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Australian Peace and Security Forum

Working towards comprehensive national peace and security

Peacebuilding, Defence and Military

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  • Time to talk peace: War memorial must think of kids

    Tens of thousands of school students visit the Australian War Memorial every year – more than 95,000 in 2022-23 alone. For students in Years 4-12, a visit to the Memorial is mandatory for the school to receive federal funding for a visit to Canberra. The Memorial therefore plays a role in shaping what young Australians…

  • The real meaning of security

     José Ramos-Horta – Published in The Saturday Paper, October 19 – 25, 2024 Language is a truly fascinating phenomenon – it is fluid and constantly evolving. We are barely aware that, as we are shaping its evolution, language is shaping us – individually and collectively. This is what makes it such a potent political tool. Language can be…

  • World Court faces ‘unprecedented’ number of cases

    21 October 2024 During a visit to UN Headquarters in New York, where he is due to brief the Security Council Tuesday, Mr. Gautier told UN News’s Julia Foxen that this global divide requires the UN’s principal judicial organ – commonly known as the world court – to maintain its autonomous and independent role “without…

  • A plea for peace in the Middle East — Louise Adler and Nasser Mashni. ABC Radio National Big Ideas

    Wed 16 Oct 2024 at 6:00pm – Link here Two Australians who are intimately connected to the conflict in the Middle East, one Jewish, one Palestinian, make their pleas for peace, and share their deeply personal stories of how it has affected them. The 13th annual UN International Day of Peace Brisbane lecture was recorded…

  • Independence too big a price for AUKUS fantasy

    And those who accept the reality of our loss of sovereign agency but actually applaud it as a price worth paying for our protection – such as Beazley, Dibb and Pezzullo – seem to have lost not only any sense of national pride, but of Australia’s national interest.

  • Time for Australia to end support for nuclear weapons

    Dr Sue Wareham OAM. President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), and a former board member of ICAN Australia, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 2 September, 2024. Introduction Nuclear weapons remain an existential threat to civilisation. Australia’s ongoing support for a role for these weapons in our “defence”, and our…

  • Security Through Sustainable Peace: Australian International Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding

    There is a globalised imperative towards security through increasing efforts to prevent violent conflicts and support positive peace; and recognition that this is achieved through political rather than military means. It is well established that violent conflict is one of the most serious impediments to human, social and …

  • Towards Comprehensive National Security For Australia

    Public debate and discussion on critical security issues facing the Australian people is required urgently. Civil society needs to step-up to encourage and assist the Australian Government to prepare a comprehensive national security policy and an accompanying comprehensive national security strategy. Australia’s future depends on it. The Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF) has been…

  • Buck-passing inside the murky arms trade

    ‘It is almost literally true that Australia cannot go to war without the consent and support of the US.’ This statement, made in 2001, is key to understanding the deceit and denials by the Albanese government regarding weapons exports bound for Israel.

  • Nuclear deterrence is the existential threat, not the nuclear ban treaty

    Hughes et al. Nuclear deterrence is a myth. Nuclear deterrence involves a nation state maintaining a believable threat of retaliation to deter an adversary’s attack.

  • The Australia Peacebuilding Network, 2024, Peacebuilding in Australian Foreign Policy: a Summary of Views and Conclusions from the Australia Peacebuilding Network Roundtable.

    Currently there is limited attention to peacebuilding in Australian foreign policy; the Government’s focus being on reactive military options, leaving little place for peacebuilding to be part of the discussion.

  • AUKUS: The Singapore Strategy Redux

    Perhaps the Virginia-class submarines will arrive as planned, perhaps they will not. The only certainty is that it will not be Australia’s decision.

  • Killer drones are being linked to AI in Gaza and Ukraine, fusing surveillance and death.

    Will a growing resistance set new rules for war? The conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have highlighted the pace and extent of the development and use of automated weapons systems. The extensive use of drones in Ukraine was an eye-opener, but the nature and scale of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in automated weapons…

  • Push to get superannuation invested in defence is despicable

    In a recent speech, the federal Treasurer hastily bundled together three things that he felt superannuation funds ought to invest in: renewable energy, defence and housing. It was a classic sandwhich communication: bracket the unpleasant item between two that sound good.

  • In War There is No Substitute for Victory

    Tonight I thought it might be useful to briefly unpack Macarthur’s famous quote: “in war there is no substitute for victory”. But given current deteriorating political circumstances, it is even more important to consider the contemporary relevance of Macarthur’s statement – and particularly useful for we Australians to assess its for our future national security.