Conflict risks are increasing. The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) notes that “2024 marked a historic peak … with 61 active conflicts across 36 countries – the highest number recorded since 1946”. The International Crisis Group’s monthly conflict tracker makes for similarly grim reading.
These are not just abstract global trends. Unsafe encounters between Chinese and US aircraft and ships, Chinese and Filipino ships, Chinese and Japanese aircraft, and indeed Chinese and Australian vessels and aircraft in the Western Pacific have become alarmingly commonplace.
This is the context in which Foreign Minister Penny Wong has clearly elevated conflict prevention in Australia’s foreign policy. Speaking in Kuala Lumpur in July, Wong said:
As great power competition intensifies, with the rising risk of escalation and miscalculation, the conflict prevention project is even more critical … Above all, our objective is to prevent conflict, preserve peace and maintain the agency of all countries in our region.
In his recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese bolstered this theme, stating “The more we can do to reinforce the architecture of peace and prosperity, the more we remind nations of everything they stand to lose.”
The time has come for the Australian government to define an Australian Model for conflict prevention, encompassing and integrating deterrence, diplomacy and development.
But despite this ramp up in rhetoric, Australia’s approach to conflict prevention is not visibly articulated. Indeed, in a critique published on The Interpreter, Susannah Patton describes the initiative as “conceptually muddled”, albeit potentially useful.
The time has come for the Australian government to define an Australian Model for conflict prevention, encompassing and integrating deterrence, diplomacy and development.
Defining an approach is the sensible next step, not least in joining up the range of activities already underway, such as the search for new conflict prevention mechanisms among ASEAN members and Defence’s cooperation with Southeast Asian regional partners.
An explicit approach should also allow Australia to orient to the full range of conflict dynamics present in the region, because there is also a risk of tunnel vision in the status quo.
While there has been no explicit definition of the conflict prevention agenda, we do know that when Australian policymakers say “conflict prevention” right now, they are typically thinking about conflict risks between states. This includes the biggest geostrategic risks between China and the United States, but also the rising risks of miscalculation between a range of regional countries.
While this focus is understandable, there are a broad range of conflict risks within states across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, too – from higher profile issues such as the future of Bougainville, to questions about the political settlement in Timor-Leste.
It’s true that many such issues have lingered, dormant, for a long time, and that Australia’s neighbours have in many cases shown remarkable resilience. Nonetheless, recent large-scale protests and heavy security force responses in both Indonesia and Nepal are reminders of how quickly latent tensions can flare up.
Tensions within states are being exacerbated by geostrategic competition, and in turn these tensions and risks provide opportunities for influence and intervention by third parties.
These risks within states matter and, crucially, are not divorced from geostrategy and the risks of major power conflict. Tensions within states are being exacerbated by geostrategic competition, and in turn these tensions and risks provide opportunities for influence and intervention by third parties.
An explicit framework for Australia is necessary because policymakers and leaders need a means of balancing and harnessing all the levers which engage with the spectrum of conflict risks present throughout the region. This includes ensuring that development investments in sectors such as governance programs and climate resilience genuinely consider conflict risks within states, especially in places like Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. In many regional contexts, it also ought to include more dedicated peacebuilding programming, like Australia has funded in the Philippines.
The scale and diversity of these risks should make us both ambitious in advancing this agenda and realistic about Australia’s potential impact. Australia’s efforts alone will never be decisive, but conflict in the region in all its forms is a serious risk to Australia’s security.
There is more Australia can and should do to pursue a meaningful conflict prevention agenda in the region.
