At the same time, Australia should buttress defences. The Australian Cyber Security Centre has made clear that Australian cyber hygiene still leaves a lot of room for improvement. Similarly, we can do more to reduce our, and others’, gullibility. Research suggests that target audiences can be “inoculated” through controlled exposure to misinformation.
But Canberra must also consider options for offensive action. Australia needs to deter this form of Chinese aggression. Prime Minister Turnbull sought to do so in 2016 by disclosing, for the first time, that Australia had an offensive cyber capability, housed in Australian Signals Directorate. And last year, the Chief of the Australian Defence Forces Angus Campbell raised the possibility that countries like Australia should reconsider engaging in so-called “political warfare”.
The best-known example of “political” or “information” warfare in recent memory is Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US election. That episode showed how Moscow has adapted a set of skills, honed during the Cold War, for the cyber age. Washington also undertook information operations in the Cold War but, since then, in Campbell’s words, “political warfare techniques went into decline … much to the chagrin of embittered advocates of the dark arts.”
An Australian information operation against China need not require any great wizardry.
But Canberra shouldn’t lose sight of the bush for the trees.
Australia needs to counter Chinese aggression, but it also seeks a world in which this sort of competition between states is bounded by rules and norms. After revealing Australia’s cyber-attack abilities, Turnbull immediately added that their use would be “consistent with our support for the international rules-based order.”
Though Payne talked about disinformation, the main purpose of her speech was t ..
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