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Three key factors defined the terrorist threat landscape in 2017: the international coalition’s military dismantling of Islamic State’s (IS) caliphate, and their return to a nebulous insurgency structure; increased IS activity in South East Asia catalysed by the battle for Marawi; and the potential resurgence of al-Qaeda.

These developments have in turn shaped the evolution of international counterterrorism (CT) agendas at local, regional and international levels. The challenges include the prospect of returning foreign fighters, the sustained threat of lone actor attacks, and the capacity of ‘virtual attack planners’. There’s no single way to address these issues and different regions/countries have developed their own policy and operational responses that reflect local socio-political developments. In addition, factors such as proximity to conflict, porous borders, low-levels of governance and corrupt state regimes have a tangible impact on how CT policy and practice is implemented.

CT in 2017–2018 has clearly been defined by the threat posed by IS in a post-caliphate era. Two key challenges confronting governments revolve around what to do with the likely prospect of returning fighters or migrants, as well as the question of repatriation for individuals who have been captured overseas for travelling to the caliphate. Australia and the UK have successfully passed laws to strip dual nationals of British or Australian citizenship while abroad to bar them from returning. Khaled Sharrouf became the first Australian to lose his Australian citizenship in 2017.

Governments are simultaneously struggling with securing convictions for terrorist offences, as well as with implementing the most suitable and effective punitive measures of prosecution. While prison sentences are non-negotiable for those convicted of terrorist-related offences, there is no universally accepted policy on the most effective arrangements for incarceration, with some governments favouring separation policy over dispersal.

Given the youthful demographic of those who have been involved, as well as their varied motivations and objectives, the level of threat an individual poses to society remains ambiguous, and there are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. Additionally, governments are trying to find the most effective measures to rehabilitate and reintegrate back into mainstream society those who no longer pose a threat. Tailor-made rehabilitation measures that emphasise social reform to positively reintegrate individuals are preferred.

Some notable shifts in CT strategy which will be interesting to monitor in the short and long term include a growing urgency—particularly in Western Europe, the UK, the US and Australia—to develop robust monitoring and evaluation measures to assess policies and programs for countering violent extremism (CVE). The difficulty has been in identifying best practice in this highly controversial field, in which no two paths into and out of violent extremism are the same.

Second, there’s been a conscious effort to change existing approaches to CVE in Australia, Morocco and Tunisia, with a key focus on addressing the sociocultural and political issues that create conditions conducive to radicalisation towards violent extremism. The analysis indicates that there has also been a visible move away from the practice of ‘deradicalisation’ and ‘counter-radicalisation’ towards a social policy focused approach to P/CVE (preventing and countering violent extremism) that values education, training and employment as effective routes towards facilitating engagement, belonging and integration.

On paper, this is a welcome change of direction, but whether or not governments have the appetite to invest in long-term social policy initiatives instead of security-focused approach to P/CVE remains to be seen. It will be of paramount importance to learn from mistakes if this shift is to be implemented successfully.

Third, noting the integral role played by the internet in radicalisation processes, as well as in facilitating and mobilising terrorism, the yearbook has included a chapter analysing the legislative challenges facing states in countering the online activities of terrorists. The challenges for both public and private sectors highlighted in this chapter will be interesting to monitor in the coming years, to assess the effectiveness of policy changes.

ASPI’s Counterterrorism Yearbook 2018 analyses how different countries and regions across the world are tackling the threats of terrorism and violent extremism against the backdrop of the contemporary terrorist threat environment. The almanac identifies developments across the terrorist landscape that are relevant to the year in review and discusses possible challenges to expect in the coming year.

The 2018 edition demonstrates that international CT remains fixated on the threat of Salafi-jihadi terrorism. Not nearly enough attention is being placed on other forms of violent extremism, or where emerging threats may emanate from. Governments need to be better prepared to meet a broader range of emerging challenges across the terrorist threat landscape.

Likely examples include the demands  posed by accelerating automation on society, tracking the trajectory of far-right extremism, and the impact of climate change and people movement on national security. Additionally, none of the chapters in the current yearbook have indicated that governments are appropriately integrating gender perspectives within CT policy and practice, despite the fact that terrorism and violent extremism are gendered experiences.

The objective of the Counterterrorism Yearbook is to document the performance of governments in the CT space, and to demonstrate that states need to develop more flexible and adaptable policies and strategies to meet the challenges thrown up by the continually evolving national and international security landscape.

How Australia’s intelligence agencies contribute to counterterrorism (CT) efforts is a key focus of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review at a time when the rapidly evolving threat underscores the need for the regular reassessments recommended by Phillip Flood in 2004.

Terrorism’s been a prominent feature of the security environment for over a decade and a half, and a significant focus of agencies since the last review in 2011. In that time, we’ve witnessed the Arab Spring and ensuing conflict in Iraq and Syria, the emergence of the Islamic State terrorist group, the threat level in Australia increasing in 2014 to ‘Probable: an attack is likely’, hundreds of Australians fighting abroad, five attacks at home and 12 disrupted plots.

Although Michael L’Estrange and Stephen Merchant were charged with examining the six agencies that comprise the Australian intelligence community (AIC), they followed the recent convention of including the intelligence functions of other agencies in a broader ‘national intelligence community’ (NIC). They stress that they limited consideration to the intelligence functions only of these non-AIC agencies. This appears to have been missed in some criticism that the newly announced Home Affairs portfolio was not recommended by the review. While the review was asked to examine new structural arrangements for the ‘intelligence enterprise’, it was beyond its scope to examine and recommend broader changes affecting security policy agencies.

The review says that ‘extremism with global reach’ will continue for the foreseeable future. It commends the agencies for stopping attacks and supporting CT activities at home and abroad but confirms the heavy toll this effort has taken on the agencies. Agencies are stretched by operational demands and have little scope to deal with terrorism and other challenges in a more strategic way, or to easily reprioritise targets.

The review identifies the need for a truly strategic intelligence capability to oversee and optimise coordination across these areas and agencies, in the form of an Office of National Intelligence (ONI). L’Estrange and Merchant note that this is a natural progression of the role originally envisaged by Justice Robert Hope for the Office of National Assessments (ONA). The agencies are working well, they say, but leadership and coordination could make Australia’s intelligence capability one of the world’s best.

To improve CT coordination, the review recommends placing a senior ONI officer into the Centre for Counter-Terrorism Coordination (CCTC), to better align activities. This useful initiative builds on existing arrangements in the CCTC while linking back into the larger ONI project.

This role will likely gain even greater importance as the Home Affairs portfolio takes shape, as the CT coordinator and CCTC should play a key part in forming and transitioning to the new arrangements. The ONI secondee should be at least at SES Band 2 level, as they’ll report to an ONI deputy. The position should be maintained at this level rather than downgraded as has occurred with some initiatives.

Another role to watch will be that of the new director-general of national intelligence as the key adviser on intelligence to the prime minister and Cabinet. The review makes it very clear that this role is to focus firmly on strategic direction, prioritisation and resourcing of the NIC.

But it will be challenging for both the incumbent and members of Cabinet to maintain the strategic focus of the role and not to succumb to treating this director as a tactical intelligence briefer on the evolving situation. In times of crisis, there can be great pressure to revert to the tactical, but it’s then that calm and strategic intelligence leadership is needed. The review affirms the ongoing role of the director-general of security in directly advising the PM and Cabinet on CT and foreign interference, and the roles of other statutory heads in providing expert advice on their areas of responsibility.

The report’s message of collaboration and coordination extends to improved NIC engagement with policy agencies through enhanced ICT linkages and beyond government to business and academia across the range of threat and technical areas. This aligns with state, territory and local governments, business and academia being seen as CT partners in protecting mass gatherings from terrorism, countering online extremism and terrorist use of encrypted communications, and countering terrorist financing. The National Threat Assessment Centre will benefit from additional focus and technology to ensure threat advice reaches all who need it.

The capability impact of the review has received less attention but will be a game changer. Coordinating the technical requirements, procurement, sustainment and use of key data analytics and ICT systems will not only enhance the NIC’s overall capability but will improve the quality of information and systems available to its partners, in Australia and overseas.

While there are many software and hardware capability overlaps between agencies, including data analytics, surveillance, communications, technical interception and supporting ICT, technical collaboration has not previously had a strategic home. Establishing an NIC science and technology board will target research to support the broad intelligence capability in a way not previously seen. A dedicated innovation fund and hub should provide the tools for collaborating with industry and academia and for quickly mounting projects to address new threats. Agencies will continue to have some differing requirements, but a shared hub for research and capability development will be of enormous benefit.

This is particularly important for CT, which has had substantial and disparate investment not only by NIC members, but also by state and territory police. And the high rate of threat change requires, at times, innovative and rapid acquisition capability.

Much has been said about terrorism stretching agencies as never before. A strategic understanding of both the intelligence and policy aspects of countering terrorism is essential if Australia is to stay ahead of this threat—and be alert to others. It’s in refocusing the NIC to a strategic level that the review provides the greatest impact.

It’s timely that the review was released, and endorsed, at the same time as the announcement of the new Home Affairs portfolio, complementing the rejuvenation and refocusing of intelligence with similar efforts to coordinate security policy and operations. Now comes implementation.

While Australia faces complex prickly national security challenges, our Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers continue to paradoxically announce quick fix policy measures in response to terrorism and crime. From cement bollards in Sydney and Melbourne, new bail arrangements for terrorists across the Commonwealth, legislating social media censorship in the cyber world, and greater access to assault rifles for NSW police, our politicians seek to regulate the minutia of domestic security rather than deal with the root causes of these prickly problems.

The problem with these kinds of quick fixes is that getting tough with security measures has more to do with addressing Australians’ lack of trust in governments than addressing today’s complex security problems. And this needs to change.

On face value, the Victorian government’s decision to construct bollards to prevent vehicle attacks in Melbourne makes perfect sense. Nevertheless, it’s not clear that there is any strategic logic to their deployment. Arguably, the erection of cement bollards in places like Melbourne’s Federation Square will only send would-be attackers elsewhere: and block first responder vehicles during an emergency. The return on investment from these measures, in terms of security, is arguably low. Moreover, this money could perhaps be better spent on intelligence, investigation and early intervention counter-terrorism strategies.

Earlier this month, Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, showed he was getting tough on terrorism when he stated that Melbourne airport should have ‘a dedicated 24/7 tactical response provided by the Australian Federal Police’. Interestingly, this statement seems to be at odds with the experience from the recent MH 128 incident. This incident was resolved without casualties, and showed, despite delays, that the current arrangements work. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to diagnose if, and what, the security shortfalls are at our airports and identify cost-effective solutions to them before prescribing a costly ‘quick fix’? Let’s not forget that the last independent review of Australian airport policing is now 12 years old.

At June’s meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), leaders agreed with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when he stated that ‘there will be a presumption that neither bail nor parole will be granted to those who have demonstrated support for, or have links to, terrorist activity’. While this is a solid counter-terrorism measure, it doesn’t deal with the multifaceted problems with parole and bail in Australia’s legal system more generally. High profile cases, such as the September 2012 Jill Meagher murder, have consistently illustrated that some criminal offenders and alleged offenders present an unacceptable risk to our community if they are released from prison on bail or parole. If Turnbull is trying to protect the community from individuals who present an unacceptable risk, he needs to tackle the broad problems with our bail and parole arrangements: not one of its symptoms.

There should be little doubt that criminals, including terrorists, regularly use social media as a means of communication. Similarly, the anonymity and protection offered to social media users allows those with extremist beliefs to spread their messages far and wide. Little surprise then that our federal government is seeking to pierce social media’s encryption veil, and pressure its operators to censor their platforms. While on the one hand, such developments are certainly a step in the right direction, on the other hand, given the complexity of the encryption debate, and the widespread use of social media, such demands are rather hollow in terms of implementing meaningful policy.

On the 7th of June, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, not to be left behind on the getting tough bandwagon, announced that officers of the state’s Public Order and Riot Squad will have access to semi-automatic assault rifles. While this will provide NSW police with additional capability, it’s not clear how such a decision fits with, or provides any advantage over, existing capabilities.

For governments across the western world the argument is that in times of uncertainty, people expect and value steadfast resolve when it comes to terrorism. Let’s not forget that the ‘security theatre’ associated with getting tough on terrorism also has some deterrent effects. In 2015, Anthony Bergin argued that outcomes from such thinking creates another paradox: ‘the more we’re spending on national security, the more our community seems to feel apprehensive about its safety’.

In the face of recent terrorism tragedies, both at home and abroad, it’s understandable that our leaders want to appear tough on security. Nevertheless, they need to resist the urge to deploy reactive security measures in response to complex and emerging threats. Instead, our governments, and their bureaucrats, need to focus on delivering better long-term security policy and strategy.

The first step in meeting this requirement is for our COAG leaders to focus their domestic security thinking in terms of how their decisions will support the detection, disruption and/or mitigation of risks. This kind of thinking needs to be underpinned by high quality intelligence and evidence based policy that examines the root causes of threats and risks as well as their symptoms. Specific security measures need to be examined from a range of perspectives including their opportunity costs and return on investment.

Some might consider it politically naïve to recommend that Australia’s politicians play a more reserved role in our national security theatre. It would appear many politicians fear the fact that their electorates have a zero tolerance for terrorism attacks. No one is suggesting that we should downplay our terror threat. However, if polls are anything to go by, the current round of decisive security announcements are having limited impact on threat fatigued Australian’s sense of security and voting preferences.

World powers have often been known to intervene, overtly and covertly, to overthrow other countries’ governments, install pliant regimes, and then prop up those regimes, even with military action. But, more often than not, what seems like a good idea in the short term often brings about disastrous unintended consequences, with intervention causing countries to dissolve into conflict, and intervening powers emerging as targets of violence. That sequence is starkly apparent today, as countries that have meddled in the Middle East face a surge in terrorist attacks.

Last month, Salman Ramadan Abedi—a 22-year-old British-born son of Libyan immigrants—carried out a suicide bombing at the concert of the American pop star Ariana Grande in Manchester, England. The bombing—the worst terrorist attack in the United Kingdom in more than a decade—can be described only as blowback from the activities of the UK and its allies in Libya, where external intervention has given rise to a battle-worn terrorist haven.

The UK has not just actively aided jihadists in Libya; it encouraged foreign fighters, including British Libyans, to get involved in the NATO-led operation that toppled Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime in 2011. Among those fighters were Abedi’s father, a longtime member of the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, whose functionaries were imprisoned or forced into exile during Qaddafi’s rule. The elder Abedi returned to Libya six years ago to fight alongside a new Western-backed Islamist militia known as the Tripoli Brigade. His son had recently returned from a visit to Libya when he carried out the Manchester Arena attack.

This was not the first time a former ‘Islamic holy warrior’ passed jihadism to his Western-born son. Omar Saddiqui Mateen, who carried out last June’s Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida—the deadliest single-day mass shooting in US history—also drew inspiration from his father, who fought with the US-backed mujahedeen forces that drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In fact, the United States’ activities in Afghanistan at that time may be the single biggest source of blowback terrorism today. With the help of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Saudi Arabia’s money, the CIA staged what remains the largest covert operation in its history, training and arming thousands of anti-Soviet insurgents. The US also spent $50 million on a ‘jihad literacy’ project to inspire Afghans to fight the Soviet ‘infidels’ and to portray the CIA-trained guerrillas as ‘holy warriors.’

After the Soviets left, however, many of those holy warriors ended up forming al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups. Some, such as Osama bin Laden, remained in the Afghanistan-Pakistan belt, turning it into a base for organising international terrorism, like the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. Others returned to their home countries—from Egypt to the Philippines—to wage terror campaigns against what they viewed as Western-tainted governments. ‘We helped to create the problem that we are now fighting,’ then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in 2010.

Yet the US—indeed, the entire West—seems not to have learned its lesson. Clinton herself was instrumental in coaxing a hesitant President Barack Obama to back military action to depose Qaddafi in Libya. As a result, just as President George W. Bush will be remembered for the unraveling of Iraq, one of Obama’s central legacies is the mayhem in Libya.

In Syria, the CIA is again supporting supposedly ‘moderate’ jihadist rebel factions, many of which have links to groups like al-Qaeda. Russia, for its part, has been propping up its client, President Bashar al-Assad—and experiencing blowback of its own, exemplified by the 2015 downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. Russia has also been seeking to use the Taliban to tie down the US militarily in Afghanistan.

As for Europe, two jihadist citadels—Syria and Libya—now sit on its doorstep, and the blowback from its past interventions, exemplified by terrorist attacks in France, Germany, and the UK, is intensifying. Meanwhile, Bin Laden’s favorite son, Hamza bin Laden, is seeking to revive al-Qaeda’s global network.

Of course, regional powers, too, have had plenty to do with perpetuating the cycle of chaos and conflict in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia may have fallen out with a fellow jihad-bankrolling state, Qatar, but it continues to engage in a brutal proxy war with Iran in Yemen, which has brought that country, like Iraq and Libya, to the brink of state failure.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has been the chief exporter of intolerant and extremist Wahhabi Islam since the second half of the Cold War. Western powers, which viewed Wahhabism as an antidote to communism and the 1979 Shia ‘revolution’ in Iran, tacitly encouraged it.

Ultimately, Wahhabi fanaticism became the basis of modern Sunni Islamist terror, and Saudi Arabia itself is now threatened by its own creation. Pakistan—another major state sponsor of terrorism—is also seeing its chickens coming home to roost, with a spate of terrorist attacks.

It is high time for a new approach. Recognizing that arming or supporting Islamist radicals anywhere ultimately fuels international terrorism, such alliances of convenience should be avoided. In general, Western powers should resist the temptation to intervene at all. Instead, they should work systematically to discredit what British Prime Minister Theresa May has called ‘the evil ideology of Islamist extremism.’

On this front, US President Donald Trump has already sent the wrong message. On his first foreign trip, he visited Saudi Arabia, a decadent theocracy where, ironically, he opened the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. As the US and its allies continue to face terrorist blowback, one hopes that Trump comes to his senses, and helps to turn the seemingly interminable War on Terror that Bush launched in 2001 into a battle that can actually be won.

As is my habit when preparing for the Federal Budget, I’ve been going through public polling on attitudes to defence spending and other issues. Here’s a quick summary of what I found.

The importance that people attach to defence compared with other issues continues to decline. According to a Ray Morgan poll from late last year, only 4% of people said that terrorism/war/security issues were the most important facing Australia, compared with 37% who identified economic issues. Things were very different back in 2005, when 21% of people chose terrorism/war/security issues and only 14% economic issues. (Curiously, Australians rated terrorism/war/security issues as the most important issues facing the world in the 2016 survey.)

A similar result emerged from a March 2017 Ipsos poll, which asked people to identify the three most important issues facing Australia. Defence ranked 12th out of 19 possibilities, with only 9% of people including it. The top five responses were healthcare (35%), crime (28%), cost of living (27%), unemployment (26%) and housing (26%).

With a federal election completed last year, there was also another installment of the long-running Australian Election Study (AES) to digest. Consistent with the declining perception of the importance of defence, support for increased defence spending fell for the fifth election in a row. Back in 2001, more than 60% of respondents favoured higher defence spending, compared with fewer than 24% today. In terms of alternative areas for increased spending, defence fell behind health (67%), education (61%), old age pensions (53%), police and law enforcement (45%) and business and industry (27%).

In more positive news, the 2016 AES found that the number of people who agreed that Australia would be able to defend itself continued to trend upwards, from 15% in 1996 to 31% today. Similarly, the number of people who agree that Australia’s defence is stronger now than it was 10 years ago has grown from 39% in 2013 to 45% in 2016 (though significantly higher figures were recorded in 2004, 2007 and 2010). Perhaps the declining willingness to invest in Australia’s defence reflects, at least in part, growing confidence in the Australian Defence Force.

Despite the Morgan poll result, terrorism remains an issue in many people’s minds. Consider the ANU poll from July 2016 on attitudes to national security. When asked: ‘How concerned are you personally about yourself or a family member being the victim of a future terrorist attack in Australia?’, 16% of people said that they were very concerned, 29% somewhat concerned, 35% not very concerned, and 20% not at all concerned. That’s a 45–55% split between those expressing higher as opposed to lower levels of concern. In contrast, when asked ‘How concerned, if at all, are you about the possible rise of Islamic extremism in Australia?’, 71% said that they were somewhat or very concerned, and only 29% said that they weren’t too concerned or not at all concerned.

A series of Essential Media polls from 2014 to 2016 found that between 57% (September 2014) and 76% (November 2015) of respondents said that the risk of terrorism in Australia has increased. The most recent figure, from October 2016, was 73%. Not surprisingly, polls around that time by Essential Media and the ANU found consistent support for strong counterterrorism measures. For example, the ANU poll found that 67% of respondents supported data retention laws as justifiable measure to combat terrorism, while only 33% said those laws weren’t justified on privacy grounds.

Public support for Australia’s contribution to US-led operations in Iraq and Syria has varied since 2014. An Essential Media poll from late 2015 found that 32% of people favoured increased Australian military involvement and 19% favoured decreased involvement. By April 2017, the figures had effectively switched, to 18% favouring an increase and 32% a decrease. In each case, around 30% wanted no change and 20% didn’t know.

With the budget less than a week away, what might recent polling on defence and security issues say about the prospects for defence spending? Despite its hand-on-heart promise to boost spending to 2% of GDP, the relatively low priority accorded defence in public perception might create a temptation for the government. While that’s surely true, I think that there are also deeper and more crucial factors at play.

The government was returned in 2016 with a single seat majority. And recent state and federal elections have shown that the electorate is willing to turn on a dime if a government incurs its displeasure. What’s more, as the table below shows, the electorate has been steadily deserting the mainstream parties over the past decade.

Percent of votes cast to minor parties and independents in recent federal elections

	2007	2010	2013	2017
House of Representatives (non-Labor/Coalition/Green)	6.74	6.93	12.42	12.91
House of Representatives (non-Labor/Coalition)	14.53	18.69	21.07	23.23
Senate (non-Labor/Coalition/Green)	10.72	13.46	23.54	26.29
Senate (non-Labor/Coalition)	19.76	26.57	32.19	34.94

Source: Australian Electoral Commission

Voter’s disenchantment with mainstream politics is a global trend. A January 2017 Ipsos poll across 23 advanced economies found that, on average, 81% of respondents had either ‘no confidence’ or ‘not very much confidence’ in their country’s political parties. Australia scored 79%. And cynicism is rife: an average of 63% of respondents agreed that their country ‘needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful’. In Australia, the figure was an alarming 71%. Finally, an average of 64% of respondents agreed that ‘traditional parties and politicians [in their country] don’t care about people like me’. The figure for Australia was a sobering 61%.

The risk is that the Federal government’s ability to resist populist demands will be diminished by its precarious electoral position—especially given the electorate’s demonstrated volatility and deepening dissatisfaction with mainstream politics. It’s no longer a question of whose turn it is to enjoy the perks of office. The major parties are fighting for their very survival. As a result, in the longer term the government may struggle to simultaneously placate a restive electorate and boost defence spending, let alone return the budget to surplus.