Clear Thinking about National Security: Why is it so Hard?

13 March 2009

Hugh White

We often behave as if National Security is too important to think clearly about.  Some risks are ignored, while others are exaggerated.  Policies are adopted to meet threats without any clear idea of what exactly the threat is, how serious it might be, and how it could most cost-effectively be addressed.  Major decisions are made on the most slender of bases: invading Iraq, rebuilding Afghanistan, toughening terrorism laws, buying battleships, have all been undertaken without due diligence by Governments, and the public seems hardly to expect any better.  Yet it should be possible to think clearly about national security and defence questions, applying to them the same standards of evidence, argument and diligence that we would expect in other areas of public policy. 

In this lecture Professor Hugh White explored some recent examples of unclear thinking about national security in Australia, attempt to explain why such lapses from common standards of rationality are so common, and suggest some ways we could do better.  Along the way Professor White spoke about terrorism, bird flu, global warming and the rise of China.

This Lecture was also filmed and broadcast on A-PAC.

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific

Sub-topics: Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Policy & Political Science

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.  His work focuses primarily on Australian strategic and defence policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, and global strategic affairs especially as they influence Australia and the Asia-Pacific.  He has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, as a senior adviser on the staffs of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and as a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence, and as the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).  In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities.

This lecture was presented as part of teh ANU Public Lecture Series for 2009 by ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and Canberra Skeptics.