Re-embracing Cooperative Security

Video message for Pax Ludens Europe-Australia Forum, 30 April 2025

We are living in a world which seems to be losing its bearings, more fragile and volatile than it has been for decades, and with the United States under Donald Trump’s presidency abandoning not only any leadership, but any sense of decency or responsibility, when it comes to preserving what is best in the global economic and security order we have known since the end of the Second World War.

It is treating the world trade system as a freeloaders’ conspiracy against America; the UN and other international institutions as useless encumbrances on great power freedom of action; - allies too as encumbrances rather than assets; human rights violations and humanitarian needs worldwide as of no concern; and naked cross-border aggression as something to be tolerated if exercised within a great power’s sphere of influence.

Australians have been as shocked as our European friends by the outright contempt shown by the Trump administration for values we have long shared, never more on display than in the speech in February by Vice President JD Vance to the Munich Conference calling into question commitment to democracy, the rule of law and common human dignity; and a few days later he and Trump berating President Zelensky in the Oval Office for being ‘disrespectful’ and, by defending sovereign Ukraine against indefensible invasion, risking ‘World War III’.

In this environment, it has never been more important to stand up for the principles of international cooperation, and cooperative security, that I believe all the participants in this Pax Ludens forum will instinctively share, and which I certainly have tried to advance throughout my own professional life, including as Australia’s Foreign Minister and as President of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

By ‘cooperative security’ I mean an approach to the geopolitical issues which are dividing and troubling the world which is not confrontational, but focuses on finding security with others, not against them; on confidence-building strategies; on seeing security as multidimensional, with many economic and social as well as military and other hard-edged traditional components; and, above all, on building habits of dialogue, consultation, and a cooperative approach to addressing global and regional problems beyond the capacity of any one country, however rich and powerful, to solve alone – most critically the existential risks to life on this planet as we know it posed by global warming, pandemics and nuclear weapons.

Achieving such a mindset in the current generation of political leaders who most need to embrace it will be anything but easy. But what the world can least afford is a confrontational, might-is-right mindset becoming entrenched – and that is where the role of the next generation of policymakers, and those who influence them becomes so crucial.

This forum – with its discussions and simulations – can make an important contribution to building the kind of expertise and commitment which we are going to need if the world of the future is to be safer and saner than the one we are living in at the moment, and I wish you every success in your deliberations.