A Gallipoli Trope on Australian Peacekeeping

Abstract

Australian peacekeeping has been redemptive, often occurring in the aftermath of complicity in crimes against peoples of our region. As with our Gallipoli trope, the most courageous and noble Australian military contributions often have arisen in the context of regional disasters we failed to help prevent. While Australia's contributions to UN peacekeeping were 10 times higher until our troops were moved to fighting in Iraq, escalated fighting in Afghanistan and regional peacekeeping in Solomon Islands, an enduring Australian contribution was made to the quality of UN peacekeeping. Peacekeeping has been effective in reducing war globally, and regionally in stabilising the former 'arc of instability' around Australia. The shift of security sector investment from this work to fighting invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has therefore been poor public policy.