Desperately Seeking Strategic Alignment: Australia’s Response to the Informatic Environment as a Global Security Disruptor
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, Australia has experienced strategic misalignment between government defence policy, military deployment to wars of choice, and slow adaptation to major power security challenges. This situation has been underscored by the geopolitical realities of an increasingly assertive People’s Republic of China as well as the Russian Federation’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This ‘strategic disconnect’ has resulted in the Australian government dealing with the risks from of a resultant, much-reduced strategic warning time. The challenge for the state is its rapid readying for possible military participation alongside the United States in a major power war. Strategic assessments are now addressing involvement in a war that will be characterised by multi-domain, kinetic warfighting. In the period preceding and during any such major power confrontation will be the increased significance of Information Operations (IO) as an important non-kinetic element in ‘the management of war’. Malicious state actors and authoritarian powers will increasingly deploy non-kinetic disruptive technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and deepfakes, to drive global disruptors, such as the informatic environment. This will expose any strategic misalignment that remains between Australia’s strategic approaches and its security threats.
AUTHORS
Faculty of Humanities
Curtin University
Perth, Western Australia
Dr. Gavin Briggs is a Senior Adjunct Fellow in the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University and a Senior Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Science at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. From 2015, he was first a tenured Clinical Professional Fellow, and later Senior Lecturer, at Curtin University. He coordinated multiple undergraduate and postgraduate units in International Relations, Security and Strategic Studies, as well as serving as Course Coordinator of the Graduate Program in International Relations and National Security (2018-23). Since 2005, he has served as an officer with the Royal Australian Air Force (Reserve) with deployments on international and domestic operations. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers and currently works as a strategic intelligence manager in the private sector.
Published In
Journal of Information Warfare
The definitive publication for the best and latest research and analysis on information warfare, information operations, and cyber crime. Available in traditional hard copy or online.
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