Central Issues

Our first three research networks in this Program will examine the concept of threats, regional threats to Australia 's security, and ways in which to reduce terrorism rather than simply head off terrorist attacks.

Planners and policy makers presently lack a rigorous framework by which to identify and assess internal and external threats. The assumption is that one will recognize a threat when one sees it – an assumption that recent history suggests is misguided. In the first half of 2006, Australia 21 Fellow, Dr Paul Monk, supported by an Australia 21 roundtable of experts, explored these issues in his report Threats to Australia’s Future Security & Prosperity.

The concepts of region and regional threats entail numerous assumptions. In September 2006, in conjunction with the Nautilus Institute, we brought together experts from the region to participate in a scenarios-building exercise designed to analyse and expose some of the rarely-tested assumptions that underlie debate in this area. The Report of the scenarios-building workshop can be downloaded here.

Thirdly, there is far more work being done globally on how to prevent terrorist attacks than there is on how we address the core causes of terrorism. Our next project is designed to tackle this most challenging of issues directly.