (ASMTI) based in central and northern Queensland.

Under the ASMTI, Singapore has invested in the development and enhancement of two training areas in Queensland, owned and managed by Canberra. These will support future needs of the ADF and facilitate an increased presence of Singapore Armed Forces personnel. When the ASMTI reaches maturity, up to 14,000 Singaporean troops will train in Queensland for up to 18 weeks a year, split into two nine-week periods.

In deepening the engagement with Japanese forces, there will be political hurdles and challenges posed by public perception, but now is the time to think boldly and act quickly. Japan’s participation in US and Australian training in the Northern Territory has great potential to lead to a more extensive collaboration that’s beneficial to all parties.

To work with US on climate, focus on national security and economic ‘value propositions’

Even as the US is set to withdraw again from the Paris Agreement, and potentially the entire UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process, Australia can leverage its partnership with Washington to continue its support for strategically important climate efforts.

To do so, Australia must emphasise that the value propositions for US investments in a climate-resilient Indo-Pacific region are based in US national security and economic interests. It is far cheaper to prepare for future impacts than to react to increasingly intense and concurrent disasters. These investments will also ensure a more stable region less influenced by China’s own, often competing, investments.

This is easier said than done, but the goal is to use the next four years to build global resilience to intensifying climate impacts. The strategic and moral imperative of that goal means doing everything we can with the hand we’ve been dealt.

Early indications of the Trump administration’s approach to global climate resilience can be gleaned from Trump’s cabinet preferences and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy documents—if incoming officials do indeed heed them.

Ideologically motivated perspectives exist. This includes Trump’s choices for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who have both recently attacked climate as a security issue. Similarly, Project 2025 is critical of most US climate efforts, and includes recommendations that would damage US leadership in climate science.

So how can Australia and likeminded countries mitigate these risks and grasp opportunities?

Regardless of how loudly the administration might attack climate change as an ideological issue, key prospective officials seem to understand its relevance to national security—both in geopolitical competition and in adaptation for future climate impacts.

The geopolitical dimension will likely be important to keeping the US engaged on climate issues. The proposed national security advisor nominee, Mike Waltz, has been vocal about risks of depending on China for clean energy, particularly for critical-minerals supplies. As secretary of state, it’s clear that Marco Rubio will focus on holding China accountable for its responsibility to rapidly reduce its outsized and growing share of global emissions.

The national security case for adapting to climate impacts—traditionally less politicised than emission reductions—will also be apparent, regardless of whether it’s framed with climate-specific language. Rubio and Waltz have acknowledged the need to build resilience to climate-amplified disasters. As Floridians, they’ve seen first-hand the devastating effects of intensifying hurricanes and sea-level rise.

Even Project 2025’s chapter on foreign aid agency USAID, while advocating a wholesale redistribution of sources and engagement in the provision of aid, and cutting climate strategies and programs broadly, still says ‘USAID resources are best deployed to strengthen the resilience of countries that are most vulnerable to climatic shifts’. While it’s unlikely that an administration following Project 2025 will provide any support for multilateral climate finance programs, it could continue delivering bilateral and minilateral climate resilience investments.

Australia may have more in common with the US on climate than is apparent on first look, particularly with officials such as Waltz and Rubio. The Australian government will disagree on a broad range of issues with the new administration, including criticisms of climate science, the need for emission reductions, and the link between climate and national security.

We do not have the luxury of time to align on every issue, however, so we must advance mutual climate interests for the sake of a more resilient future. Identifying the specific areas where US national interests align with climate resilience can help deliver regional assistance where it’s needed most.

Many defence assets are exposed to climate impacts. Rising disasters at home and abroad will continue to distract the US military and its partners). Ignoring this will diminish military readiness and capability of the US and partners in the Indo-Pacific amid rising regional tensions.

Indo-Pacific geopolitics are sensitive to both climate impacts and investments in resilience. Pacific islands have long identified climate change as the greatest threat to their security. The US and partners such as Australia cannot take Pacific nations’ support for granted if they are left to deal with climate impacts on their own. They will increasingly turn to offers of support from alternatives, including China.

Southeast Asian countries are also vulnerable to climate impacts. The Philippines has just been hit by a sixth typhoon in a month, bringing this year’s total to 16—double the yearly average. As the Philippines’ secretary of defense noted at an event hosted by ASPI on 11 November, the annual cycle of responding and rebuilding after increasingly intense typhoons is costly.

He noted that this cycle affects the resources available for military priorities. He emphasised the importance of communicating the ‘value proposition’ for US support for the Philippines’ climate resilience. He referred not only to the strategic value of preparedness for military confrontation with China, but also the economic benefits of the Philippines acting as a hub for logistics and subsea cables.

This line of analysis will surely resonate with Rubio as secretary of state, who penned an essay in 2023 arguing for the importance of the US supporting the Philippines as it grappled with an increasingly threatening China in the South China Sea.

Advancing the economic value of climate resilience should also resonate with US national interests, as should the threat of losing out on the economic benefits of leading clean energy industries. The US is far behind China as the world’s largest producer of renewable energy technology. Australia should emphasise the need for the US to catch up on critical-minerals and clean energy supply chains to benefit economically and avoid economic coercion.

This administration will pursue policies that Australia and others will disagree with. These partners must ensure that US actions strengthen global and regional stability, not weaken it further—whether in its approach to ongoing geopolitical tensions, or future humanitarian crises. They must emphasise that the best way to minimise future risks includes reducing emissions, strong climate science, and investments in adaptation.

They can do so knowing what will resonate most with influential voices in the incoming administration.

This will be difficult, but not impossible. Success in climate policy requires coordinating broad coalitions around limited resources regardless of how dire the trends may seem, and how difficult progress may be.

This next four years will be no different.

Information, facts, journalism and security

(A speech by the executive director of ASPI to the Media Freedom Summit, hosted by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom in Sydney on 14 November.)

 

I want to start by citing the Guardian’s latest pitch for support from its readers. As most of you will know, the Guardian asks readers to pay rather than forcing them to do so through a pay wall. One of the ads that runs at the bottom of every Guardian story reads as follows:

This is what we’re up against …

Bad actors spreading disinformation online to fuel intolerance.

Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.

Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.

Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.

The first and last points are the most pertinent to me as head of ASPI. Bad actors are indeed spreading disinformation, and authoritarian states indeed have no regard for the freedom of the press.

And here’s why, as a national security guy, I like this pitch: because a society in which people want to pay for quality news is also a society that will be more resilient to disinformation, misinformation and the gradual erosion and pollution of our information environment. This resilience is a key pillar of our security; you might say it’s the strength on which all of our other capabilities are founded.

It points to a society in which people want to understand complex issues by engaging with facts.

It points to a society in which people want to do the hard work of exercising their critical-thinking skills so that they can evaluate for themselves what they’re being told, so they have healthy scepticism about political and social orthodoxies, not conspiratorial mistrust of traditions and institutions.

Those skills are built up through education—that includes formal education, life experience, auto-didacticism such as reading newspapers, and community and civic engagement. In other words, life in a vibrant and well-functioning society.

And let me stress, self-education through reading and viewing material online is a perfectly legitimate pursuit. But it doesn’t mean believing everything you read, nor selecting your own preferred facts, nor wrapping yourself in a comforting bubble of online fellow travellers who agree with you and validate your views.

What’s at stake here is that democracy, and in my view the functioning of society more broadly, depends on how we, as participants, recognise facts in a sea of information, and how we sort and prioritise those facts into an understanding of the world that we can use as a basis for action—including how to vote and how to perform all the other functions that engaged citizens perform in a democracy.

People will apply different weights, importance and context to facts based on the values those people hold. As long as the facts, or at least the majority of them, are agreed, people with differing values and world views can have a meaningful discussion. This is the foundation for even the most impassioned debate: people drawing on a common set of facts to arrive at different but nonetheless legitimate opinions.

Journalists and news organisations should hold privileged positions in the information environment based on the credibility they build up over time. However, to earn and hold these positions, journalists also have a sacred responsibility to report fairly, accurately and objectively in the public interest. What we can’t afford is for news organisations to retreat into ever more polarised political positions.

Media are vital to moderating and holding together public conversations even on the most difficult and controversial issues. That means leading civil debates on sensitive social issues, respectful debates and disagreements on very emotive foreign policy issues such as the war between Israel and terrorist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah and, yes, how Australia engages constructively with the new Trump administration.

Public institutions need to accommodate different points of view. Rebuilding trust in those institutions, such as the government, the media and higher education, is not helped when they create a sense that open debate will be quashed and dissenting views will bring damage to a person’s reputation.

Through these debates and (civil) contests of ideas, democracy enables us to make adjustments to the way we collectively run our society. All the knowledge and day-to-day life experience of adult citizens are fed back into decision-making by the elected executive. This happens through elections, through citizens’ engagement with the institutions that implement policies and sometimes through less formal means including public protests—hopefully peaceful and lawful ones.

Though imperfect, it has always worked. But it has been dramatically disrupted by the roughly three decades of the popularisation of the internet, and the roughly 15 years of the popularisation of social media.

Yuval Noah Harari in his most recent book, Nexus, about the history and future of information networks, coined the phrase ‘the naive view of information’ to describe the false expectation that if people have access to ever more information they will, per se, get closer to truth. A related misunderstanding is the so-called ‘free market of ideas’—one of the popular beliefs back during the heady and utopian early days of the internet.

The hope was that if all ideas, good and bad, could be put on this intellectual market, the best ones would naturally compete their way to the top. But we’ve quickly learnt that the ideas that are the stickiest, the most likely to gain traction and spread, are not necessarily the most true, but more often the ones that are most appealing—the ones that give us the most satisfying emotional stimulation.

Far from being a functioning open market, it takes an active effort to create and share information that is directed at the truth. Journalism is one such effort. News media that is not directed at the truth but at social order or the creation of shared realities isn’t journalism; it’s propaganda.

Now, why is all this such a worry to the national security community?

Because it makes us deeply vulnerable. In telling ourselves that government involvement in the digital world would stifle innovation, we have only stifled our own ability to protect our public and left a gaping hole for foreign predators. Inevitably, the absence of government involvement leads to security violations. Instead of calm, methodical government involvement we then get rushed government intervention.

Powerful players such as China and Russia can use their resources and capabilities to put their finger on the scales and influence a society. Disinformation can shape beliefs across wide audiences. This can change how people vote or erode their faith in institutions and even in democracy itself. It can turn people against one another. It can impact policymaking and leave us less safe, less secure and less sovereign. It is one thing for our own politicians and media to influence us, but it is a national security threat that we are being influenced and interfered with by foreign regimes, their intelligence services and their state-run media.

I happen to believe in higher defence and security spending not because I seek aggression, conflict or war, but to deter it—because I believe that we keep ourselves safe by being strong and making it clear that we are strong. I also believe that with all the defence spending in the world, if your society is divided against itself to the point of dysfunction, you eventually have to ask yourself: what exactly are you protecting? And that’s why the information domain is as important as traditional military domains to a sensible national security practitioner.

An adversary doesn’t need to invade you or use coercive force to shape you if they can influence you towards a more favourable position through information operations. It costs billions, maybe trillions of dollars to invade another country, overthrow its government and install a more friendly one. Why do that if you can shape the information environment so that the other country changes its government on its own, for a tiny fraction of the price? The AI expert Stuart Russell has calculated that the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election—which was a bargain for Moscow at a cost of about $25 million, given the massive disruption it’s caused—could be done for about $1000 today thanks to generative AI.

Solutions and responses 

So, what can we do about this? I don’t need to tell you that the business models of the news media are under enormous stress. Ask the person who wrote that eloquent pitch for support for the Guardian.

It’s easy to look around and feel despondent about the scale of the challenge. But it’s worth remembering we are still really in the early stages of the information revolution.

My submission is that the best way to create sustainable business models for strong, independent journalism is to foster societies in which people want to pay for this journalism, because they see value in having high-quality information. And they want this information because they recognise that it empowers them. It does not shut them down. There are rules and accountability but not censorship. Importantly, this requires our politicians, security agencies and the media to protect all views, not just ones the political leadership or journalists agree with. Too often I see genuine debate shut down, resulting in fear and self-censorship by those who might have a different view. For example, there is unquestionably a growing fear in our society from people wanting to support Israel. Shutting down legitimate views just because you think it is for a good cause does not make it right.

If our societies, including our media, focus their demands for accountability upon those countries and governments that cannot extract a cost from us (such as harming us economically as China has done and could do again) and if we hold only democracies to a high standard, we leave ourselves and our sovereignty vulnerable.

We should want to be a society open to ideas, views and debate. That is a foundation for resilience and security. Strong national security starts with a strong society aligned by a common set of principles, and resilient to different ideas.

So, we need to build our resilience to disinformation and the pollution of the information environment, as well as our appreciation of the importance of democratic values and freedoms. That means education throughout life, civics classes, digital literacy and support for civil society dealing with technology and democracy.

It means the government helping to create incentives for media to act as sheriffs in the information wild west (rather than those that abdicate any responsibility). That includes everything from content moderators on social media platforms to hardcore investigative journalists.

Conclusion

This is why I strongly believe that journalists and the national security community have many more aspirations and interests in common than they do natural tensions. And I want to dispel the idea that there is an inherent trade-off whereby the goals of one will necessarily come at the expense of the other.

It worries me when national security is seen as a potential threat to democratic freedoms and liberties, privacy being the most common example. This is the wrong framing.

Sometimes, the national security community gets things wrong. It makes mistakes. From time to time, officials might even behave unethically or, in rare cases, illegally. These are, for the most part, legitimate matters for journalists to pursue.

There is a lot of other national security work that simply needs to remain secret and non-public. That’s the nature of most intelligence work, significant portions of defence work, some diplomacy and some law enforcement.

A responsible national security leader should welcome scrutiny of shortcomings in conduct or competence in their agency. And a responsible journalist or editor should want to live in a functioning society in which national security agencies are able to do their work to protect us and our democratic freedoms. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are, after all, cornerstones of our democracy.

And in a well-functioning democracy, national security is about protecting our freedoms, never about curbing them. CCTV cameras on the street protect your right to walk safely but are not used to profile minorities as is the case in authoritarian countries.

National security agencies that are accountable to oversight by various watchdogs, and ultimately by the elected government and parliament, keep us safe not just in the sense of our physical bodies and lives, but also our society and our democratic way of life.

As part of this, it is vital that media not regard changes to national security policy or legislation only with respect to their impact on journalists. Just as there is a difference between something in the public interest and something publicly interesting, there is a distinction between restricting press freedom and restricting the press.

Government requests for understanding and cooperation in terrorism investigations or measures to prevent public servants leaking classified information isn’t a violation of press freedom.

To decry every government demand or expectation for journalists to exercise responsibility risks desensitising the public to those few occasions which do cross the line of freedoms.

This is why I support the work that Peter Greste and the Alliance are doing to clearly delineate the true work of journalists in gathering, carefully assessing and responsibly reporting facts from the reckless behaviour of those who believe that all secrets are sinister and should be exposed on principle.

Julian Assange, for instance, should never have been viewed as a journalist, but as someone who ultimately put lives at risk in the name of press freedom. Similarly, so-called whistleblowers who only target the secrets of open, rule-abiding democracies are actually doing the work of the Russian and Chinese government and other authoritarians, and they reduce the ability of our agencies to protect the public, including journalists.

Attempting to argue security laws have a chilling effect on sources leaking classified information will not be successful as that is not an unintended effect—it is the point.

Yes, we must hold ourselves and our democratic governments to account. But freedom of the press and freedom of expression are not enjoyed where one is only free to actually harm our own societies.

Political differences managed and resolved through open debate are a good thing. Political and social divisions driven by fear are toxic to our open societies.

You can’t have a free media without a strong democracy, and you can’t have a strong democracy without a free media. Those truths lie at the heart of the common mission between national security and journalism.

AI, bioterrorism and the urgent need for Australian action

Today, you’d have to be a top-notch scientist to create a pathogen. Experts worry that, within a few years, AI will put that capability into the hands of tens of thousands of people. Without a new approach to regulation, the risk of bioterrorism and lab leaks will soar.

The US acted a year ago to reduce that risk. With the return of President Trump and his commitment to repeal important executive orders, it’s time for Australia to take action.

The key action, adopted in an executive order signed by President Biden, is to control not the AI but the supply of the genetic material that would be needed for the design of pathogens.

Biosafety regulation of Australian laboratories needs tightening, too.

When the genome for variola, the virus that causes smallpox, was published in 1994, the capacity to use that information malevolently had not yet evolved. But it soon did. By 2002, ‘mail-order’ DNA could be used to synthesise poliovirus. In 2018, researchers manufactured horsepox using mail-order DNA. Today, the market for synthetic DNA is large and growing.

Both generative AI, such as chatbots, and narrow AI designed for the pharmaceutical industry are on track to make it possible for many more people to develop pathogens. In one study, researchers used in reverse a pharmaceutical AI system that had been designed to find new treatments. They instead asked it to find new pathogens. It invented 40,000 potentially lethal molecules in six hours. The lead author remarked how easy this had been, suggesting someone with basic skills and access to public data could replicate the study in a weekend.

In another study, a chatbot recommended four potential pandemic pathogens, explained how they could be made from synthetic DNA ordered online and provided the names of DNA synthesis companies unlikely to screen orders. The chatbot’s safeguards didn’t prevent it from sharing dangerous knowledge.

President Biden was alert to risks at the intersection of AI and biotechnology. His Executive Order on AI Safety attracted attention in tech circles, but it also took action on biosafety. Section 4.4 directed departments to create a framework to screen synthetic DNA to ensure that suppliers didn’t produce sequences that could threaten US national security.

Before Biden’s executive order, experts estimated that about 20 percent of manufactured DNA evaded safety screening. Now, all DNA manufacturers have obligations to screen orders going to the US and to comply with obligations to know their customers.

With President Trump committing to repeal the executive order, it’s imperative that other countries impose equivalent requirements to sustain a global norm of DNA safety screening. While Australia has yet to act, a fix would be relatively straightforward. The minister for agriculture, Julie Collins, and the minister for health, Mark Butler, already jointly administer a regime governing the importation of synthetic DNA into Australia.

Updating those regulations in line with the US’s approach is a no-brainer. Prospective synthetic pandemics have profound security implications. A designed pathogen could have features unseen in naturally evolved viruses. Those features could include both a high reproduction rate and high lethality. A pandemic caused by such a pathogen could cause widespread absenteeism, leading to such blows as the collapse of the power grid and other critical infrastructure.

Lab leaks are also a growing risk. The intersection of AI and biotechnology increases the risk of accidents. Experts assess that lab leaks have already overtaken natural spillover as the most likely cause of the next pandemic.

While the origin of coronavirus that causes Covid-19 remains unknown and contested, we know that lab leaks occur frequently. The original SARS virus escaped from labs at least three times. A 2021 study reported 71 high-risk human-caused pathogen exposure events between 1975 and 2016, and data collected via an anonymous survey on biosecurity in Belgium reported almost 100 laboratory-acquired infections in five years.

Tighter regulations and regular inspections improve biosafety. In the US, more tightly regulated ‘select agent’ laboratories exhibited a 6.5-fold lower accidental infection rate than other labs. In Australia, the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator is responsible for lab regulation and oversight. Australia is a significant player, with four of the approximately 51 known labs classified as level-4. Level-4 facilities hold terrifying viruses such as ebola, marburg and nipah.

The regulator is required to, and does, inspect those labs only once every three years for recertification. (It also does a few inspections to confirm compliance with specific licenses.) Bridging the three-year gaps, the labs submit annual reports of inspections by experts whom they appoint. We need to look at tightening this regimen, particularly by increasing the frequency of inspections by the regulator.

The concerns with Australia’s current approach aren’t limited to inspections. The guidelines for Australia’s level-4 facilities were last updated in 2007. Australian Standard 1324.1 is used to specify the level of filtration for exhausts from such facilities. AS1324.1 was functionally superseded in 2016 by ISO16890 because AS1324.1 overestimates the effectiveness of HEPA filters by about half.

Getting Australia’s digital Trust Exchange right

To realise the potential of the Digital ID Act and the recently unveiled Trust Exchange (TEx), the government must move past political soundbites and develop a comprehensive identity and credentials strategy that includes building technical architecture and conducting an end-to-end security assessment.

The government is yet to publish the rules and standards in relation to the Digital ID Act, which was finally passed May. We’re also still waiting to hear details of TEx, a world-leading digital identity verification system, which Government Services Minister Bill Shorten unveiled in August.

The Digital ID Act was the government’s response to the 2022 data breaches at Optus and Medibank, which prompted a fundamental reassessment of what sensitive data should be collected and how long it should be stored. Businesses should still conduct checks on customers—for example, to prevent money-laundering or alcohol sales to minors—but a better solution is needed than simply storing digitised copies of paper identification documents.

A digital ID scheme had been proposed for many years in different guises, but the 2022 breaches finally led to a new draft legislation in September 2023, kicking off the process that led to the Digital ID Act.

This Act is a major step in the right direction. It provides a legislated basis for a federated trust system and avoids creating a unique identifier for every citizen or a centralised ‘honeypot’ of data about people and their transactions. The accreditation rules include strong privacy and security safeguards to build trust in the system and put individuals in control of what personal data is disclosed to whom and when. However, as I outline in a recent ASPI report, there are several policy issues which, if left unresolved, could jeopardise successful deployment and adoption of the digital ID system.

Based on the limited details released so far, TEx could be on the verge of repeating many of the same missteps.

TEx appears to be a system that securely shares specific identity attributes for in-person interactions through a digital identity app on a handheld device. One example is proof-of-age checks at licenced premises: in lieu of physical documentation that shows the customer’s date of birth, the app simply verifies whether they are over or under 18. This would prevent data breaches such as the Clubs NSW incident, in which hackers stole data from patrons’ drivers licences that had been routinely scanned and stored.

But the sparse details about TEx are contradictory and ambiguous, causing some to be sceptical of the scheme. Shorten has suggested that it will ‘build upon digital ID infrastructure’, using the existing identity exchange operated by Services Australia and the myGov app, supported by some sort of record of each identity verification transaction. But this contradicts accreditation rules for the identity exchange, which specifically prohibit it from keeping logs of user activity.

This sort of ambiguity leads some to assume the worst, such as Electronic Frontiers Australia who claim the system will create the ‘mother of all honeypots’ and enable centralised surveillance. It doesn’t help that a recent Ombudsman report suggested that the myGov app currently falls well short of expectations on security and fraud prevention.

The government is also setting unrealistic expectations about the benefits of TEx, with Shorten suggesting that it will achieve ‘some of the best aspects of the GDPR’. The introduction of GDPR—the European Union’s data privacy and security law—had a dramatic effect on companies’ security and privacy practices because it was backed by massive penalties for non-compliance and encompassed all aspects of data collection, storage and usage. In contrast, Australia’s TEx, a voluntary system that might allow some organisations to opt out of collecting some personal data, is never going to have the same level of impact.

The incentives for companies to opt-in are unclear. Big names such as CBA and Seek have apparently offered ‘in-principle’ support, but this may change when they hear more details, particularly about costs.

It is also unclear how these different IT systems, owned and operated by different departments, will fit together to provide end-to-end service, security and privacy. TEx will be built by Services Australia, ‘on top of’ Digital ID infrastructure set up by the Department of Finance. Meanwhile the Attorney-General’s Department is developing a mobile app that alerts users whenever their identity credentials are used.

To execute these systems successfully, the government must develop an overarching identity and credentials strategy across the Commonwealth and the states and territories. This should include technical architecture, based on sound system engineering principles, that outlines how the different systems will work together. There should also be an end-to-end security assessment to ensure data confidentiality and resilience in the system. To achieve this, the government must break down departmental silos and build public support through transparent information and debate.

These new digital ID systems have the potential to increase privacy standards, reduce data breaches and improve the public’s experience of government service delivery—but only if it is properly executed. This opportunity is too big to squander.

Together, northern Queensland cities can offer great Defence potential

Northern Queensland has a pivotal role to play in the future of Australia’s defence industry, but its cities and local governments must work together to fully realise the potential. Collectively they have more to offer than any of them has alone.

The region can support the three armed services far beyond what it has traditionally done for them: providing bases and training areas. Its strengths in geography, demography and resilience make it unusually well suited to building a logistic and industrial support base for Australian Defence Force operations.

The catalyst for north Queensland attracting more military presence and associated business is Defence’s spending plan, the 2024 Integrated Investment Program (IIP). The emphasis on Australia’s north in the IIP and accompanying National Defence Strategy points to a new priority and focus.

There is already a strong military presence in northern Queensland: the army’s largest barracks, the navy’s patrol boat base, and some of the air force’s main training areas and two of its bases for mounting offshore operations. Historically, though, the region’s private and public sectors haven’t sufficiently understood how these arrangements fit within the broader defence and national security strategy.

The region must consider its assets collectively. Currently, each city or region identifies and advocates for its own bespoke investment opportunities—as, for example, in Townsville’s Unlock the North submission to the state and federal governments.

In future, similar submissions could be combined for those projects or opportunities that benefit the entire region, with delegations and representations made as collective entities. For example, political advocacy meetings with the minister for defence could be attended jointly by mayors from Cairns, Townsville and Mackay to present a united front and demonstrate collective capability.

This approach will encourage Defence investment across northern Queensland and ensure a good return on it.

The IIP outlined spending of billions of dollars on equipment that will be kept in northern Queensland. This includes the army’s huge investment in armoured vehicles and helicopters, the navy’s expanded patrol boat fleet and a renewed requirement to upgrade northern bases. Army landing ships built under project Land 8710 are likely to be based in northern Queensland.

The plan for supporting and maintaining this equipment is less certain—and therein lies an opportunity for the region. By demonstrating that it has the capacity to take on this role, the region can encourage industry to locate key support capabilities close to the equipment. This would improve logistics and cut costs for both industry and Defence.

Northern Queensland’s key strength is geographic resilience, especially if its cities can support one other. It faces some of Australia’s regions of interest—the South Pacific, Hawaii and the US west coast—and is the obvious place from which to mount ADF operations into the Pacific. Its cities are well positioned to provide the base for deployed forces, offering well-serviced logistics hubs with robust supply chains and local manufacturing capable of sustaining ADF operations. Also, the cities are dispersed around the region; should the support capacity of one become disrupted, others can keep operations running, using fast transport networks across rail, road, sea and air.

The population of northern Queensland is often overlooked as a strength for the region. The area between Rockhampton and Cairns has more than 500,000 people, comparable to Newcastle, which has a significant and growing defence industry hub. Similar depth of defence activity could be supported in northern Queensland. The region’s workers in manufacturing, maintenance, heavy machinery and agriculture have strong technical skills that can be rapidly pivoted to supporting Defence equipment.

Northern Queensland also has many veterans who have remained in the area after leaving navy, army and air force service—8 percent of the people of Townsville, for example—who can offer their experience. Additionally, an increasing number of professionals are relocating to Queensland’s northern coast, chasing better affordability, a family-friendly lifestyle and an unmatched climate.

The advantages of the region work best when they are considered as a collective. For example, the army’s decision to concentrate its helicopters in Townsville presents an opportunity best exploited by the entire region. The maintenance workforce, from the engineers to the refuellers and mechanics, need a training pipeline for service personnel and contracted civilians. Townsville alone cannot provide this training, but the region can use existing aviation training organisations in Cairns. Northern Queensland can create a system that can support the army’s aviation maintenance from recruitment and training to employment.

Land 8710 is a similar example. Its vessels will need maintenance and support, which Cairns and Townville should provide collectively. If either city tries to become the sole base of operations and sustainment, it is unlikely to attract the necessary investment, to the detriment of both the ADF and northern Queensland.

The region has a strong, diverse and resilient network that can provide infrastructure and a firm industrial base to support Defence. Plans announced so far will attract significant investment in northern Queensland, but unless there is collective action these opportunities will not take full advantage of the region’s potential. Any logistician can tell you that shortened lines of communication, resilient supply points and a well-positioned workforce are cost-savers and force enablers. Northern Queensland can provide all this, if its cities and local governments can combine their strengths and work together.

Three concessions after three weeks: Prabowo leans China’s way

Indonesia’s new president, Prabowo Subianto, needed only three weeks in office to make three big concessions to China.

In a joint statement with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on 9 November, Prabowo acknowledged Chinese maritime claims that Indonesia had long rejected. Despite leading the most populous Muslim-majority country, he affirmed China’s right to deal with Xinjiang as it pleased. He also endorsed China’s vague vision of the geopolitical order, something that Indonesia has long been wary of.

Indonesia has long rejected China’s nearby territorial assertions in the South China Sea, arguing that they have no basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. A 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling against China, which declared its claims illegitimate, became the basis for Indonesia’s campaign against the nine-dash line.

That hasn’t deterred China. Rejecting the ruling, Beijing has persisted in seeking recognition of its claims, particularly from Southeast Asian nations. For years, Indonesia’s diplomats have challenged Beijing, but now the Prabowo-Xi joint statement has sparked fears that this may change.

It said the two nations had ‘reached important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.’ The key point is that Indonesia thereby acknowledged China’s claim, giving them some legitimacy. The statement further mentioned an agreement to ‘establish an Inter-governmental Joint Steering Committee to explore and advance relevant cooperation’, indicating mutual interest in jointly exploiting resources in the sea.

The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs later released a statement clarifying that Indonesia still did not recognise China’s nine-dash line. That won’t stop Beijing from using the joint statement as expressing Indonesia’s capitulation.

This has implications for Indonesia’s broader interests in the South China Sea disputes, including how Indonesia has framed itself as a non-claimant in the disputed waters.

As for Xinjiang, the joint statement affirmed it was an issue of ‘internal affairs of China’ and said that Indonesia ‘firmly supports China’s efforts to maintain development and stability in Xinjiang.’

While Indonesia has always recognised Beijing’s sovereignty over Xinjiang, the province has not previously been directly mentioned in a joint statement by the two countries. This contrasts with Jakarta’s solidarity with the Muslim world in opposing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The joint statement seemed to present some new enthusiasm from Indonesia for China’s Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative, two of three major Chinese initiatives, the third being the Global Development Initiative, that present a Chinese vision of the international order. Indonesia has been willing to support the Global Development Initiative because of potential economic benefits. But it has been reluctant to endorse the other two initiatives due to their vagueness and a concern that doing so may undermine its non-aligned position in world affairs.

Overall, the joint statement reads as a turn towards China, particularly by diminishing the long-term efforts of Indonesian diplomats to preserve the sanctity of international maritime law. Not only does it harm Indonesia’s ability to counter to Chinese claims; it also affects the recently resolved maritime boundary dispute with Vietnam.

The shift is all the more demeaning for Indonesia because it closely followed a series of Chinese coast guard intrusions in late October, the same week Prabowo assumed the presidency.

It had always been apparent that the new Indonesian president, despite his strongman image and past criticism of his predecessor’s approach to the South China Sea, would deal with China cordially. Indonesia has security concerns about Chinese maritime claims, but Prabowo’s concessions was probably economically motivated. This motivation will continue to dominate, since Prabowo is aiming to achieve 8 percent annual economic growth. Indeed, the Beijing visit came with considerable pledges for economic cooperation on green energy and tech, amounting to US$10 billion.

But economic gain does not need to come at the cost of sovereignty. Past Indonesian administrations were able to get economic benefits from China and even the Soviet Union without sacrificing sovereignty.

The joint statement reflects poorly on Indonesia’s new non-career foreign minister, Sugiono. It was likely agreed upon without consulting senior foreign affairs officials. They have worked tirelessly to fight the proposition that China and Indonesia have overlapping claims in the South China Sea and to prevent Indonesia from embracing China’s vision of the international order and its narratives on Xinjiang. If they were consulted, then they were likely overruled.

These developments reflect the diminished role in foreign policymaking of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Prabowo’s leadership—a risk that we have identified in the past. Traditionally, the ministry has acted as a check on the ability of any single president to unilaterally direct Indonesia’s foreign policy away from its principle of non-alignment.

With the foreign minister now seemingly an extension of Prabowo, but the foreign affairs ministry likely to keep defending long-standing positions, the country’s foreign policy may start to look inconsistent.

Ongoing staff shortages handicap Australia’s peak intelligence oversight body

Staffing levels at Australia’s peak intelligence oversight body are regressing, impeding its ability to ensure that national security agencies operate as intended within our democratic framework of institutions and laws.

Without enough people, the organisation, the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, cannot monitor the agencies and assure ministers, Parliament and the public of their effective and legal operation.

Its 2023–24 annual report, released in September, revealed that staffing was below target and falling.

The office has extensive powers of investigation and access, including conducting inquiries, undertaking inspections and investigating complaints and public interest disclosures. Its powers are legislated under the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 and are critical to oversight of Australia’s National Intelligence Community.

The office employs people with a wide range of skills, including legal, investigative, financial and technical capabilities.

Its understaffing was already evident two years ago. Things have got worse since then.

In the opening review of the Annual Report 2023-24, the current inspector-general, Christopher Jessup KC, reveals the office’s oversight teams had completed 77 inspections, fewer than planned and down from 91 in 2022–23.

Worryingly, the report also reveals that the planned expansion of the office from an average staffing level of 57 to 60 was not achieved. On 30 June 2024, it had only 39 permanent staff members.

Shockingly, the ongoing staffing level has in fact fallen for two years: it was 49 at the end of 2021–22 and 41 at the end of 2022–23. This is despite additional funding in 2018–19, 2023–24 and 2024–25 to expand its oversight and supporting capabilities, commensurate with extra spending in the intelligence community.

The report attributes the staffing deficit to factors including external labour market shortages, ongoing challenges with the Top-Secret vetting pipeline and increasing resignations. The resulting shortages affect operations and corporate functions.

These problems are not new and have been previously identified in successive annual reports. However, staffing deficits are not confined to the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Recruitment and retention of staff across a range of skillsets is an ongoing challenge for other public sector agencies, including the National Intelligence Community.

While the inspector-general’s office is exploring new approaches to recruitment and retainment, the current understaffing damages the core institutional integrity and functioning of the office. The problem is even more acute because its jurisdiction has expanded in response to the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review  and recommendations of the 2019 Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community.

Hopefully, the overdue release of the unclassified 2024 independent review of Australia’s NIC will address these findings and provide further recommendations to ensure the inspector-general’s office has enough people and funding to perform effective oversight functions of the National Intelligence Community.

One helpful move could be limited expansion of the role of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to help alleviate some of the burden on the inspector-general’s office.

If transparency and oversight remain important features of Australia’s intelligence community, the government needs to act decisively and urgently to ensure the office is in the best possible position to perform its function.

Downsides of China’s port investments go beyond immediate security risks

Chinese companies own or operate at least one port on every continent except Antarctica. These investments present more than immediate security concerns; they position China to fully exploit the economic potential of ports at the expense of other countries.

And with Chinese companies controlling development of a port, the government in Beijing can interfere in physical development of the facility, perhaps to ensure that navally useful infrastructure isn’t built.

The former and current Australian governments have been criticized for acquiescing in the Chinese company Landbridge owning a 99-year lease on Darwin Port, the commercial operation in Darwin Harbour. Criticism has focused on security concerns, such as the Chinese government possibly arranging to use the facility for military surveillance or for sabotaging it in times of tension.

But the ordinary civilian activity of a Chinese company controlling the development of ports can have negative consequences for the host nation and others. As is seen in many industries, one Chinese business will often prefer to work with another, with the result that China has maximum exposure to potential profits.

We saw a step towards this last month in relation to Darwin Port, the commercial operation in Darwin Harbour. As the ABC reported, Port of Darwin signed a memorandum with the Port of Shenzhen for ‘friendly cooperation’. The aim is to increase trade links between the ports, which would have to mean Chinese companies, such as shipping lines, deepening economic involvement in Darwin Port.

Situated in southern China, the Port of Shenzhen is one of the busiest and fastest-growing in the world.

Interestingly, this agreement was not announced in Australia, and after the ABC reported it there was no public discussion of new links to China by the commercial port in one of Australia’s most strategically important harbours.

The Council on Foreign Relations has been tracking China’s growing maritime influence through investments in strategic overseas ports and has reported that while China has limited overseas naval bases, it has emerged as a leading commercial power with considerable economic influence over international sea lanes and commercial ports. China’s shipping routes and service networks span major countries and regions worldwide, backed by 70 bilateral and regional shipping agreements with 66 nations.

In October 2023, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet finalised a review into the circumstances of the Darwin Port lease, finding that a robust regulatory system would manage risks to critical infrastructure, that existing monitoring mechanisms were sufficient, and, as a result, that the government did not need to cancel or vary the lease.

But the review appears not to have addressed the problem that decisions about development of Darwin Port are now in non-Australian hands. In particular, Australia does not seem to have considered that the Chinese government now exerts influence over capital investment at Darwin Port.

Warships use civilian wharves and other port facilities as well as naval bases, especially during conflict, just as military aircraft can fly from civilian airfields. Some port facilities suit naval ships and their missions better than others.

The Chinese government can exert influence on a Chinese company operating abroad and even take coercive action against Australian companies, as experienced by the Lynas Corporation in Western Australia. If the Chinese armed forces take an interest in a foreign port’s capacity to support naval operations, they can certainly send a message to its Chinese owner about what improvements should not be made there, even profitable improvements.

The 2024 National Defence Strategy and associated spending plan, the Integrated Investment Program, did not expressly mention the Darwin Port, but the importance of logistics facilities in Darwin was implied by funding allocated for enhancing theatre logistics and improving fuel holdings, storage, and distribution in northern Australia.

As China continues to deepen its geoeconomic footprint, addressing the potential risks associated with foreign control over critical infrastructure becomes increasingly important. Transparent communication and proactive policy decisions are crucial to preventing national assets from becoming leverage points in broader regional power dynamics.