Religiously motivated mass casualty terrorism conducted by shadowy networks on the fringes of international society is not the only threat to Australian security interests. But it is currently the most important. And for two main reasons it is likely to remain at the forefront of foreign and security policy considerations for a generation or more.

First, the shift in US grand strategy towards coalition military operations to defeat terrorist groups in central Asia and the Middle East is likely to continue regardless of future changes in political leadership in the White House. Notwithstanding serious policy differences over the handling of the conflict in Iraq, both Democrats and Republican leaders in the United States have acknowledged that fighting the al-Qaeda network and its various regional franchises will require a decades-long commitment across several continents. Indeed, the publication of the declassified April 2006 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on trends in global terrorism made it clear that far from being defeated, the US intelligence community believes that al-Qaeda has managed to consolidate and improve its overall position throughout the Muslim world. According to the NIE, four key factors are fuelling the global jihadist movement:

1. entrenched grievances and a sense of powerlessness 2. Iraqi jihad 3. slow pace of economic, political and social reforms in many Muslim majority nations 4. pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims.

Moreover, in its 2006 National Security Strategy (NSS), the US Government acknowledged that the ‘War on Terror’ will be ‘both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas’. The NSS identified a series of short-term military options to deny, defeat and deter terrorist activity, as well as the longer term diplomatic goal of winning the ideological struggle against radical Islamism. Such statements indicate the extent to which foreign and security policy considerations have become intertwined with global counter-terrorism efforts.

As a principal ally of the United States, Australia cannot be insulated from the diplomatic and military actions taken by Washington. And although the government in Canberra will need to choose carefully how and when Australia intervenes alongside the United States in the global ‘War on Terror’, no political leader can ignore the imperative to fight international terrorism across multiple geographic and political boundaries. In the words of one British police commander, ‘the struggle will be long and wide and deep’.

The second aspect of the ‘long war’ for Australia is the proximity of the threat from Southeast Asian terrorist groups. Although previous Australian governments were broadly aware of a ‘patchwork’ of radical Islamist organisations operating in Indonesia and the Philippines before 9/11, the general consensus among Australian officials was that such groups were domestically focused and did not constitute a regional security threat. The first Bali bombings in October 2002 ended that assessment overnight. The subsequent bombings of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta (2003), the Australian Embassy in Jakarta (2004) and then Bali again in 2005 highlighted the extent of the threat, particularly from the terrorist group known as Jemaah Islamiyah (the Islamic Community).

Confronting radical jihadists in Southeast Asia creates an acute dilemma for Australian decision makers. For more than a decade after the end of the Cold War, comprehensive engagement with the countries of Southeast Asia was a major plank of our foreign policy orthodoxy. But divisions have emerged over the direction and pace of regional engagement strategies. Improving Australia’s security outlook will require a careful and well-resourced campaign to build deeper linkages between intelligence, police and security services. It will also require a stronger commitment to counter-radicalisation strategies, both at home and abroad.

It is fair to say that Islam remains unfamiliar turf for most Australians. Despite being neighbours to the world’s largest Muslim country, engaging with the region’s political and religious cultures has never been an easy or automatic reflex for Australia. The regional terrorist threat adds a level of complexity to Australia’s regional engagement anxieties. Pursuing a strategy of comprehensive engagement, as well as a robust set of specific policies to counter the threat of terrorism, is likely to place even greater strain on Australian foreign and security policy practitioners. But finding and striking the right balance will be vital to Australia’s long-term national security interests.