Good strategy -- I always tell the staff at the IISS -- is conducted with a cool head and a warm heart; the other way around can lead to unfortunate results. Sound strategy, and effective defence diplomacy, also requires accurate facts and analysis. That is why we produce as part of the intellectual underpinning of the Shangri-La Dialogue, the Asia Pacific Regional Security Assessment. The 2017 book has analyses on the US, China, and India amongst others, but I would point you in particular to the chapters on ‘The trajectory and implications of North Korea’s nuclear and missile development’; ‘Managing the Asia-Pacific Nuclear Dynamics; ‘Military Cyber capabilities in the Asia Pacific’; and ‘Responding to intensifying security threats in the Sulu Zone’; issues that are all likely to form part of the debate here. This year, we are also launching The Military Balance Plus, our extraordinary relational electronic data base of military information that will be an essential tool for defence ministries and industry around the world. Many of you I hope will receive a demonstration of its analytical power over this weekend.
The launch of the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday evening is always marked by a major speech by a head of government, and we are delighted that this tradition is continued tonight. Malcolm Turnbull earned a law degree at Sydney University, won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, and later worked as a journalist for both Australian and British media. He ran his own investment banking firm that founded a number of businesses, and then entered politics in 2004, winning election as Prime Minister in 2015 and then again in 2016.
Australia shares with others in this region the interesting characteristic of having its most significant economic relationship with China and its most important strategic relationship with the US. The country has an unavoidable, long-term interest in Asian security, and like other regional states faces the changing distribution of power with ambivalent sentiment: it has brought increased prosperity but has engendered a sense of insecurity. The views of the prime minister on regional security are eagerly sought by his peers, not just because of Australia’s geopolitical position but because of the experiences he has gained and the attachment to vigourous intellectual debate that he has championed. In fact at the end of a celebrated legal case he once handled he said this:
‘The fact of the matter is that nothing is achieved in this world, particularly politically, other than with persistence, and persistence involves repetition and it involves argument and re-argument... The public interest in free speech is not just in truthful speech, in correct speech, in fair speech... The interest is in the debate.’
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