Emerging generations should design future disaster response forces

Last week, the Select Committee on Australia’s Disaster Resilience released its long-awaited report, Boots on the ground: raising resilience. It’s an excellent summary of input from across the disaster-response community in Australia and makes many sensible recommendations for advancing disaster resilience. 

It does not, however, solve the core problem that it identifies: how to displace the ADF’s role in anything but last-resort domestic disaster response. Until that problem is solved, the requirement for ADF support during emergencies will continue to increase—leaving it distracted from its core defence mission amid rising geopolitical uncertainty. 

What Australia needs is a future disaster-response capacity commensurate with rapidly accelerating climate impacts—driven by an intergenerational strategy for climate-amplified disaster response. 

To do so, governments must give emerging generations a seat at the table in designing a future disaster-response force that they will lead. This strategy must be complementary to the forthcoming National Adaptation Plan and ongoing energy transition efforts. Rather than mandating sacrifice through inaction and poor preparation, governments should invest in and give young people hope for a safe climate-resilient future that they can build.

On the select committee’s core finding: this is far from the first time that the ADF’s role in domestic disaster response has been flagged as a challenge. The issue was acknowledged in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) and the 2024 National Defence Strategy, both of which pointed out the operational trade-offs involved in the concurrency of the ADF’s increasing engagement in domestic disaster response and its core national defence missions. ASPI commented on this with the DSR’s release last year, but little has changed in public decision-making since then, despite rising disaster intensity and frequency driven by climate change. 

This defence and disaster-response concurrency challenge is also not unique to Australia. The Center for Climate and Security in the US has been tracking the rising number of military responses to climate hazards around the globe. NATO’s latest annual Climate change and security impact assessment report demonstrated how its strategic competitors, Russia and China, face the same climate-amplified disaster-response and adaptation challenges as allied militaries. In large part, the effectiveness of future militaries will depend on their ability to decouple themselves from disaster response. 

Rising disaster-response needs also drive Australia’s support to partners in the Indo-Pacific and further abroad. Australia’s proposal to establish the Pacific Response Group (PRG) reflects this: a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief focused initiative between the militaries of Australia, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga. The PRG may play an increasingly important role in the years to come, including by helping to meet Australia’s disaster-response commitments to Tuvalu under the Falepili Union, if Tuvalu were to request a multinational response. 

International responses also eat into domestic non-ADF disaster-response capacity. There’s a longstanding tradition of countries sharing disaster-response capacity. For example, Australian firefighters have recently deployed to help combat Canada’s western wildfires. Such cooperation contributes not only to Australia’s partners’ disaster resilience, but also secures needed capacity in Australia during times of need. While international dynamics were not factored explicitly into the select committee’s report, they are critical to planning and preparing for future disaster-response capacity. 

Of course, the ADF can reduce its involvement in domestic disasters only if our civilian capacity for disaster management is strengthened significantly. As Raymond Whitehead noted in his testimony to the committee, a civilian force will need to be able to 

… provide heavy logistic and tactical support to local frontline services, including such things as: communications and IT support, medical support through deployable hospitals, heavy logistics support. It would also have access to equipment such as helicopters of different sizes, specialist observation and situational awareness aircraft, a fleet of transport planes, and tactical and strategic water bombers ….

It will also need far greater numbers of emergency-response personnel than are available today. While there’s an excellent body of Australian disaster-response experts—including ADF veterans contributing to Disaster Relief Australia—the ADF is facing a recruitment crisis. Beyond needing to limit requests to the ADF for disaster response, Australia will also have dwindling numbers of ADF-trained disaster-response experts available to train and supplement a future civilian force. This necessitates significantly increasing the scope and breadth of trained disaster responders in the near term. 

The obvious solution is to ask emerging generations, who will bear the brunt of climate-amplified disasters, to fill out those ranks—but how governments do that is crucial. 

Young generations know they face a burden of higher global temperatures and climate impacts: up to 75 percent of Australians aged 16 to 25 years are concerned about climate change, according to a YouGov report last year. That’s understandable: global temperatures may breach the Paris Agreement’s lower ‘safe’ threshold of 1.5°C by the 2030s and reach catastrophic levels of warming by the end of this century without further action by governments. Youths’ commitment to tackle this head on has been clear through their climate activism and protests, demonstrating their desire to effect change rather than be paralysed by climate anxiety. 

The federal government should leverage that concern and energy, but its efforts will be rightly met with cynicism if they’re not matched by far more ambitious emissions-reduction and climate-adaptation action. What basis should youth have for a sense of voluntary disaster-response duty when past governments and generations have failed to take on the costs of emissions reductions? Failing that voluntary sense of duty, given the strength of protests against insufficient climate action, how will they react to being drafted into a pathway of complicated (and arguably ineffective) mandatory national service? 

The path forward should begin with a genuine process to engage Australia’s young and emerging generations about how they want to build their future. Success will also depend on how much the participants develop a genuine sense of ownership and agency. 

Governments at all levels in Australia should seize this as an opportunity: our climate trajectory is dire, but not hopeless, as long as many required changes are made. Emissions must be reduced rapidly as part of an equitable energy transition that grows future economic opportunity. Climate-adaptation funding and resilience building must be scaled significantly to minimise the extent of future risk. The considerable disaster-response expertise and resilience among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities should also be sought and supported, as the committee notes, including by funding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community response units. 

At the federal level, bold commitment is needed to devise what should become an intergenerational strategy for climate-amplified disaster response. Heavily informed by younger generations, this would be complementary to Australia’s forthcoming National Adaptation Plan, while laying out a roadmap to train, equip and organise young and future generations to meet rising disaster risks at the local and national levels. 

To be clear: enhancing Australia’s disaster-response capacity alone will be insufficient. While the ADF’s involvement in disaster response must be limited, the much greater task here is getting buy-in from emerging generations for future disaster-response capacity. If that can be done right, future generations can be given a meaningful way to build a safer and more resilient future for themselves, while freeing the ADF to focus on its core missions. 

A roadmap for liberal democratic revitalisation

On time for the Year of Elections, a deftly crafted book, Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman, by Charles Dunst, tackles how liberal democracies can develop resilience in the face of autocratic attractiveness.

Dunst is the foreign policy adviser to US Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado. I recently spoke with Dunst in Washington, DC, about his prescriptions based on the idea that success begins at home. Following is an edited version of our conversation:

Brown: Tell me more about the appeal of authoritarianism. What makes liberal democracy such a hard sell today?

Dunst: I’ve picked up a theme at book events over the last 18 months. I first noticed it at a February 2023 London discussion with UK parliament staffers and think tankers—all people working in a democratic government or supporting democracy from the outside. I opened by asking how many of them had been to Shenzhen, Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Singapore—world-class cities in autocracies. Half of them raised their hands. Then I asked: ‘How many of you felt that some things worked better in those cities? Was Singapore’s metro system better than London’s? What about the Dubai airport? Did it work better than Heathrow? Did you feel that the UAE was better governed than the United Kingdom?’ Those same 50 people raised their hands.

Something similar has played out during other book engagements. Indian journalists have asked me why democracy is better if the Gulf States and Singapore deliver for their people despite not being democracies. Perhaps most striking was a radio conversation I had with John Maytham on one of South Africa’s leading programs. He opened by asking his listeners how many of them would forego some freedoms for a ‘country that works’. Around 90 of the 100 or so people who called answered affirmatively. I was floored, but the host said he understood why callers, frustrated with ineffective democracy, would rather live in what they considered a high-functioning autocracy. For them, he explained, Rwanda is the model, not Singapore or the UAE. This sentiment—an international yearning for a mythical autocracy that delivers better than democracies do—is the crux of the problem and why I wrote Defeating the Dictators.

Brown: What makes China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and other ‘successful’ autocracies so different from past competitors like the Soviet Union? 

Dunst: Modern autocracies are flawed. But many are durable, and some have thrived—think China (at least until recently), Singapore and the Gulf states. These ‘successful’ autocracies have similarities. They combine relatively free markets and reasonably secure property rights; some but not all count on natural resources for their wealth. The Asian ones are blessed with historically high-quality (if undemocratic) political institutions and social structures that leaders rediscovered after colonialism.

They are nothing like the Soviet Union. The West won the Cold War, in part, because Soviet illiberalism never succeeded. The system never had legitimacy at home nor abroad, because it never worked economically. The same isn’t true of autocracies today. China is, by some counts, the world’s largest economy when adjusted for purchasing power. Singapore and Vietnam have also successfully married authoritarianism with market economics. Autocracies account for about 35 percent of global income, compared with only 12 percent in 1992. This success means that today’s autocracies are not so brittle. There is no guarantee that China or Saudi Arabia will collapse under the weight of their own flaws as the Soviet Union did.

The Cold War is not a good model for today’s competition. China’s economy is too intertwined with ours to bifurcate the world. Still, the Cold War can serve as a model for how a competitor or a set of competitors can motivate us to get our own homes in order. Fixing problems at home helped us to defeat the dictators then; it is key to defeating them again today.

Brown: Can you say more about shoring up governance at home. How did we get away from good governance principles and practices? 

Dunst: After the Cold War, there was a sense that liberalism won and would continue to win—and that we didn’t need to spend so much energy on upkeep. As a result, our social safety nets declined and money seeped into our politics. And while I am a supporter of deepening and expanding America’s trade relationships with the world, the way we did so in the 1990s and early 2000s didn’t account for—or mitigate—the effects on those workers displaced by such trade at home. That displacement has since fuel widespread anger with policymakers in DC and opposition to free trade itself, which is now undercutting America’s ability to deepen trading relationships with critical partners in the Indo-Pacific, Latin America and beyond.

I wrote this book for a global audience—my publisher is British—and tried, for the most part, to avoid offering US-centric solutions. I’ve lived in Cambodia, Hungary and the United Kingdom and leaned on those experiences as well as travel to other regions to offer prescriptions that may benefit many places. Meritocracy in government staffing, for instance, is critical for advanced economies like Australia and developing ones like Malaysia. The same is true, too, of accountability, trust, long-term thinking, reforming the social safety net, investing in human capital and building 21st century infrastructure like undersea cables. Immigration, my last chapter, is probably the only one that applies mostly to advanced economies, where native birth rates are low and the topic is politically charged.

Brown: What is the connection between resiliency in places such as the United States and Australia and democracy promotion abroad? 

Dunst: Put simply, loss in confidence at home produces disruptive politics that leads to worse governance and a further loss in confidence. This vicious cycle of ineffective governance and cynical politics then weakens democracy’s attractiveness abroad, where high-functioning autocracies are increasingly seen as models. Southeast Asian policymakers already yearn for China’s previous double-digit growth rates and Singapore’s effective governance, not the US’s perceived political chaos. Across the Middle East, people prefer Saudi- or UAE-style governance over the United Kingdom’s five prime ministers in five years. Many South Africans, as I found, would rather live in autocratic Rwanda than their own democracy. Only better performance at home will inspire people to become more like us, rather than like our autocratic competitors.

Brown: Stephen Krasner makes a case for good-enough governance and for meeting authoritarians ‘where they are’ to promote common interests. What do you make of that argument?

Dunst: I don’t neatly divide the world between democracies and autocracies, and I don’t think most policymakers do, either. Australia and the US should push partners to improve human rights and governance when possible, but democracies need friends beyond their own small clique. Shoring up democracy at home and selling our model abroad does not mean cutting off or downgrading ties with partners like Singapore and Vietnam. We should cultivate these relationships to advance our national interests and produce domestic success through mutually beneficial trade or cooperating on shared security challenges. In the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, there is, as you say, a need to meet governments ‘where they are’ without compromising our values and interests.

Of course, the egregious abuses and maliciousness of some autocratic governments—like those in Iran, Myanmar (since the 2021 coup), North Korea, Russia and Venezuela—prevent mutually beneficial cooperation. That’s fine; we cannot and should not try to be friends with everyone.

China is a different challenge. To paraphrase US and German officials, Russia is the current storm, whereas China is the long-term challenge of climate change. China is the only country with the intent and potential ability to reshape the US-led rules-based order in accordance with Beijing’s preferences—to, in short, create a China-centric order in which might means right and China, by then holding the most power (in Beijing’s vision), is at the center. This difference is why Canberra, Tokyo, and Washington approach Beijing in a fundamentally different way than Moscow or Tehran, including by building a coalition that includes non-democracies. Maintaining the rules-based order (and then perhaps reforming it to account for the Global South’s rise) requires autocratic partners who, while not liberal at home, broadly benefit from and thus support a liberal international system.

 

Charles Dunst, Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2023).

Hastie: what would I do as the next minister for defence

 

[A speech delivered to the Meet the Chiefs industry briefing, Canberra, 13 August 2024.]

 

I’m glad to have another frank discussion with you about securing Australia’s future. Tonight, I propose to do something different. I’d like to take a different angle on Defence, and put the pressure on me: what would I do as the next minister for defence?

So rather than describing the strategic challenges that we face, which are many and have been well articulated already, I’m going to describe how I will approach the task of governing as minister for defence if we are successful in winning the next election.

First, though, let’s limber up with a Kim Beazley insight on Defence, who once said this:

… the complex structure of decision-making in defence, producing as it does a clash of views among extraordinarily well-versed partisans of particular service and institutional interests, patriotic philosophers, optimists and pessimists, scientists and technological fixers, nationalists and internationalists, is more akin to ancient church councils in its product than to the town meeting approach democracy contemplates.

It’s vintage Beazley in the way he paints a colourful, human panorama for us. You can feel the sense of mystery that shrouds the defence diarchy that is charged with defending the nation.

I should add that the quote is more than 25 years old, and times have changed. But being a student of history, we need to understand the past if we are to navigate the future with a high probability of success.

In any case, we can assume that Defence—as an organisation—is a complex living institution, and so I assume a posture of humility in approaching the challenge.

Minister for defence is one the toughest jobs in the Cabinet, and the most unforgiving in the event of failure.

What is failure? Well, let’s first define success. In my view, there are two criteria for success: one, preventing war; two, if it comes, winning at war.

Both preventing and winning wars requires one thing: strength—the strength to deter and defeat your adversaries. And you’re only strong if you have combat power, industrial capacity and allies.

Now, we have a lot of work to do on our combat power and industrial capacity in Australia.

We are doing well with our allies—AUKUS is proof of that—but relationships need constant work, and we cannot for a moment neglect them.

I’ve defined success. So, back to failure.

Failure would be leaving Australia’s defences so weak that we provoke aggression. And in the face of aggression, failure is losing at war.

A minister for defence is charged with making sure that doesn’t happen. That is the job. It is a no-fail mission. There are no other areas of public policy where the consequences for failure are so grave.

Sir Arthur Tange, perhaps the greatest defence secretary of the last century, understood this challenge well. A whip smart, charming, prickly, driven and relentless reformer, he dragged Defence into the modern era, and a few star ranks with him. He understood Defence as fundamentally an intellectual exercise requiring leadership, analytical power and drive.

It’s an intellectual exercise because it requires a strategic imagination to anticipate threats and taking the preparatory actions to defeat them. It’s also an intellectual exercise in convincing your adversaries to take you seriously.

Deterrence, in the end, is deeply psychological. You want to haunt the mind of your opponent. To instil fear and anxiety in them. You are sending a price signal, that war will be costly—a price signal that saps their will to fight. Defence starts in the mind, and that’s why Tange culled safe thinkers from the civilian hierarchy.

He cut loose those he considered too conservative, or process orientated. He was also happy to have the top brass bent out of shape, if that’s what it took. He wanted Defence to be an intellectual powerhouse.

That’s also why Tange drove the reforms that led to the modern Defence organisation that we know today. I won’t go through them in detail but for the purposes of this speech, the reforms made clear in the Defence Act that the minister for defence presides over the general control and administration of the defence force.

This brings us to the point of my remarks tonight.

How do I see an effective minister exercising these powers?

I think we must first recognise the natural constraints that bind a minister for defence. There are geopolitical constraints. There are domestic constraints—electoral, parliamentary and party political. There are constraints within cabinet. There are budgetary constraints.

There are the normal constraints of elected office in the Westminster system—local politics, media and campaigns.

Geography is a factor, too. This I know well travelling from Western Australia. Then there are family considerations, and personal constraints like intellect, character and experience. Very quickly, we can see that defence ministerial leadership has a unique set of constraints. And those constraints narrow the ministerial influence upon defence policy and decision-making. You can’t be everywhere, and across every brief. You need a team around you. I think this is a feature of our democratic tradition, not necessarily a bug as some might think. (Although it’s provided plenty of material for Yes, Minister and the other documentary, Utopia.)

Second, given these constraints, ministerial leadership is distinctly different to all other types of leadership.

If Kim Beazley likened Defence decision-making to ancient church councils, I’m going to take the liberty of borrowing some Dutch Protestant theology. More than 120 years ago, the prime minister of the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper, formulated the concept of ‘sphere sovereignty’. In short, it teaches that every sphere of life—family, business, education and government, to name a few spheres—has its own internal order, responsibilities and competence.

To adapt it to the secular topic at hand, that of defence, it means that every sphere of capability within and adjacent to Defence is sovereign in its responsibility and competence. The infantry platoon at close combat. The warship at protecting our seas. The squadron of fighter aircraft in patrolling the skies. The missile battery in air defence. The logisticians who resupply our war fighters. The public servants who do policy and administration. The manufacturer at producing cutting edge defence technology.

Each sphere of capability is sovereign. And it is also accountable to the whole—in this case, to the Parliament through the minister for defence.

One thing I do want to make clear: it is not the role of the minister to impose themselves directly upon the many spheres of capability and competence within Defence.

It’s not their job to out-general the generals.

It’s not their job to out-secretary the secretary.

It’s not their job to out-soldier the soldiers.

It’s not their job to out-administer the administrators.

It’s not their job to out-think the think-tankers.

It’s not their job to out-manufacture the manufacturers.

The minister’s job is to bring all these spheres—which sit in creative tension with one another—into an organisation that coheres around the Defence mission.

And the primary way that we draw things together in my vocation is through our words, through our tough questions and through our coordinating networks.

That’s the minister’s sphere—in the public square—making the decisions: making the arguments, building public support, explaining decisions, being accountable to the Parliament.

A defence minister does this directly, and through their personal staff—who matter a great deal in the way they connect the minister to Defence, and therefore must be of the highest calibre.

Malcom Fraser and Arthur Tange had many personal battles, perhaps in part because Fraser—as minister for defence—liked to canyon deep into the defence establishment. Fraser made a habit of working inside defence and calling up lower officials in the organisation. Tange didn’t like interference in his sphere. He was sovereign as secretary. Things between them, at one point, got so bad that they went without speaking for two weeks, until Fraser offered to settle it over a drink with the secretary.

Now, some of my critics might suggest that my time in the Australian Defence Force will be a problem if we form government—that I just won’t be able to help myself, that I will revert to Captain Hastie.

To that critique, I would say, I know what it is to soldier in tough conditions, to feel fear and anxiety, to make mistakes, to experience friction at the pointy end of operations.

I understand the customs and traditions of the ADF—as well as the quirks and some of the lexicon. That’s all very important as a potential minister for defence.

But I haven’t been to command and staff college, nor undertaken other higher defence courses or training. And perhaps that will be to the advantage of our national defence.

I don’t consider myself a master of operational art or compelled to interfere directly with operations; others have those skills.

Sure, it’s the minister’s prerogative to ask tough questions, to demand options, to make decisions, but we have ADF experts in their spheres of sovereignty, and they must be respected.

Instead, I’ve had a strategic education of my own, through the Parliament over the last nine years—longer than I was ever a commissioned officer. I’ve chaired the Intelligence and Security Committee. I was understudy to Peter Dutton as his assistant minister in the last government.

I built relationships across the national security community and industry and worked hard to understand parliamentary and government processes.

In short, I’ve chosen to master my vocation of politics—to help shape the polis itself, the way we organise our national life.

I’ve not forgotten what the late Rear Admiral James Goldrick said to me: you must keep reading and writing. You must build an interior life. I have pursued that interior life since I heard those words.

Which is why I would say back to my critics: I’ll respect your sphere of competence; I trust that you’ll respect mine.

So, in closing, it is my view that a competent minister for defence will have a mastery of their parliamentary vocation; they’ll be excellent communicators; they’ll be focused on the no-fail mission of Defence; they’ll respect the many spheres of competence in the organisation; they’ll ask the tough questions; and they’ll make the tough calls.

We began with churches, but let me end with ramparts.

For the Defence establishment looks like one of the imposing castles that I visited in Jordan during my final deployment 10 years ago: Kerak Castle, built in 1142 AD, and Ajloun Castle, built in 1184 AD. Both are steeped in military and political history. Both are imposing and full of mystery.

You can only fully understand the castle once you are inside. The corridors. The secret passages. The many chambers. The booby traps.

So, too, with Defence. You’ve got to be inside the fortress, as there is no substitute for experience, and so the task now is to win this election and form government.

As Orban assaults democracy, EU must boldly reclaim its integrity

Whenever Europeans return from their summer holidays, calls for a structural overhaul of the European Union are practically inevitable. This year will be no different, though the impetus for change may be more powerful than ever.

The EU is facing numerous daunting, even existential, challenges. War rages on its doorstep, economic competitiveness lags, and deep social polarisation persists. Political uncertainty in France and indecision in Germany compound the EU’s fragility, precisely when an unpredictable leadership transition in the United States, which threatens to usher in a prolonged period of American isolationism, leaves Europe with little choice but to take its fate into its own hands.

The EU has managed to overcome severe disruptions in recent years, from sovereign-debt crises to the withdrawal of Britain. But, in today’s geopolitical environment, it is weak, vulnerable and ill-prepared to handle the challenges it faces. The enduring influence of populist forces—which weaponise concerns over illegal migration and openly defy European unity—is a major reason why.

For example, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has led Hungary’s government since 2010 (after previously holding office from 1998 to 2002), has seemingly made it his mission to erode the rule of law in Hungary and across the EU, while undermining European cohesion. And last month, his government assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.

Within days, Orban carried out surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing to discuss a potential Ukraine peace deal,making a clear bid both to exploit the EU’s institutional apparatus and to undermine it strategically. He also attended—again, with no coordination or warning—the summit of the Organization of Turkic States, which includes as an observer the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

EU leaders scrambled to clarify that Orban had no mandate to represent the union externally, let alone to negotiate any kind of Ukraine peace deal. To highlight that Orban was acting out of turn, the EU’s foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defense ministers, normally the job of the Council of the EU president.

Unfazed, Orban proceeded to announce a new fast-track visa system that would enable citizens of eight countries, including Russia and Belarus, to enter Hungary without security checks, raising fears about the integrity of the Schengen Area of border-free travel and EU security more broadly. Orban has also sought, together with his counterparts in Slovakia, to use EU levers to force Ukraine to end its ban on the transit of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline that runs through its territory. Most recently, Hungary blocked a joint EU statement on the ‘irregularities’ of the presidential elections in Venezuela, prompting Borrell to issue a separate statement.

EU leaders can do all the damage control they want, but Orban is achieving his goal of making the Union appear confused, discordant and weak. Having internalised key lessons of the Soviet era, he knows that empires and institutions begin to falter once they become objects of ridicule.

This has contributed to the growing impression that, in a world increasingly defined by geopolitical power plays and realpolitik, the EU’s moral authority and commitment to values-based governance are quaint and ineffective—relics of the past. A lack of visionary leadership and cohesion among key members have only compounded the problem.

Not only has the once-powerful Franco-German engine of European integration run out of steam; European Commission President ’s new mandate—which she secured by crafting an ambiguous platform that sought to appeal to a broad spectrum of interests—seems unlikely to bring profound change. Against this backdrop, forging a coherent vision on critical issues like competitiveness, innovation and defence will prove difficult, at best. Those who stand to gain the most from this situation are spoilers, such as Orban, who have learned how to exploit disunity and ambiguity.

During past crises—from the Brexit negotiations to the EU’s previous dealings with Hungary over Orban’s assaults on democracy and the rule of law—the EU has relied largely on a legalistic and technocratic approach, which has often left it worse off. But calls for the EU to start speaking the language of power have remained unheeded. And while proposals for strengthening the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’s mandate have been advanced, they represent little more than cosmetic changes.

To regain its footing, the EU must act with urgency and resolve, even if that entails uncomfortable confrontations with member states. And to thrive in the world of today and tomorrow, it must, once again, establish itself as an indispensable partner for the US.

This means strengthening its economy, not least through innovation. It also means heeding former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s advice to engage more effectively with younger generations of Americans. Bolstering the image of the EU, which often is viewed more negatively than individual member states, is essential.

With US President Joe Biden now a lame duck, Ukraine and Europe have entered a period of elevated vulnerability. Russia’s hybrid attacks could escalate in the coming months, posing a significant challenge for the EU, especially with Orban at the helm of the council. If the upcoming US presidential election brings Donald Trump back to the White House, pressure for a negotiated peace in Ukraine could intensify, further disrupting an already fragile geopolitical landscape.

The EU faces a stark choice: it can either continue to allow internal and external forces to weaken it, or it can act boldly to reclaim its integrity and strengthen its influence. From encouraging innovation and bolstering the rule of law to establishing and implementing a shared foreign-policy vision, the EU must demonstrate that it can be both principled and powerful, or risk being left behind.

Protecting our elections against tech-enabled disinformation

The Strategist is running a short series of articles in the lead up to ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue on September 2 and 3. The event will cover key topics in critical, emerging and cyber technologies, including disinformation, electoral interference, artificial intelligence, hybrid warfare, clean technologies and more.

 

In 1922, Mr Norman J. Trotter, from the Pappinbarra region of New South Wales, wrote to the then federal Treasurer, the Hon Earle Page MP, complaining that the general election was being held when there wasn’t a full moon.

Trotter pointed out the safety implications of transporting ballot boxes over mountainous roads, on horseback, with insufficient illumination!

A century on, electoral administrators around the world are dealing with a radically changed democratic landscape.  Concerns about moonlight—or its absence—have been replaced by the pervasive presence of disinformation and false narratives, the rise of new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, occasional madcap conspiracy theories, threats to electoral workers, and the need to maintain citizens’ confidence in electoral outcomes.

Together, these dramatic changes will demand the ongoing vigilance of legislators, regulators and civil society. Increased focus and resourcing on this continually emerging space can harness the opportunities it presents while lessening the potential negative effects already being experienced.

The Australian Electoral Commission has been remarkably successful in maintaining the confidence of the Australian people: survey results show persistently high levels of trust in our operations, with nine out of 10 Australians expressing a high degree of satisfaction. That assurance is indispensable when the democratic legitimacy of governments rests on trust in electoral outcomes—the foundation on which all other actions of democratic government rests.

Yet maintaining these results may become increasingly complex with the rapidly expanding use of new technologies and an ever-evolving information ecosystem.

The attempted manipulation of information isn’t new.  In 1675, King Charles II tried to close London coffee houses because he was worried about false information being peddled in those places where people gathered to talk politics. Modern communications, including the ubiquitous use of mobile phones and social media platforms, has turbocharged the development and spread of information—both accurate and false. This has significantly affected all aspects of elections, from campaigning to the way they are conducted.

The relatively recent advent of generative AI heralds a potentially new epoch in electoral management. Globally, democracies are coming to terms with this new technology, and jurisdictions are trying different approaches from outright bans, through to mandatory declarations on messaging, and voluntary codes.

Regardless of the approach, democracies need to be aware that generative AI will have a significant impact on communications around elections. It will enable the generation of information—including disinformation—at a volume and velocity not seen previously and, perhaps even more troublingly, with a verifiability that may make it hard for audiences to discern the truth of the information they are receiving.

Legislators and regulators need to be alert to the potential impact of these ‘three Vs’. Meanwhile Australia’s regulatory framework needs to evolve to harness the benefits of new technology—including to democratic participation and political inclusion—while ameliorating the potentially negative impacts, and protecting the rights of citizens to express themselves freely.

Citizens’ electoral expectations have also changed dramatically. There was a time when the role of an electoral management body was simply to produce a statistically valid result. Such bodies must now also work to maintain trust by listening to the huge amount of feedback they get through social media and other channels—much of which reflects immediate feelings and does not necessarily take account of the legislation or resourcing realities by which an electoral body is bound. These bodies must swiftly respond to concerns and provide a constant stream of assurance about the electoral process.

The AEC has instituted several initiatives to manage these recent developments.  We have developed a reputation management system, which outlines a range of strategies to ensure citizens can trust election results. This includes arguably the most active media and social media engagement in Australia’s public service and the operation of a disinformation register during electoral events. These activities, and many others, are supported by an AEC command centre that provides real-time data, oversight and connectivity to the manual election operation like we’ve never had before.

We’ve also established a defending democracy unit that works with our partners across the government and social media platforms, and supports the operation of the multi-agency electoral integrity assurance taskforce.

AI-generated deepfakes—using audio, video, or a combination of both—have been used to sway public opinion in a growing number of elections overseas. In some cases, the use of AI has been clearly labelled; but in others, the material is presented as genuine. In extreme cases, voters can be steered toward or away from candidates—or even to avoid the polls altogether.

The next federal election is likely to be the first in Australia in which the use of AI-generated political communication could be a prominent feature of the campaign. The net effect, some experts say, is a genuine threat to democracy with a surge of AI deepfakes eroding the public’s trust in what they see and hear.

The AEC is watching global developments closely and is working to ensure voters are not misled about the electoral process, nor the role, capabilities and performance of the AEC.

We are also looking forward to the Australian Parliament grappling with this issue to produce national legislation to help regulate the use of this new technology. Education—specifically digital media literacy—will be fundamental to supporting voters and protecting elections.

Despite the wave of change, the actual process of voting remains reassuringly the same as it was for the very first federal election in 1901.  Australians use a pencil—or a pen, if they choose—to mark their paper and put it in the ballot box.  Those votes still need to be transported to be counted, and votes are counted by citizens working in a temporary capacity with the AEC, in the presence of party scrutineers. The results are published and certified by the electoral authority. Of course, there are some advances such as postal voting and pre-poll voting, as well as telephone voting for blind and low-vision voters, but the core process remains largely unchanged. (As an aside, Mr Trotter would be pleased that advances in electrification means moonlight is no longer a key concern.)

The AEC is very clear on its role in administering elections and maintaining citizens’ trust. We have never and will never—unless told to do so by Parliament—be involved in ascertaining the truth or otherwise of statements by candidates and parties.

Rather, we focus on protecting the integrity of the electoral system and ensuring citizens have the information they need to participate in the process.

This is becoming a more complex and challenging task. It is one that needs the active commitment and attention of every Australian to ensure trust and confidence in our elections remains strong.

 

They’re controversial, but Australia should keep continuing detention orders

‘I cannot foresee a time when you will cease to be dangerous …. I cannot envisage you being freed without the most cogent evidence of a change of mindset.’ So remarked Justice Mark Wall in London’s Woolwich Crown Court last month when handing down a life sentence, with a minimum of 28 years, to Anjem Choudary for directing a terror organisation.

Choudary was the face of militant Islam in Britain, leading numerous groups under the Al-Muhajiroun banner and pledging his allegiance to Islamic State. The ruling makes it likely that Choudary, age 57, will die behind bars in a specialised high-security separation centre in the UK.

Wall’s reasoning was essentially the same as the rationale for Australia’s continuing detention orders (CDOs), which courts can issue on application from the federal Attorney-General to keep high-risk offenders out of society. Australia would make a mistake if it abolished them. They are a valuable and well-justified counterterrorism tool, supplementing other measures.

The life sentence handed down by Wall, with the clarity that there will be no release if Choudary continues to be assessed as dangerous, is in stark contrast to the recommendation of then Australian Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) Grant Donaldson in March 2023 that Australia’s CDOs should be abolished, as they ‘are not proportionate to the threat of terrorism and are not necessary’. Of course, threats and what is a proportionate response are not static and, since Donaldson’s review, we have seen the Hamas terror attack on Israel, the resulting regional conflict and last week’s raising of Australia’s terror level to ‘probable’ by ASIO.

Donaldson criticised CDOs for being based on perceived future risks rather than criminal guilt, arguing that those laws contributed to a harsher society without proven safety benefits. The report recommended abolishing CDOs and amending the law’s objectives to emphasise rehabilitation and reintegration. Problematically, the former INSLM’s suggestion that future risks not be guarded against seems to wholly misunderstand that counterterrorism is ideally about prevention, not only response.

Importantly, Wall’s ruling pragmatically reflects that some criminals—including terrorists and paedophiles—will always be a threat to society. It therefore contextualises Australia’s balanced approach to countering terrorism, which includes continuing detention as a last resort under Division 105a of the Criminal Code Act. The confirmation by the director-general of security that the risk of a terror attack in Australia is greater than 50 percent in the next 12 months reinforces the need to have all legislative and policy tools available.

Australia’s counterterrorism framework is about more than just being tough. It has appropriate protections. Had Choudary been sentenced in Australia, the outcome would have been significantly different. Under the Criminal Code, the mandated penalty for terrorist offences is life imprisonment. In Australia, life imprisonment generally incorporates a non-parole period, although there are slight differences between states and territories. In cases involving mandatory life sentences without parole, the legal framework permits avenues for appeals and reviews and the potential for parole following the non-parole period. Additionally, offenders can serve part of their sentence outside of prison.

If terrorist offenders are assessed as posing a significant ongoing risk to the community post-sentence, the Australian legal system can employ CDOs. These orders enable a court to extend someone’s imprisonment beyond the original sentence if he or she has been convicted of certain grave terrorist-related offences and is deemed to present an unacceptable risk of committing further serious crimes.

Under prescribed circumstances and at the request of the Australian Federal Police, the attorney-general can apply to the courts for a CDO. If granted, the order keeps the offender in prison for a specified period up to three years. Importantly, the offender’s case is reviewed at least once every 12 months.

CDO applications and annual reviews involve expert assessments, court reviews and consideration of the offender’s participation in rehabilitation programs to determine whether continued detention or release under specific conditions is necessary to manage the risk of reoffending.

The decision to apply for a CDO and the court’s decision are underpinned by a systematic assessment and evaluation of an individual’s risk factors and indicators associated with violent extremism. The tools used in that assessment aid in developing targeted interventions and strategies for prevention and rehabilitation.

While there is no perfect system, VERA-2R is Australia’s most used assessment protocol to evaluate and manage the risk of violent extremism. It uses a structured method to assess 34 indicators related to violent extremism, guiding professional judgements without providing numerical predictions. According to a report testing the reliability and validity of VERA-2R on individuals who have radicalised in Australia, it had good inter-rater reliability but low predictive validity. In simple terms, multiple assessors could reach the same conclusions about one subject using VERA-2R, but those conclusions would not reliably predict the subject’s future behaviour.

Rehabilitation and human rights are critically important components of national counterterrorism strategies. While custodial sentences reduce terror risk (likelihood) from specific offenders, deradicalisation, when successful, offers more lasting mitigation. The aim of deradicalisation is to counteract and transform extremist ideologies and behaviours by rehabilitating individuals, thereby reducing their susceptibility to terrorist influences and promoting their reintegration into society. Holistic deradicalisation programs tailored to individual needs are more effective because they address the unique personal, psychological and social factors that contribute to an individual’s extremism, fostering a more profound and lasting transformation. By personalising interventions and support, these programs enhance engagement, build trust and facilitate meaningful changes in attitudes and behaviour.

The justice system can and should make every effort to rehabilitate radicalised terrorist offenders. However, recidivism unfortunately still happens, and the consequences can be severe. In 2018, convicted terrorist Usman Khan, deemed a rehabilitation success and released temporarily from a British prison, killed two people at a London rehabilitation conference in 2019. Previously incarcerated terrorists also committed attacks in London in November 2019 and February 2020.

Rehabilitation programs are essential but imperfect, which requires governments to grapple with the possibility that not every offender will be rehabilitated—particularly within the term of his or her original sentence. CDOs offer necessary complementarity to deradicalisation professionals and law enforcement within a transparent framework of judicial oversight and control, which means they remain a last resort, having been used only twice. Other measures, such as extended supervision orders (ESOs), are again complementary but cannot replace CDOs as they are limited to non-detained individuals roaming in society.

As security threats evolve, so must governments constantly review their laws and security settings, but wholesale deletions of laws based on the threat level on any given day is not in the national interest, which is why CDOs remain an essential power in addition to surveillance, monitoring and rehabilitation.

Advancing the Australia–Indonesia peacekeeping partnership

Australia should seek a more comprehensive peacekeeping partnership with Indonesia, a country that has become highly experienced in the field.

Through frequent joint training exercises, the Australian Defence Force can learn from the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) and play a key role in containing growing unrest in the region. Eventually, the ADF and TNI should together conduct peacekeeping operations, not just training.

Joint efforts in peacekeeping would also strengthen the relationship between the two-armed forces.

In the 2020–2024 Plan of Action for the Australia–Indonesia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP), the two countries committed to strengthening cooperation in peacekeeping operations under the auspices of the United Nations. But they did not specify how this would work in practice.

Expiry of the plan of action this year presents an opportunity for Canberra to advocate for a more substantive Australia–Indonesia peacekeeping relationship under a renewed CSP.

The renewed CSP should establish regular joint peacekeeping exercises between forces of the two countries. Peacekeeping training centres in each country should frequently host defence personnel and cadets from the other. This should be possible, since both the ADF Peace Operation Training Centre (ADF POTC) and the TNI’s Peacekeeping Centre (PMPP Sentul) already host defence cadets from other countries. Canberra and Jakarta made a start when they agreed to establish a permanent Indonesian instructor position at the ADF POTC.

In such places as the Philippines, Georgia and Nepal, the TNI has gained much more experience in peacekeeping than the ADF, whose peacekeeping efforts have dwindled. At present, the TNI’s Garuda Contingent (Konga) has more than 2000 peacekeepers in eight conflict zones, including Lebanon and Mali.

There is already recognition of the value to Australia of cooperating with Indonesia in this area. Last year at PMPP Sentul the Australian Army’s Major Matthew Breckenridge said, ‘Australia doesn’t have large contingents on UN peacekeeping missions, so working with the Indonesians, who send thousands of people yearly, provides the ADF valuable knowledge.’ Breckenridge teaches and provides mentoring to up to 1200 Konga members at a time in the PMPP training centre.

A strengthened peacekeeping capability in cooperation with Indonesia would serve Australia well if unrest broke out in, for example, a Pacific island country, and demanded military intervention—which China might be all too keen to provide if others didn’t.

The Australia–Indonesia partnership should extend eventually to co-deployment of peacekeeping operations, in which one of the two countries, usually Indonesia, would take the lead on the ground while the other played a supporting role. For this, they would need to set up an Australia-Indonesia Peacekeeping Taskforce, which would assess the benefits of cooperation in conflict zones on a case-by-case basis. Priority should be given to current or future conflict zones in the Indo-Pacific. Mutual support would likely be welcomed by both the ADF and the TNI, as peacekeeping operations are often undertaken in extremely challenging and complex environments.

The two countries did announce their intention for co-deployment on a UN peacekeeping mission in 2019, with the aim of strengthening military training cooperation. However, they provided no further information on how such a deployment would be managed and coordinated nor even where they would be keeping the peace. Nevertheless, in 2021 Australia gave Indonesia 15 Bushmaster armoured vehicles for peacekeeping.

Indonesia and Australia have experience working alongside each other in conflict zones, as regular contributors to the UN Department of Peace Operations, but the deployments have not been integrated with each other. Australian and Indonesian UN peacekeeping deployments have overlapped in places like Cambodia (1991 to 1993) and Namibia (1989 to 1990). Peacekeepers from both countries are currently operating in South Sudan.

Australia is the 12th-largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping. ADF personnel have taken part in over 50 peacekeeping operations around the world. In fact, Australians were among the first peacekeepers to be deployed under UN auspices when they monitored the ceasefire between Dutch and Indonesian forces in 1947.

Together, Australia and Indonesia already conduct around 20 exercises a year. The two neighbours also work closely together to prevent people smuggling and human trafficking. However, there is still great potential for bilateral security ties to grow and deepen. Close cooperation in peacekeeping would help.

In Indonesia, Australia has a giant neighbour that now knows a great deal more about this aspect of military capability. It should not lose the opportunity to learn from it.

Hasina’s downfall may create new opportunities in Bangladesh for China

The ousting of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may upset the fragile balance she established between her country and India, China and the United States. India, which has used its influence with Hasina’s government to hold down Chinese involvement in Bangladesh, may have the most to lose.

China, on the contrary, may have an opportunity to strengthen its presence on the Bay of Bengal.

Hasina’s diplomacy was characterised by a balancing act with the three major powers, allowing Bangladesh to extract maximum concessions and limit dependence and interference in its internal affairs.

Her departure on 5 August creates circumstances in which the stakes are particularly high for India, which sees China’s involvement in Bangladesh’s infrastructure projects as a threat. In 2016, New Delhi convinced Dhaka to abandon the Sonadia deep water port project China intended to build.

New Delhi also fears for the future of trans-shipment arrangements between Bangladesh and India’s northeast, which the new government in Dhaka may be tempted to revise. In this context, the ousting of Hasina is a setback.

Hasina’s return to power in 2008, with New Delhi’s support, initiated a close rapprochement between Bangladesh and India, ending Dhaka’s complacency in relation to several terrorist groups that are often supported by Pakistan. It did also open a new era of cooperation with India in trade, energy, infrastructure, defence, security and science. Under Hasina, Bangladesh moreover enforced stricter border controls to check for influxes of illegal immigrants.

India did not ignore the unpopularity of an increasingly coercive regime, but it underestimated the upsurge in opposition to the Hasina government following the January 2024 election, which was marked by an opposition boycott and an unusually low voter turnout of 40 percent. Bangladesh’s political proximity to India alienated Bangladeshis, generating an ‘India-out’ campaign in March 2024. India will need to adjust its relationship with Bangladesh.

China benefited hugely from Hasina’s tenure. However, because it has always presented a facade of political neutrality, perceptions of China in Bangladesh are predominantly positive, and China is less likely to suffer from the ousting of the regime. At the end of 2023, 700 Chinese companies operated in Bangladesh. During Hasina’s visit to Beijing in July 2024, the two countries elevated their relationship to a ‘comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership’. Defence cooperation also became an important component of the relationship. China delivered two refurbished submarines to Bangladesh, commissioned in 2023, and built the BNS Sheikh Basina submarine base in Cox’s Bazar. Today, China is Bangladesh’s most important arms supplier. China provided 73.6 percent of Bangladesh’s arms acquisitions between 2010 and 2020. Although their defence cooperation has been limited to arms sales and infrastructure building, it is increasingly operational. In May 2024, China and Bangladesh conducted their first-ever bilateral military exercise.

The military importance of China–Bangladesh cooperation should not be exaggerated. The May 2024 exercise was based on United Nations peacekeeping anti-terrorism operations. Bangladesh’s military cooperation with China still lacks the density of its cooperation with India, which involved 11 military drills between 2009 and 2023. However, the Bangladesh-China relationship does signal a proximity that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Recent tensions between Dhaka and Washington could serve the United States well in the transition period. Washington’s sanctions against Bangladesh’s Rapid Battalion Force—for human rights violations—and insistence that Bangladesh align with US democratic principles, are in keeping with the demands of Bangladeshi students during the recent uprising.

Dhaka had reached out to Washington to balance against India and China and get better terms from them. The US remains Bangladesh’s largest export destination, taking 14.5 percent of its exports. US arms sales to Bangladesh pale in comparison to China’s, but Washington maintains dynamic defence cooperation with Dhaka. However, the US cannot ignore the neutrality of Bangladesh’s recent Indo-Pacific strategy. Assuming the US views the current circumstances as an opportunity to push back against China’s influence in Bangladesh, it must be aware that the change of government may push Dhaka into Beijing’s welcoming arms.

Bangladesh’s future foreign policy orientation will ultimately depend on the new government’s composition. The Islamist movement, particularly the Jamaat-i-Islami, which Hasina had severely repressed, may be part of the new political set-up. This would most likely inhibit any US attempt to strengthen relations. For India, the re-emergence of the Islamist party on the Bangladesh political scene would mean the return of a pro-Pakistan government on its eastern flank, upsetting the regional strategic balance. How China would react remains unclear.

The Quad is here to stay

The Quad is in good health, despite suggestions that it is being overtaken by other Indo-Pacific security initiatives. We saw its strength at the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Tokyo in late July.

In the past few years, the Quad has been joined by the Squad, comprising the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines, and by AUKUS and the proposition of an Asian NATO. All, to varying degrees, offer ways of reinforcing security in the Indo-Pacific in addition to the Quad, which groups Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Yet India’s External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, said at the Tokyo meeting, the ‘Quad is here to stay, here to do, and here to grow.’

The joint statement from the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Tokyo showcases the diverse agenda of the Quad, highlighting its commitment to maintaining a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. This agenda spans various sectors, including outer space, cyber security, artificial intelligence, health security, infrastructure building, sea lane protection, climate-impact measures and supply chain resilience. It demonstrates the Quad’s substantial and multifaceted cooperative efforts.

Greater focus on the issues of immediate neighborhood concern to member countries, such as Myanmar, state-sponsored terrorism in South Asia, North Korea, Pacific island countries, Houthi attacks in the Indian Ocean region, and even the Middle East and Ukraine, demonstrate the collective understanding and efforts to safeguard the region from instability and upheavals.

It is also worth noting that, during the meeting, Australia announced the launch of the Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre, a critical initiative to boost reliable connectivity and the growth of the digital economy.

These efforts aim to fill gaps and strengthen capacities across multiple sectors to safeguard the current rules-based order and protect it from disruptive actions by revisionist powers. The Quad members are united by shared threats and a collective intent to reap economic and trade benefits and to promote Indo-Pacific stability and security, countering Beijing’s narrative and influence over regional players.

Among those who play down the value of the Quad, Ashley Tellis says: ‘In militarised crises and conflict with China, the mini-laterals like AUKUS and the Squad and, most importantly, the US–Japan alliance, will prove to be far more important than the Quad.’

But the Quad’s focus on a rules-based order and extended maritime domain awareness positions it as a softer but more systematic power alternative to Washington’s strategy for containing China’s growing assertiveness in the region. This approach aims to build regional trust and confidence, distinguishing the Quad from AUKUS or the Squad, which focus on direct hard-power deterrence.

Unlike the Squad, the Quad emphasises trust-building and economic friendshoring. This strategy consolidates existing security measures and extends new safeguards to non-member nations, including ASEAN countries.

The Quad’s emphasis on extended maritime domain awareness sets it apart from other security-centric mini-laterals, which are limited by geographical and operational constraints. The Indian Ocean remains the central geo-security domain for the Quad, with the Indian Navy playing a crucial role in enhancing joint capacities and supporting extended maritime operations with contributions from the US Japan, and Australia.

As Jaishankar noted, the Quad’s strength lies in its foundation of democratic politics, pluralistic societies and market economies, stabilising factors in a volatile world. The diversity of Quad members’ capabilities and offerings across diverse domains ensures a resonant and aligned partnership, providing a credible and resilient alternative to China’s propositions or those of any individual Quad member.

A PNG view on recruitment for the ADF: yes, please

Papua New Guineans should serve in the Australian Defence Force. As a Papua New Guinean, I believe this would instill Western values of democracy and freedom in our young people, who must be made to realise that these principles are under threat as China expands its influence in the region.

Australian military service would also provide employment for young people from PNG and other Pacific island countries, giving them real life skills.

As Australia considers the possibility of Pacific recruitment, it must understand that this would not just be a way to make up the ADF personnel shortfall. It would also help the countries from which service personnel were drawn, demonstrating good will towards the Pacific and going well beyond mere words in promoting their alignment with the West.

In general, the Pacific islands would prefer to align with Australia and the United States rather than China, but this view is predominantly held by older people, especially those who remember what they call the good times of the colonial era. In contrast, the younger people do not care greatly whether their countries are aligned to the West or not.

Service in the ADF would do more than bind many young people in PNG and other Pacific island countries to Australia. It would also teach them the moral values that come with military service, values that are lacking among far too many of them, especially in PNG. And they would take those values back home after completing their ADF service, to the gratification of their fellow citizens, not least their extended families.

Serving in the armed forces of a sturdily democratic country such as Australia would also reinforce democratic values that are fast eroding in the Pacific islands.

Terms of service for Pacific island people should require them to return home after, say, nine years in the ADF. If they later wanted to apply for Australian citizenship, they could be given preferential treatment, but only after at least five years serving in the armed forces of their home countries.

This should be an important feature of Pacific recruitment. Pacific defence and security forces are short on skills and suffer declining disciplinary and ethical standards. The infusion of ex-ADF people would address both problems. For the PNG Defence Force, the skills transfer would be particularly effective, because almost all its equipment has been donated by Australia.

If Pacific islanders did not shift from the ADF to their home countries’ forces, their skills would still benefit their countries in non-military employment.

In return for giving Pacific islands these benefits, Australia would gain from their labour availability. Pacific island countries, such as PNG, have economies that are not growing much but populations that have exploded, leaving many well educated young people unemployed.

The $600 million that Canberra plans to spend on establishing a team from PNG in the Australian Rugby League competition would be far better spent on ADF recruitment in the country. It would employ far more PNG people if it were. And rugby league does not teach life skills, whereas ADF service would provide that and other much deeper benefits.

Crucially, Pacific countries must be treated as equal partners in defence of democracy and freedom. It is not their politicians but their people who must realise that Western values that they enjoy, such as democracy and freedom of speech, are not guaranteed.

They must also be reassured that the Pacific islands are not merely a military buffer against a threat to Australia. Young Papua New Guineans, who have a better grasp of geopolitics than their parents, are increasingly of the view that PNG must not be treated as useful cannon fodder in a possible war. If they think that that is Australia’s attitude, any sense of loyalty or partnership will vanish.

They can see what China is doing to enlarge its influence and what the US is doing in response. In my experience, they are not clear about what Australia is doing, as distinct from what it is merely saying, to demonstrate commitment to the region.

In the spirit of equal partnership, the ADF should avoid creating a Pacific Regiment, one composed entirely of Pacific recruits, as that would give rise to criticisms of colonialism and second-class status. Instead, as recommended by former British Army officer Ross Thompson, it should follow the model that Britain uses for Fijian recruits: it should spread Pacific islanders across a range of units.

Australia needs to demonstrate its commitment to Pacific island countries. The best way it can do so is by giving Pacific islanders the benefits of service in the ADF.