Digital payback: how Indigenous Australian thinking can stabilise a global rules-based order

Abstract

<p>Australia is a continent, not a country.<br/> Ambelin Kwaymullina</p> <p>This statement has always given me pause, both in its simplicity and complexity. Contemporary interpretations (and re-interpretations) of history are slowly breaking the 'Great Australian Silence', although acceptance of the Frontier Wars is only beginning, in terms of acknowledging the actual - not constructed - manner and nature of Australia's colonisation. Perhaps, we can be said to be entering into the 'Great Australian Whispering'. Whilst there has been pride in adopting Australian flora and fauna as our national emblems, there has been reticence to adopt Indigenous Australian* history and methods of thinking into our cultural ensemble.</p><p> The sui generis (of its own kind) nature of Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Islander thinking is only slowly coming to the forefront of research methodologies. This is a method and manner of thinking that is holistic, nonlinear and relationships focused. The latter point is particularly important and goes to the heart of the statement from Kwaymullina. Only with the advent of ocean-going ships did Europe begin to experience an interconnected world that was somewhat akin to the continent of the Indigenous Australians. But with British colonisations, the customs and norms for operating in this interconnected continent were shattered. Recent work across a range of fields have begun to combine existing fragments of customary knowledge, such as assisting with land management and post-colonial cultural osmosis. Yet, Indigenous Australian thinking can be applied to more than bushfire relief and work to improve the health outcomes of Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Islanders. It can also be applied to questions of sovereignty, armed conflict and deterrence.</p><p> This paper addresses a specific issue that modern military strategists are only beginning to grabble with: the spectrum of competition. This term is slowly starting to be used to describe the nature of globalised and interconnected warfare in the twenty-first century, and the inadequacy of terms such as 'war' and 'peace'. This paper seeks to begin exploration (in a nondefinitive manner) through observations of both intra-Indigenous Australian relations and the relationship between Indigenous Australians' peoples and British colonisers, lessons that can be drawn for modern military strategists in responding to one of the most pressing issues in modern warfare: the ubiquity of cyberspace.</p><p> The rise of modern grey-zone operations and the concept of a spectrum of competition is outlined in section I. It does so to highlight how cybersecurity operations can exploit Eurocentric thresholds (enshrined in international law) and critical vulnerabilities in Anglo-Saxon approaches to armed conflict. The paper in section II then canvasses and highlights unique customs and norms that Indigenous Australian developed to de-escalate armed conflict in a highly interconnected continent. This includes concepts such as junkarti and makarrata that emphasised reconnection and reconciliation amongst sovereign nations, in order to quickly transition to cooperation. </p><p> It is important to recognise and consider the question of Indigenous understanding of sovereignty, as for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the Australian nation has always and continues to violate their sovereignty. Legal ambiguity since 1788 (the original year of British colonisation) has been used to systematically deprive Indigenous Australians of their sovereignty under international law and sovereign rights under English laws of conquest. Deploying an Indigenous Australian understanding as the basis of a model for cybersecurity may be problematic given the issue is connected by many with the of a lack of meaningful reparations and the framing may invite criticism; some acknowledgement of this issue may be necessary. However, it is also necessary in the spirit of reconciliation to be able to accept underlying issues with Australia's colonisation and, with openness and transparency, embrace both the impact and consequences of comments upon sovereignty. Canvassing a dialogue on the spectrum of competition that existed in Indigenous Australia can go a long way toward dispelling broader misunderstandings of pre-contact Australia as either completely un-warlike or incapable of resistance warfare post-contact. Recognising this, in the process of reconciliation, can not only inform Australia's response to cybersecurity issues but also assist in countering historic, racist stereotypes of early colonial Australia - namely, that Indigenous Australians lacked a warrior culture (compared to, say, the Maori with whom a treaty was made). Section III accordingly seeks to apply some Indigenous Australian legal concepts to modern cyber conflict in order to demonstrate how Australia, by embracing its 60,000-year history, can compete in the twenty-first century.</p>