Australia the Maritime Power? Lessons from global security fora

By Indigo Atkinson, Global Voices CEO 2026

Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to participate in the GLOBSEC young leaders’ program in Prague and to attend the Aspen Security Forum as part of my work with Global Voices. Both fora bring together world leaders to discuss pressing, contemporary security and strategic concerns. While GLOBSEC focused on Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, Aspen Security Forum reflected on the United States' 250th birthday and the state of its institutions in a fracturing world. Both fora featured debate on Europe’s competitiveness in the age of AI and, at times, very public Trans-Atlantic relationship counselling. As a visiting Australian, the interesting throughline was the tension between recognising Indo-Pacific security as global security and acting on it with the requisite seriousness.

The Taiwanese Minister for Foreign Affairs headed a delegation to GLOBSEC and spoke of the growing strategic partnership between Europe and Taiwan. We know economic and national security are more entwined than ever in arenas like semiconductors and artificial intelligence; despite the light footprint of other delegations from the Indo-Pacific, the inclusion of the Taiwanese signalled the recognition by Europe that Indo-Pacific security is global security.

Nonetheless, and perhaps understandably so, it was Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and debating European and NATO readiness to counter future threats that dominated GLOBSEC. Between debates on the state of Europe’s defence industrial base and the revival of civic institutions to counter mis- and disinformation, the tensions in the Trans-Atlantic relationship cropped up time and time again. Time spent discussing whether dependence on American tech stacks was an acceptable European vulnerability was time that could not be spent acting on the link between Indo-Pacific security and global security threats.

One must imagine that strategic adversaries look at the gap between recognition and action on the Indo-Pacific security imperative with relief.

In Aspen, the panels on the China challenge and on managing the existential risks and opportunities of AI sat alongside panels with European and American officials that played out like public relationship counselling. I will always come out to bat for the notion that open dialogue is restorative and constitutive. It’s important that long-time allies put the effort needed into a relationship that underpins the security architecture the world has taken for granted for the past 80 years.

However, when the dedicated Indo-Pacific panel that features one of the only Australians in attendance is dominated by a would-be American presidential candidate laying out their vision for global security, no matter how welcome this might be after the lack of strategic vision of the last couple of years, one can’t help but notice that signalling and recognising the importance of Indo-Pacific security is far from the requisite action necessary. For all the time allies have to spend fixing fractured relationships is time not spent focused on the action needed to firm Indo-Pacific security.

Adversaries do not need Trans-Atlantic dysfunction to persist forever. They only need it to persist long enough for the norms to shift such that use of increasing force in the region might be expected to go unchallenged.

In this environment, Australia should act with leadership and foresight that we so often forgo when we label ourselves a middle power, or when we collapse into our parochial tendencies.

We have the 12^th largest economy in the world and are a tri-ocean nation. We are active participants in global fora in ways that are simply out of reach for much of our region. We should be building deeper connections across the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans and representing our neighbours’ and our region’s interests with greater strategic vision than we’ve ever been capable of before. As old alliances collapse into public displays of marriage counselling, there is an opportunity for genuine vision and action that fortifies Indo-Pacific and, thus, global security.

This will mean working with, not for, the Americans. This will mean taking more calculated risks as we define ourselves as Indo-Pacific maritime leaders. This will mean open and frank public policy debates about how we rise as a regional leader while addressing domestic issues like cost of living, climate-induced emergencies, and intergenerational inequity.

I’m grateful to have a front-row seat to the world leaders rising to address the thorniest geopolitical circumstances in two generations. But if we rightly recognise Indo-Pacific security as inextricably linked to global security, then rather than wait for the Trans-Atlantic relationship to magically improve, Australia should find the space to act as the regional maritime leader that the Indo-Pacific needs.