An astonishing revelation from Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil reveals the shape of the terrorist threat to come. Part of it, oddly enough, arises from Covid.
You may have lost interest in terrorism, but terrorism has not lost interest in you. The first anniversary of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the savage attack on Salman Rushdie, the relentless rise of murderous African jihadism, the depredations of Iran including its program of attempted assassinations in the US: these all tell us something about the shape of the terrorist threat to come.
Add to that the astonishing revelation from Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil that more than half of ASIO’s top priority investigative targets last year were minors, and you get a sense of how terrorism and terrorist indoctrination are changing shape. Protean and hydra-headed, it is not remotely vanquished.
Western strategic policy has moved on from the war on terror. Combating terrorism is no longer the organising principle behind US or allied strategic policy. The ground-force combat interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan – the conventional, industrial-scale manifestations of the war on terror – are over and almost certainly will not be repeated.
This is a sound, necessary move by the US and the West, including Australia, which committed troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. The overwhelming strategic challenge for Australians and Americans today is China. This will be so for the rest of the lives of anyone old enough to read this piece today. And the state power of the world’s other aggressive autocracies, most importantly Russia but also Iran and a few others, should also play a major role in shaping Western military capabilities.
Read the article by Greg Sheridan in The Australian.