Beyond Afghanistan

August 27, 2026

Gareth Evans makes a compelling case that Australia can’t simply look away from crises because they occur far from our shores. His call for Australia to be a “good international citizen” contributing to peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and atrocity prevention, is an important one.

However, if that principle is to mean anything, surely it must apply beyond Afghanistan.

What’s happening in Gaza demands the same moral and diplomatic urgency. The lesson of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya shouldn’t be that intervention is always the answer. It should be that inaction, inadequate diplomacy and failure to build sustainable peace can have devastating consequences for generations.

We can’t keep treating each conflict as an isolated crisis and waiting until the suffering has become unbearable before acting.

Afghanistan, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, DRC and other conflicts may have very different histories and circumstances, but there’s a common question for countries such as Australia: when civilians, families, children are suffering and the international system is failing to deliver peace, what are we prepared to do?

Australia can’t solve these conflicts alone, but being a good and active international citizen, means using whatever diplomatic influence we have to push for an end to all violence.