For Australian security policy makers the ‘War on Terror’ is nearly six years old. And although there have been some achievements, policy makers are grappling with a series of complex challenges. First, as Ungerer rightly points out, mass casualty terrorism is going to be top of the security priority list for some time. Yet how to deal with this problem while coping with the host of other threats, both new and old, continues to trouble decision-makers and analysts. Second, a number of key security policies have clearly exacerbated this threat, most obviously Australia’s high profile participation in the Iraq intervention. Third, it is not at all clear what strategic steps should be taken to deal effectively with this longer run problem given the scarce bureaucratic resources available and the wide array of security challenges Australia faces.

The simple pieties of both hawks and doves—the mailed fist or lashings of debt relief and foreign aid—are alone not able to bring to an end a complex and multifaceted political and strategic problem. Single step solutions—whether an independent Palestine or US bases out of the Arabian Peninsula—will have scant effect on the actions of radical Islamists. The dangerous blend of economic grievance, political frustration, religious fervour and cultural alienation which produces terrorism requires a broad ranging and transnational set of responses, and ones which are not exclusively the domain of governments.

One important move that will make security policy more effective in its efforts to reduce the threat of mass-casualty terrorism is to stop using the language of war. There are many reasons, emotional, rhetorical and ethical, why the policy response to terrorism has been tied to the language of warfare. But the time has come to end this particular war. Not only does it send bad signals about how one understands the task ahead—as many have noted wars on a mode of operation literally cannot be won—it also has high and potentially rising strategic costs.

For Australia, close association with Washington has long been thought to be worth the price. Close association with an explicitly described ‘War on Terror’ which is perceived by many in its immediate neighbourhood as a war on Islam is counterproductive. More directly, the language of warfare plays into the public relations hands of the terrorists. It provides them with legitimacy and credibility and assists them in both recruiting new personnel and promoting their goals. Finally, there needs to be a much better fit between the policies used to combat terrorism and the language of strategic policy, and not just for its public relations consequences. This is not a war by any reasonable definition. This is a wide-ranging effort to police international society and to starve the oxygen from those who use the fissures of that society to advance unacceptable goals.

At times, hard-nosed military action is needed, at others a much lighter policy touch is required to deal with this protean phenomenon. For Australian policy makers trying to advance our security interests in the region dealing with the terrorist threat means bilateral and multilateral cooperation, especially by intelligence, policing and defence forces. By ditching the language of war and adopting a nomenclature which reflects better the strategic character of the threat, this complex task will be made a little bit easier.