Romance and radicalisation: an overlooked concern for young Australian women

Radicalisation of vulnerable women in romantic relationships is a poorly recognised threat in Australian domestic security. This issue isn’t just a passing concern; it’s a persistent one that can devastate lives and communities.

With extremist groups targeting vulnerable women, we need to understand how love can become a dangerous trap. We must develop measures that help women become less exposed to these tactics.

Adolescence and early adulthood are tough periods, during which many people search for acceptance. As many young women navigate development stages, they grapple with complex questions of identity and self-worth. Young women often seek validation from relationships that seem to offer love and belonging, making them prime targets for extremists posing as knights in shining armour.

These extremists know how to exploit vulnerabilities. Research shows that women who crave external reassurance are more likely to adopt extremist beliefs, just for a little affection. Those who may be more avoidant and struggle to make connections may be more vulnerable to the false camaraderie of extremist groups. If recruiters can identify these vulnerabilities, they can use them as tools of radicalisation.

Social media makes these struggles harder, distorting self-image and intensifying feelings of exclusion. It is also part of the radicalisation process. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are breeding grounds for extremist views. Recruiters use the anonymity and reach of these platforms to engage with young women under the guise of romantic interest. Once drawn in, the women can find themselves ensnared in extremist ideologies through emotional manipulation and promises of love and belonging.

ISIS recruiters use striking short videos and photos on platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. They entice women with promises of love, marriage and meaningful lives as ‘jihadi brides’.

Similarly, the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group, specifically targets women by promoting traditional gender roles and highlighting their importance in the movement. They romanticise motherhood and family values, suggesting that joining the group is a way to protect a pure society. Their propaganda features eye-catching posts, testimonials from women in the group, and discussions that celebrate women as key players in their ideology.

Both groups exploit emotional vulnerabilities, making their messages especially appealing to those looking for acceptance and community.

The European Union has made some progress in protecting young women from radicalisation. A report published by the European Commission detailed extremists’ use of social media to recruit young women and presented recommendations for addressing the threat.

In Australia, most existing youth outreach programs don’t address the particular vulnerabilities faced by young women at risk of radicalisation. Initiatives such as the Australian government’s Youth Engagement Strategy promote social inclusion but often overlook the specific emotional and relational challenges that can make girls susceptible to extremist influences.

With these challenges in mind, we need to develop initiatives tailored to the vulnerabilities of young women. These programs should include workshops that build emotional resilience and self-esteem, helping participants recognise unhealthy relationship dynamics and signs of manipulation. Mentoring schemes that connect young women with positive role models can provide guidance and foster a sense of belonging, steering them away from harmful ideologies.

Targeted educational programs should also be established. Initiatives in schools, for example, can integrate education on emotional intelligence and healthy relationship into teaching. By teaching respect, consent and the importance of supportive friendships, schools can help create an environment where young women feel empowered and valued. This directly addresses the vulnerabilities that extremist recruiters seek to exploit.

Domestic violence awareness campaigns are another opportunity for education. They should not only highlight signs of abusive relationships but also stress the importance of strong, supportive friendships. Young women must be empowered to recognise manipulative behaviours and understand the need to seek help when necessary. Critical media literacy programs can further equip them to evaluate online content, enabling them to spot extremist propaganda and resist its allure.

Collaboration between community organisations, mental health professionals and law enforcement will also be crucial for developing these comprehensive approaches to tackling radicalisation. Providing opportunities for discussion and support allows young women to process their experiences and concerns constructively, reinforcing resilience.

The radicalisation of young women through romantic relationships is overdue for attention. Strengthening self-esteem, fostering resilience and promoting healthy relationships will address the issues that often lead women to extremism in the first place. This preventative approach will fortify our society against the insidious pull of radicalisation and save lives.

Addressing this issue isn’t just about security; it’s about ensuring that every young woman feels empowered to pursue her dreams and find her voice without falling prey to harmful ideologies. The stakes are high and the potential for positive change is immense.

An aviation nation needs a national air power enterprise

Australia needs to bring the civil, military and industrial components of aviation policy into a coherent whole.

It should view the sector as a national enterprise to promote mutual support among its various parts. The civilian aviation workforce could be seen as a defence asset, for example, and various efforts to support aerospace manufacturing could be better coordinated to create a stronger industry.

Adopting such a policy would be a big part of what the government has called ‘a coordinated whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach to Australia’s defence’. It would make better use of resources.

The need is urgent because, as the National Defence Strategy released in April reiterated, Australia no longer has at least 10 years’ warning of major conflict—and hasn’t since 2020. Crucially, airspace security and aviation services can be disrupted well before conflict breaks out, as demonstrated by Chinese probing of the skies of Taiwan and Japan.

Unfortunately, none of this influenced the government’s Aviation White Paper—Towards 2050, published in August. Instead, departmental rather than national policies passed each other like aircraft in cloud.

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts focused the white paper strictly on civil and general aviation. Meanwhile, the Department of Defence’s 2024 National Defence Strategy concentrates on military issues, of which air power is but one. Defence is not listed as making a public submission to the aviation white paper. Meanwhile, policy responsibility for the aerospace industry is with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources—and also with Defence, which published its own Defence Industry Development Strategy in February.

Thinking of air power as a national enterprise is not unique or new; it’s just not apparent in Australian policy. The Australian Defence Force’s peak air power doctrine defines the concept as ‘the total strength of a nation’s capability to conduct and influence activities in, through and from the air to achieve its objectives’—but then narrows its gaze to military aviation.

Australian sea power has been consistently portrayed as a national enterprise for years. Arguably, this has led to the government investing in Australia’s merchant fleet and to Defence spending more on naval power than air, land and cyber combined.

British spending on combat air power since 2018 has been guided by a framework that accounts for whole-of-nation security and prosperity objectives. New Zealand’s national aerospace strategy links planned growth in civil aviation to defence and security.

For Australia, adopting the concept of a national air power enterprise is unusually valuable because, as the aviation white paper says, the country is uniquely reliant on aviation. It’s no wonder there are more than 16,000 aircraft on Australia’s civil registry.

The components of Australia’s air power enterprise share challenges that adopting national approaches could address. A supply of skilled labour is among the most serious.

The white paper’s initiatives to improve aviation workforce planning, training and regulation are positive but the document missed a chance to portray the aviation workforce and its training base as national assets.

Instead, it describes the ADF as a major source of skilled labour—and also as a competitor that will ‘exacerbate future skilled aviation workforce challenges in Australian civil aviation’. No public document discusses how the civil aviation sector’s 50,000-strong workforce, a pool of aviation-savvy Australians about three times larger than the Royal Australian Air Force, could be harnessed in times of crisis.

Similarly, a national approach to aircrew training could build capacity. For example, key measures in Britain’s buildup of trained aircrew in the 1930s included the use of civil flying schools for elementary training and establishment of low-readiness reserves to support part-time flying training at civil schools.

And the absence of a national concept for air power means there is no coherent guidance on how Australia’s aerospace industry could reshape air power in the national interest. Instead, policy for the aerospace industry is diffused and divergent. The Defence Industrial Development Strategy alone spreads direction for the aerospace industry across at least three of seven priority areas.

In 2019, Australia’s aerospace industry comprised almost 1000 companies, employed nearly 20,000 people and boasted commercially competitive research, uncrewed-systems expertise and advanced manufacturing, according to a government report. That report also found the industry to be commercially viable and adding almost $3 billion to the economy annually.

Since then, the aerospace industry has designed and built a growing variety of advanced aviation components and uncrewed aircraft, including the fighter-like Boeing Ghost Bat. But if there has been government support for these efforts, it has been experimental or based on specific projects rather than a coordinated effort to help build autonomous aircraft domestically.

More is needed because domestically produced autonomous aircraft could use an Australian industry strength to liberate Australian aviation from the labour constraints of a small population.

This is what reshaping air power to create new potential in the national interest could look like. Australia needs more from its air power to address deteriorating security and resources shortages. The first steps are a coherent concept of Australia’s national air power enterprise and a vision of what the nation needs.

Sri Lanka’s long road to recovery

The economic and political upheavals Sri Lanka has faced in recent years, including its 2022 debt default and the mass protests that ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, serve as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by poor governance and rampant inequality.

A 2023 report by the International Monetary Fund attributes the country’s ongoing crisis to widespread corruption and fiscal mismanagement, underscoring the urgent need for the new president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, to implement bold structural reforms aimed at restoring public trust and promoting social justice.

At the heart of Sri Lanka’s ongoing crisis is a deeply flawed institutional framework, plagued by inefficiencies and susceptible to political interference. The IMF report highlights the erosion of independent institutions such as the Public Service Commission, the National Police Commission, the Audit Service Commission, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), the Finance Commission and the Delimitation Commission, which led to the mismanagement of public resources and a chronic lack of transparency. Unless, and until, these fundamental governance issues are addressed, economic recovery will remain out of reach.

To revive Sri Lanka’s economy, Dissanayake, the leader of the left-wing National People’s Power alliance, should pursue three major reforms. First, he must strengthen institutions like the CIABOC and improve oversight of public appointments. Second, improving fiscal transparency and procurement policies could reduce inefficiencies and increase trust in public spending. Lastly, limiting government officials’ discretionary power over tax incentives would curb corruption, boost revenue and promote fiscal responsibility.

Dissanayake must also confront the deeply entrenched structural inequalities that have long impeded Sri Lanka’s GDP growth. In his 2012 book The Price of Inequality, economist Joseph E Stiglitz argues that inequality is ‘not just a moral issue, but an economic one’, with the potential to stifle growth and trigger social unrest. Sri Lanka, where rising income inequality has been a major cause of socioeconomic instability, is a prime example of this dynamic. As the IMF report suggests, corruption-fuelled financial mismanagement and opaque tax policies have deepened Sri Lanka’s income disparities.

Reducing inequality is critical for Sri Lanka’s long-term economic and political stability. Building on Stiglitz’s insights, the new administration must pursue progressive tax reforms to ensure that the burden does not fall disproportionately on lower-income households. This approach also aligns with the IMF’s call for greater transparency in tax incentives and exemptions.

Another way to reduce inequality is to invest in public goods such as education, health care and infrastructure. Sri Lanka must redirect resources from the inefficient capital investments favoured by the Rajapaksas toward projects that directly benefit underserved communities. Establishing a transparent and competitive investment process could help direct resources to where they are most needed, in line with the IMF’s recommendations.

Labor-market reforms are equally important. Sri Lanka’s economic recovery hinges on creating equitable job opportunities by guaranteeing fair wages and safe working conditions, particularly in sectors like manufacturing and services, where inequality is most pronounced.

Weak, poorly designed institutions often allow wealth to be concentrated in the hands of a few. As the IMF report reveals, the lack of independent governance structures in Sri Lanka has caused corruption and inefficiency to flourish. To reverse this trend, Dissanayake’s administration must bolster regulatory frameworks, protect independent agencies and the judiciary from political interference, and create a level playing field that provides equal opportunities to everyone.

Civil society can play a pivotal role in this transformation. As Stiglitz notes, inclusive governance holds the key to reducing inequality. The IMF report criticises the absence of platforms for public participation, emphasising the importance of citizen engagement in holding institutions accountable.

A vibrant civil society and a free press are crucial to restoring trust in the country’s institutions. But reforming Sri Lanka’s draconian and outdated security and anti-terrorism laws—remnants of the decades-long war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam—Dissanayake could encourage greater public participation and promote accountability.

In sum, to accelerate its economic recovery, Sri Lanka must revitalise its institutions and tackle the systemic inequities that have fuelled much of its recent turmoil. Implementing the IMF’s technical recommendations would help stabilise the country’s finances, while drawing on Stiglitz’s insights could help reduce income and wealth gaps.

But long-term growth will require bold leadership. Fostering transparency, accountability, and meritocracy would help Sri Lanka build a stronger, more resilient economy, laying the groundwork for a more just, prosperous and sustainable future for all its citizens.

Military challenges to Beijing’s South China Sea claims are increasing

Deployments of ships and aircraft to challenge China’s illegal claims in the South China Sea are increasing. European ships are appearing more often, while Asia-Pacific countries are increasingly conducting activities in areas that China regards as sensitive.

Several nations have claims in the South China Sea, but China’s claim is the most extensive and controversial. Beijing seeks to enforce sovereign rights and jurisdiction over all features within the nine-dash line, including the islands, rocks and atolls that make up the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China claims this territory despite a 2016 ruling that found that China’s claims had no basis in international law.

With international law doing little to curb China’s ambitions, more countries are using their militaries to challenge China’s claims. In 2024, more European navies operated in the South China Sea than previously in recent years, with Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands all sending ships to the region. Meanwhile regional counties, such as Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, stepped up their engagement, including via joint sailings with the Philippines in the South China Sea.

Different countries take different approaches to challenging China’s illegal claims in the South China Sea. Some militaries are operating within the nine-dash line. Others sail naval ships directly through the Spratly Islands. Some advertise their activities; others do not.

Only a few have conducted activities close to the Paracels, because doing so is unusually risky. A 2022 incident in which a Chinese pilot dumped chaff in front of an Australian P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft is an example of the risk.

The US is the only country to send aircraft or ships within 12 nautical miles of claimed features. By doing so, it would be entering territorial waters if China did in fact own the territory.

These military activities to challenge China’s claims have occurred since 2015:

Country
Military activities in the SCS
Challenges Spratly claims
Challenges Paracel claims
Challenges within 12nm
Publicises challenges
USA

✓

 ✓ ✓ ✓

✓
Canada

✓

 ✓

✓
Australia

✓

 ✓* ✓*

NZ

✓

 ✓*

Japan

✓

 ✓*

UK

✓

 ✓ ✓

✓
France

✓

 ✓ ✓

✓
Germany

✓

Netherlands

✓

Italy

✓

*Challenges are likely but cannot be confirmed

Apart from countries around the South China Sea, which must routinely operate on or over it, the US has by far the most public and active military presence. In 2023, the US military conducted 107 activities, including six specific operations to challenge China’s illegal claims under the US Freedom of Navigation program. US activities are always accompanied by strong public statements.

France and Canada are both active in the region, including within the Spratlys. Both advertise their military presence and actions. Canada now carries journalists on some South China Sea transits. It has operated close to the Paracel Islands, but, as demonstrated when a Chinese fighter fired flares near a Canadian helicopter in 2023, doing so comes with risks. In 2015, France boldly exercised its right to freedom of navigation by sailing a task force through the Paracels.

Australia has an active military presence in the South China Sea. There’s evidence that Australia operates close to China’s illegal claims. However, the tempo and nature of its military challenges are hard to determine, because Canberra does not advertise them. China’s military has been aggressive in seeking to deter Australia from operating near the two island groups by engaging in unsafe intercepts.

New Zealand has a semi-regular presence inside the nine-dash line, commensurate with the size of its armed forces. Meanwhile, Japan has a growing military presence in the region and is increasingly working with partners, such as the US, Australia and the Philippines. As with Australia, there are signs that Japan and New Zealand operate close to, or within, the Spratly group, but neither publicise specific actions, so the nature of them is hard to determine.

Britain sent a carrier strike group through the South China Sea in 2021 and intends to do so again next year. The British military operates close to the Spratly and Paracel Islands and uses public messaging to reinforce the importance of sailing in these areas.

Signalling growing European interest in the region, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy sent navy ships to the area in 2024. But none seems to have overtly challenged China’s claims within the Spratlys or Paracels.

The most notable regional absentee is South Korea. In 2018, a South Korean destroyer, Munmu the Great, took refuge from a typhoon in the Paracel Islands. But Seoul quickly clarified that the ship was not there to challenge China’s claims. Likewise, when the littoral states of South East Asia routinely operate there, they do not directly challenge China’s claims via freedom of navigation transits.

The growing presence of European navies in the South China Sea and stepped-up activity of Asia-Pacific countries there is welcome. It’s helping to push back on China’s growing aggression and reinforce longstanding rules and norms that underpin regional prosperity.

Protectionism is not the way to protect workers

In both the United Kingdom and the United States, political parties on the left and the right are competing to show voters that they are on the side of working people. The question is whether prevailing approaches to protecting workers—which focus on a combination of industrial policy and restrictions on trade, investment and immigration—are actually in workers’ interest.

Protecting workers has become practically synonymous with protectionism. In recent years, voters in many countries, concerned about their economic well-being, have turned against free trade, immigration and inward foreign direct investment, and have rejected the leaders and parties who long promoted such policies.

Europe is a case in point. After the 2007-2008 global financial crisis plunged even middle-class households into economic insecurity, voters began to look beyond mainstream political parties in search of greater support and protection and were often attracted by those blaming immigration for their struggles. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis that followed, reinforced this trend. Recent elections in Austria, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands saw surging support for anti-immigration parties.

In the US, new political parties did not emerge, but a new kind of leader did. Donald Trump won the US presidency in 2016 partly by blaming free trade (particularly with China) for decimating jobs and investment in America’s Rust Belt. While criticising free markets and capitalism used to be the preserve of the left, even The American Conservative now runs articles pillorying trade, immigration, and the free movement of capital for the ravages of deindustrialisation.

One answer to such ‘carnage’ is tariffs, which Trump eagerly introduced while in office. But Joe Biden—who defeated Trump in the 2020 election—maintained and even built upon those tariffs. Earlier this year, Biden imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made electric cars—a very high rate, though it affects a very small percentage of US imports from China. Trump promises that, if re-elected, he will implement 60-100 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports.

The protectionist message is clearly one that workers want to hear. But tariffs are unlikely to work. For starters, they lead to retaliation and distrust among trading partners, as we saw in 2018, when Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium from Canada, Europe, and Mexico. They thus reduce a country’s access to overseas markets, while driving up prices. Because they disrupt supply chains providing vital components for domestic manufacturing, they might also lead to employment losses.

Those losses would not be offset by the ‘reshored’ jobs the protectionists promise, as previously offshored (low-wage) jobs are increasingly filled by machines, not workers. This is already happening in China, where ‘smart manufacturing’ is carried out in ‘dark factories’ run entirely by robots. Protecting manufacturing jobs is thus no more a solution to China’s high youth unemployment rates than reshoring such jobs is a realistic means of revitalising the Rust Belt.

But, as US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration showed in the 1930s, there is a better way to protect workers: domestic labour legislation that supports unionisation. Beyond ensuring a decent standard of living for workers, such legislation in the US and the UK gave greater political voice to working people, enabling them to rise through the labour movement into politics.

That changed when traditional labour parties came to be dominated by urban liberal professionals, rather than representatives of the working class. For example, the proportion of working-class members of Parliament representing the UK’s Labour Party plummeted from nearly 30 percent in 1987 to only 10 percent in 2010.

Fortunately, policymakers in the UK and the US increasingly seem to recognise the role of domestic labour legislation in protecting workers. In the UK, the new Labour government has put forward an Employment Rights Bill, which would extend workers’ rights in areas like sick pay, flexible schedules and protection against unfair dismissal. The bill paves the way for reviving trade unions, removing restrictions on workers’ right to strike, addressing the gender pay gap and strengthening protections against sexual harassment in the workplace. Predictably, employer reactions have been mixed, and the government will now engage in extensive consultations as it works to turn the bill into legislation.

In the US, the Biden administration sought to include incentives for supporting unionisation in the Build Back Better Act, which aimed to create ‘millions of good-paying jobs’. But industry lobbyists pressed the US Congress to eliminate the bill’s proposed incentives for manufacturers to base their assembly plants in the US and to use unionised labour. Ultimately, the act’s passage came down to one vote—that of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who insisted that the support for unionised labour be removed.

Trade policy can also be used to protect labour—if we look beyond tariffs. The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which the Trump administration negotiated as a successor to NAFTA in 2018, has the strongest and farthest-reaching labour provisions of any US free trade agreement. Beyond placing labour obligations at the core of the agreement, and making them fully enforceable, the USMCA provides that countries can help workers adapt through domestic programs, such as the US Trade Adjustment Assistance programs that have been helping workers transition away from jobs lost to import competition since 1962. The USMCA proves that worker protections are compatible with international competitiveness.

Political support for protectionist trade policies is easy to explain. A growing share of working people in industrialised democracies feel—and, in fact, are—less represented and less protected than previous generations, and both Chinese factories and immigrant workers are easy targets. So, when politicians acknowledge these voters’ frustration and promise to improve their lives with tariffs and immigration controls, they are easily convinced. Ultimately, however, this approach will do little for workers—or for the political leaders who embrace it.

Australia’s defence is lost in a fog of strategic failure and a lack of imagination

While I’m wary of joining the chorus of defence commentators yelling at clouds, our government has boxed itself into a corner. We must spend more on defence, but creeping suppression of informed public debate coupled with dire cost-of-living realities make this an unlikely option for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. 

Australia’s defence and foreign policy is entrenched in short-term domestic political considerations, devoid of strategic imagination. The idea of nearing an inflection point in international security is routinely trotted out but misses the fact that Australia passed that point long ago. Perhaps the Cold War never ended; it just mutated and incorporated multipolar elements. 

There are two sets of external changes shaping Australia’s defence problem. First, new groupings of states are emerging—with some firepower to boot—that prioritise different values to us. On values we share—say, the continued survival of the state—they are often interpreted differently. Australia might look to the multilateral rules-based order to shore up support for our right to exist. Another state might view this order as a legacy system that is not willing to facilitate the transfer of power to rising states. Problems ensue. 

It is getting harder to tackle these problems thanks to the second set of changes influencing Australian security. There are new approaches to navigating the international system. Where alliances and shared interests are central to Australia’s international engagement, the new grouping of powers has normalised a sense of transactional statecraft in international relations. Security ties are not infused with a liberal-west dose of morality. Interests are king. 

Government has failed to grasp at a strategic level these two sets of changes. Lazy conceptual frameworks have been tabled without adequate funds to deliver. Capabilities needed yesterday are earmarked for two decades’ time. Word-soup statements of ‘unprecedented unpredictability’ feature heavily, disingenuously attempting to engage Australians. We know the international environment has always been unpredictable, to a point, and contestation has never not been a feature of international security. 

In a word, Australia is lost – lost in reviews, lost in rhetoric and lost to a government fixated on complicating a rather straightforward problem set. Australia is unprepared and unserious about our position in the emerging international strategic environment. 

We must be willing to have this discussion publicly. Government needs to come to the party and rapidly enhance its appetite for risk. Canberra should rediscover the agility of a relatively smart population and urgently craft a sustainable defence footing for the nation. This requires a strategic culture overhaul, which must come from the top.

We can’t do all the things, and a realistic plan for the defence of Australia need not be gold-plated. Of course, the inability of government to articulate in basic terms our vital national interests will continue to stupefy our debate. Where is our national discourse on the costs of Australian prosperity and security? Where is the funding for foresight analysis of strategic trends. Sure, China is a challenge, but what of India? 

I offer the tale of Australia’s Bangladesh strategy. We continue to pump millions of dollars of humanitarian aid each year into Bangladesh. Yet, by the end of this year, two of the four planned units at Bangladesh’s Rooppur nuclear power station will be operational. Nuclear power will continue to lift Bangladesh towards prosperity; its economy has just become the second-largest in South Asia.

Built by Russia on a site where ground was broken in 2017, the plant will have sanctioned fuses that China stepped in to provide. In late 2023, Bangladesh settled the final payments to Russia in Chinese yuan. The point is, Australia has a surface-level grasp of the intricate regional relationships on our doorstep. This continues to undercut adequate manoeuvring of our international political environment. We must know our environment if we want to prosper and compete within it. 

Australia is part of a group of states, in a club, of minority power in the international system. Humbling ourselves to accept this strategic reality will allow for hard but necessary discussion of our plan to adequately defend Australia. Australia has a middle-power ego on a small-power budget. Canberra must be creative. 

A sense of strategic culture can’t reside in the halls of departments—nor can it remain a job of government. National security is every Australian citizen’s duty. Education therefore becomes paramount. As the saying goes, ‘if one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.’ If we don’t know what we are competing for, and why, how can we possibly begin to chart success? 

The Albanese government’s legacy may well be that it failed to discern between the concepts of intent and capability. Intent is the thing that can change overnight. Capability, not so much. From platitudes to policy, our strategic narrative is narrowly fixed in terms of intent. It is time to focus on capability—or at least craft a viable concept of a plan to do so. 

All together now: Southeast Asia must act collectively in the South China Sea

The core of a coalition to oppose China in the South China Sea must be the Southeast Asian claimants themselves. They must recognise that the threat they jointly face requires them to settle or at least to shelve internecine maritime disputes. Vietnam and the Philippines have made some progress in this regard, as has Indonesia, despite its official position that it has no direct boundary dispute with China.

Vietnam has shown public solidarity with the Philippines. Malaysia is the outlier among ASEAN claimants, preferring to deal with Beijing bilaterally and sometimes adopting diplomatic positions that have matched China’s demands to exclude the United States and others from involvement in the South China Sea.

Among the non-claimant ASEAN states, Singapore needs to rediscover its voice as an impartial advocate of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. And whenever China’s grey zone behaviour towards the Philippines, or others, clearly contravenes the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct, Singapore and other ASEAN members should not shy from saying so publicly and in the ongoing Code of Conduct negotiations between ASEAN and China.

Taiwan also has an important role to play, as both claimant and occupier of the largest natural feature within the Spratlys group, Itu Aba. It has a direct interest in not allowing China’s grey zone activities near Second Thomas and Sabina shoals to normalise blockade tactics that could be applied against Taiwan itself or its outlying islands.

Taiwan also has deep experience of China’s maritime activities in its immediate vicinity. Sharing what it has learned with Southeast Asian frontline states would help them to develop grey zone counter-measures.

Taiwan has shown some interest in emulating the example set by the Philippines Coast Guard in publicly exposing China’s grey zone activities. Transparency campaigns can generate international support and stake out the moral high ground against China. But they don’t deter Beijing or moderate its behaviour much.

Transparency is not a stand-alone tactic against an adversary like China, which is impervious to reputational damage. It must be integrated into a national maritime strategy, with support from the armed forces and centrally coordinated government communications.

Partners should certainly call out China by name when condemning its grey zone behaviour in the South China Sea. There are too few statements of solidarity with the Philippines, and they’re too often delegated down to the ambassadors in Manila. Foreign ministers’ statements would carry more authority.

Non-littoral countries, especially major maritime states, should clearly say their national interests are at stake in the South China Sea. Recent Japanese statements in support of the Philippines have been helpful, as have those of the EU. South Korea needs to be much more vocal, given its exposure to South China Sea shipping routes.

Then, if governments declare national interests in the South China Sea, they should next provide material support. They should help lift Southeast Asian states’ capacity for maritime domain awareness or donate ships and aircraft to assert presence and deny China space to occupy the grey zone.

Governments need to be beware of bad-faith offers of dialogue on maritime issues from Beijing, mere efforts to neuter public criticism by seeming to offer closed-door forums to air concerns and privately influence China’s thinking. It can make continuation of such sham dialogues contingent on health of bilateral relations.

Finally, acceptance of the grey zone paradigm should not prevent escalatory reactions when these are appropriate. When China’s provocations in the South China Sea, East China Sea, Taiwan Strait or elsewhere cross the line from grey zone to black and white; for example, military intrusions into uncontested territorial airspace and waters, then governments need to be step up their reactions accordingly.

World War I was the crucible of air power. Ukraine looks the same for drones

Some experts on air power will tell you that Ukraine is not the best place to learn lessons. Neither side in Ukraine enjoys air superiority, retired Lieutenant General David Deptula of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute think-tank said last month. ‘We want to never find ourselves in such a situation’.

There’s always a need for balance between paying too little attention to lessons that challenge conventional thinking and generalising from a single type of conflict. That happened when the US Army and Pentagon bosses pushed the US Air Force into spending too much in 2008 to 2015 on drones that could be used only where an enemy couldn’t shoot at them.

But we seem to be seeing a new kind of air battle—lower, slower at close quarters and in a physical environment where fighter aircraft cannot intervene affordably or effectively. Could it be that Ukraine is to small unmanned systems what World War I was to aircraft?

It’s hard to overcome cognitive dissonance when you’re listening to speakers call for investment in aircraft engines that will cost well north of $10 million each, as I was last month at an Air Force Association meeting, and the overnight news was a devastating deep-strike attack on the Toropets ammunition depot. The attack involved detonations that triggered earthquake sensors and was carried out by drones that had propellers and snowmobile engines and flew flying just off the deck at 150km/h.

The impact of the unmanned was very apparent a few weeks later at the annual show of the Association of the US Army (AUSA). Not long ago, AUSA’s exhibitors filled the caverns of the Washington Convention Center with mine-resistant vehicles that looked like bank vaults perched on creaking truck chassis and loomed over booths full of plastic or ceramic armor, not to mention mine-resistant underpants. (Really.)

This year, much of the hardware was suspended from the ceiling and could fly. What wasn’t up there was variously designed to either control or manage said hardware or destroy or jam it. For a Brit of a certain age, it was inescapably a reminder of General Jumbo, a plump and geeky kid in the weekly Beano comic who commanded a miraculous army of miniature armed robots.

As with aircraft in World War I, drone operations in Ukraine started with artillery spotting before evolving quickly into direct attack with improvised weapons and then into finding targets well behind the front lines. And just as in World War I, the first air-to-air engagements have taken place, and defensive weapons are being employed on the ground.

Tiny-payload vehicles are shockingly lethal against expensive protected targets. From the start of Ukraine operations, it was clear that even grenades dropped from first-person view (FPV) commercial drones have effectively zero miss distance. They act as detonators rather than warheads, using the target’s fuel and ammunition to destroy it.

A new Royal United Services Institute paper makes the case that a future force will require a panoply of defensive systems to protect against drones. This will include short-range, mobile radar and electro-optical sensors, a countermeasures-resistant communications system, drone interceptors (such as Anduril’s tail-sitting Roadrunner) and missiles and guns with burst-at-range pre-fragmented ammunition. All this will require a software environment to identify and prioritise threats.

Killing drones may cost more per kill than the drone itself, but that is not the point. A ground force that cannot do it will either not survive at all or will spend so much time and effort moving, dispersing and adding passive protection to its equipment—like the Russian army’s cope cages and turtle tanks—that it will be ineffective.

Signs are emerging of a technological arms race in drone warfare, in which unmanned systems respond to anti-drone technologies by becoming more diverse and resilient and by sensing at greater range. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) at AUSA showed a concept for a system named Ariel, based on an automated mission manager that tasks individual anti-drone equipment automatically. Human controllers, seated at terminals in an armoured vehicle and communicating with the robotic systems via an airborne data relay, approve the mission plan. The Ariel system interprets the commander’s intent and tells the individual vehicles where to go and what to look for.

Different sensors need to be in different places for best performance, so the Ariel system envisages a common drone platform that can carry radar, passive electronic, optical or magnetic sensors or a communications package. IAI is working with startup Aerotor on the Apus 25, a quadrotor powered by a multi-fuel generator driving variable-pitch rotors. Free of battery limits, it has an endurance of up to nine hours. The Ariel system also includes unmanned ground combat vehicles, remote weapons stations on a small tracked vehicle.

You can extend the World War I analogy further and argue that Ukraine’s long-range attacks can be compared to the birth of strategic bombing. A retired USAF officer with experience in unconventional operations agrees that low-and-slow is a vulnerability in high-end air defense systems. Tracking low-altitude targets calls for Doppler processing pick out moving targets while ignoring ground clutter and slow-moving objects such as ground vehicles and birds. And that’s where low-slow targets can be a problem. The Doppler processing ignores them.

Ukraine’s drone attacks have been bolder since Ukrainian forces shot down two of Russia’s handful of Beriev A-50 airborne radars. Nonetheless an undisclosed number of Ukraine’s drones have been shot down. Ukrainian air defenses have also blunted Russian drone attacks. The crucial difference is that the Ukrainian survivors seem to be accurate enough to target specific aimpoints within sprawling energy and munitions storage facilities.

How this is done is not known, but one candidate is optical navigation—comparing visual images of the terrain with map databases. This is not unlike the software that journalism operations such as Bellingcat use to locate the sites where videos have been taken, and it has become much more accessible now that global terrain imagery is ubiquitous. Israeli missile-defense guru Uzi Rubin said a decade ago that ‘if you have an iPad, you have a guidance system’.

Whatever the technology, there is a lesson: I can lose a lot of cheap unmanned weapons, as long as the ones that get through can get close enough to detonate the enemy’s ammunition or fuel.

The BRICS effect

A new age of international relations is dawning. With the West accounting for a declining share of global GDP, and the world becoming increasingly multipolar, countries are jostling to establish their positions in the emerging order. This includes both the emerging economies, which are represented by the recently expanded BRICS grouping and seek a leading role in writing the rules of the new order, and the smaller countries attempting to cultivate relationships that can safeguard their interests.

With the BRICS, what began as an asset class has become a symbol of the yearning for a more broadly representative global order, a hedge against Western-led institutions and a means of navigating growing geopolitical uncertainty. All this has proved highly attractive. Earlier this year, the BRICS expanded from five countries (Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa) to nine (adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates). And almost three dozen more countries—including NATO member Turkey, close US partners Thailand and Mexico, and Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country—have applied to join.

While the diversity of the grouping’s members (and applicants) highlights the broad appeal of the BRICS+, it also creates challenges. These are countries with very different political systems, economies and national goals. Some are even at odds with each other: China and India have been locked in a military standoff in the Himalayas for more than four years, following China’s stealth encroachments on Indian territory.

Translating shared interests into a common plan of action and becoming a unified force on the global stage was difficult even when the BRICS had just five members. With nine member countries, and possibly more, establishing a common identity and agenda will require sustained effort. But other multilateral groupings that are not formal, charter-based institutions with permanent secretariats, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G20 and even the G7, also struggle with internal divisions.

Moreover, the BRICS have demonstrated considerable resilience. Western analysts have been predicting from the start that the grouping would unravel or drift into irrelevance. Yet this month’s BRICS+ summit in Kazan, Russia, the first since the expansion, may well bring movement towards further enlargement, as it underscores the West’s failure to isolate Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

This is not to underestimate the challenge of cohesion. The grouping’s founding members do not even agree about its fundamental objectives: whereas China and Russia want to spearhead a direct challenge to the US-led world order, Brazil and India seek reforms of existing international institutions and appear uneasy about any anti-Western orientation.

In this disagreement, however, the enlargement might tip the scales. Six of the group’s nine members, including all four new additions, are formally part of the nonaligned movement, and two (Brazil and China) are observers. This suggests that there will be considerable internal pressure for the BRICS+ to chart a middle ground, focusing on democratising the global order, rather than challenging the West.

That said, when it comes to fostering mutual trust with developing countries, the West has not been doing itself any favours lately. On the contrary, its weaponisation of finance and seizure of the interest earned on frozen Russian central-bank assets have caused deepening disquiet in the non-Western world. As a result, a growing number of countries seem interested in exploring alternative arrangements, including new cross-border payment mechanisms, with some also reassessing their reliance on the US dollar in international transactions and reserve holdings.

All of this could aid the larger designs of Russia and China, two natural competitors that have become close strategic partners partly in response to US policy. China, in particular, stands to gain—for example, from increased international use of the yuan. Russia now generates much of its international export earnings in yuan and stores them mostly in Chinese banks, thereby effectively giving China a share of the returns. China’s ultimate goal, which Western financial warfare is inadvertently aiding, is to establish an alternative yuan-based financial system.

The BRICS are already engaged in institution-building, having established the New Development Bank (conceived by India and headquartered in Shanghai) in 2015. The institution is not only the world’s first multilateral development bank created and led by emerging economies; it is also the only one whose founding members remain equal shareholders with equal voice, even as more countries join. By contrast, the US is the dominant shareholder and holds veto power in the World Bank.

The expanded BRICS+ boast formidable global clout. The grouping dwarfs the G7, both demographically (with nearly 46 percent of the world’s population, compared with the G7’s 8.8 percent) and economically (accounting for 35 percent of global GDP, compared to the G7’s 30 percent). Its economies are also likely to be the most important source of future global growth. Furthermore, with Iran and the UAE having joined their oil-producing counterparts Brazil and Russia as members, the BRICS+ now account for about 40 percent of crude-oil production and exports.

Yes, the group faces significant challenges, not least uniting to become a meaningful global force with defined (and realistic) political and economic objectives. But they also have the potential to serve as a catalyst for a long-overdue revamping of global governance so that it better reflects twenty-first-century realities.

After the gift of tanks, Australia needs a long-term approach to supporting Ukraine

The 17 October announcement that Australia would give 49 surplus M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine is welcome, regardless of quibbles over the timeliness of the decision.  

Australia’s domestic debate over the process for donating materiel to Ukraine is important, but it mustn’t distract Canberra from the larger strategic task of helping Kyiv to end the war on its terms, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s newly unveiled victory plan has brought back into focus. That requires NATO allies and their Indo-Pacific partners visibly stepping up and pulling together ahead of the US election in November. 

Canberra can and should play an outsized role in that process because outcomes in Ukraine affect stability in our region. It needs a long-term approach for doing so. 

Australia can never hope to tilt the balance in Ukraine, but these US-made vehicles will make a military contribution on the ground. The donation accounts for the bulk of the 59 Abrams tanks that have been in Australian Army service since 2007. They are being replaced by 75 tanks of the much more advanced M1A2 SEPv3 version of the Abrams, the first batch of which has been received from the US. The fate of the Australian Army’s remaining 10 older Abrams tanks is less clear, but some may conceivably become available for donation to Ukraine once transition to the M1A2 version is complete. 

While the tanks are valued at around $245 million, the package does not appear to include funds for training, ammunition, repairs or alterations that improve survivability, such as fitting more armour to counter drones and other anti-tank weapons. But since Ukraine already operates Abrams tanks that the US has donated, it may be well placed to attend to those requirements.  

The announcement will not silence calls for a clearer and more consistent approach towards Australia’s support for Ukraine. Andrew Hastie, the shadow defence minister, said the move was ‘better late than never’. But Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the timing reflected the delivery of the newer tanks and the need to obtain permission from Washington, which controls the transfer of military technology.  

Donating the tanks conforms to one of the recommendations of a Senate committee that looked at support for Ukraine. Focus will now shift to other equipment slated for retirement, such as the 22 Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters.  

As we’ve argued previously alongside ASPI colleagues, the government needs a prompt and thorough mechanism for screening assistance to Ukraine that covers Australian defence industry capacity and military inventories, generating a long-term pipeline of support. The Australian Defence Force should not surrender kit that it needs; rather, we should nurture our capacity to make and improve equipment for capabilities that we and our democratic partners need.  

Australia’s approach to supporting Ukraine needs to be understood by Kyiv, other partners and the Australian Parliament and public. If a robust process is already in place in Canberra, it’s not yet sufficiently transparent to garner widespread trust. That task will remain harder while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade continues to delay the reopening of the Australian embassy in Kyiv—a logjam that the government and Parliament should work together to solve by amending health and safety law.  

Crucially, capability bucket lists and domestic political scraps must not distract Canberra from the larger strategic goal. Helping Ukraine to end the war on its terms includes restoring deterrence and establishing collective security arrangements as the basis for a durable peace. Zelenskyy’s victory plan, also announced last week, lays out a pathway to achieve that, potentially as early as next year.  

The crux of the plan is that Russia must lose the war, as freezing the conflict would embolden further aggression by Valdimir Putin and what Zelenskyy brands the ‘coalition of criminals’ backing Moscow. One of those criminals, Kim Jong Un, should be considered a direct party to the conflict if it’s proven that North Korean troops are operating in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China and Iran continue to ramp up material support.  

Zelenskyy is clear that Ukraine’s victory depends on the will of its partners. Encouragingly, Australia’s military aid has no conditions attached beyond compliance with international humanitarian law, which means the tanks may be used to attack and hold Russian territory—one of Zelenskyy’s criteria for forcing the Kremlin’s hand. Our intelligence and security agencies must now redouble their vigilance against Russian retaliation, which might be directed against Australians. 

At the strategic level, Canberra’s urgent task is to work with Japan, New Zealand and South Korea to emphasise that a durable peace on Kyiv’s terms is also essential for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The inclusion of ministers from those countries in the opening session of NATO meetings on 17 October helps get that message across. 

Australia should go further by spelling out a long-term approach, including by joining the over 30 countries that have signing onto the G7 declaration of support for Ukraine. Canberra should also consider forging a bilateral security and defence agreement with Ukraine, following the example of the 26 countries that already have.