But it is also a reference to the policy of intelligence-driven disruption operations, often undertaken pre-emptively, that have formed a pillar of Israeli statecraft since its foundation as a modern nation.
For Israel, surrounded by hostility and vastly outnumbered by adversaries, an aggressive intelligence service and a highly capable military have been indispensable tools for national survival.
In comparison, Australia’s strategic environment has been relatively secure and benign for most of our history. Outside wartime, our defence and intelligence services, while highly capable, have been modest in size and predominantly defensive in posture and capability.
Today, we are engaged in a once-in-a-generation build-up and modernisation of our defence forces, acquiring new and more powerful capabilities.
This is because we recognise that our strategic environment is changing. It carries with it greater risks and uncertainty, and these are likely to grow over time.
Equally, we must recognise that future risks to Australian sovereignty and freedom may take non-traditional, non-military forms.
Hybrid or political warfare, grey-zone operations and “active measures” are becoming the new norm of statecraft. They are challenging the way we must think about the future of state contest and struggle.
Such political warfare — hostile acts directed at undermining the sovereignty or compromising the freedom of action of an adversary — is designed to fulfil strategic objectives but in a way that falls beneath a military or state-responsibility threshold.
The toolkit of this new form of warfare, as practised by authoritarian states, includes misinformation and propaganda, cyber operations, the exploitation (witting or otherwise) of local political actors, political influence and interference in electoral processes, discrediting of a nation’s institutions, the active establishment and acquisition of key strategic assets, and the exacerbation of fault lines and divisions within a society.
Such a form of state struggle challenges our binary way of thinking. War can coexist with peace. Hostility can coexist with regular diplomatic and trading relations. Trusted domestic institutions and actors can become “weaponised”.
Political warfare works because it is both asymmetric — hard to defend against — and because it exploits vulnerabilities inherent to open, liberal societies such as ours.
Just as we are boosting our capability to defend against traditional military threats, so we must be upgrading our capabilities to combat this new threat of political warfare.
Australia is taking important steps in this direction. Strong steps have been taken against foreign interference, with new laws passed, a taskforce established, greater resources for our intelligence agencies to develop new capabilities, and new guidelines for universities. We now have an information warfare division within the Australian Defence Force and both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.
But taking defensive measures alone can threaten to undermine the very freedoms and openness our enemies seek to exploit.
That is why this new threat of political warfare requires not only a step-change in our efforts, but a reassessment of our doctrine.
In particular, we need to consider developing not just defensive capabilities, but also offensive capabilities, so that we give our intelligence and other agencies not just the tools to defend, but also the means to respond. The usual practitioners of political warfare, authoritarian regimes, are themselves highly vulnerable to political warfare. We should develop the capabilities to take the fight to them in this domain, even if only to create effective deterrence.
Such regimes have several structural weaknesses: their narrow base of legitimacy; the absence of transparency and accountability; mistreatment of their populations and often restive minorities; and a desire to tightly control information.
Just as authoritarian regimes seek to use asymmetric tools to target our points of vulnerability, we should be prepared to do the same in reverse — albeit in a way that is consistent with our values.
The Panama Papers — which shone a spotlight on corruption in Russia’s highest circles — created one of the most destabilising events for Vladimir Putin’s leadership. A New York Times report of 2012 detailing the extraordinary wealth of family members of China’s then prime minister was equally destabilising. Recent revelations about China’s treatment of its Uighurs have been similarly damaging.
Though these investigations and reporting were the result of a free press, not state agency, they illustrate the exposed underbelly of seemingly strong governments. And demonstrate that a strong press and other “soft power” assets will be vital allies in this task. Shining a spotlight on bad behaviour and exposing corruption, human rights abuses, deception, and crude acts of statecraft is a powerful tool which can inflict serious damage on the stability and legitimacy of authoritarian regimes, hitting them where it hurts.
Playing defence alone is not an option against sustained political warfare. We need to be prepared to go on the front foot: exploiting points of vulnerability in those that seek to undermine our political system or those of our allies.
Israel’s Mossad learnt over time that the only way to truly defend Israel was to be prepared to strike its enemies deep in their heartland.
We need to undergo a similar doctrinal shift, and develop the capabilities to match.
This is the only way we will survive in this new age of political warfare.
Dave Sharma is the member for Wentworth and a former ambassador to Israel.
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