Avoiding intervention: prospects for sub-crisis conflict prevention
This conference paper discusses the evolving landscape of conflict prevention in the Pacific region, highlighting the risks and costs associated with military and stabilization interventions. The author examines Australia’s role in fostering a peaceful neighborhood through proactive measures that go beyond traditional diplomacy, development, and defense. Emphasizing the need for innovative approaches to aid and diplomacy, the paper advocates for engaging local political settlements and co-production efforts to address challenges before they escalate into crises.
Avoiding intervention: prospects for sub-crisis conflict prevention
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Presentation Transcript
Avoiding intervention: prospects for sub-crisis conflict prevention ANU State of the Pacific conference 19 June 2014 Karl Claxton
Regional security after RAMSI A growing body of reflections on what worked well and not-so-well during major stabilisation missions • Useful as interventions are demanding and can arise without much warning • But interventions are risky, protracted and expensive for contributors • And can spur dependency or dysfunction in recipient countries • Less attention to efforts to address challenges before they turn into acute crises
Australia’s stake in a peaceful and prosperous neighbourhood remains
Aligning our diplomacy, aid, and trade—national security remade • The start of the quiet rehabilitation of the concept of national security • The ‘three Ds’ of conflict prevention • But needs more than just standard diplomacy, development, and defence • Objectives • Relationships • Already beyond a ‘more interventionist approach’ to ‘partnership frameworks’ • But two paradigm shifts: a new approach to Australian aid and new Pacific diplomacy • Engaging political settlements/accommodation, hybridity, co-production, etc
