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London: One of Australia’s most powerful national security figures has re-entered public debate over deteriorating global relations, warning world leaders not to yield to “war fever” and to better learn the lessons of the past in an era of nuclear weapons and rapidly emerging disruptive technologies.
Home Affairs Department secretary Michael Pezzullo said in his annual Anzac Day email to staff that the world must avoid war by all “necessary and reasonable means”, describing the pursuit of peace as “perhaps the noblest of all”.
Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo encouraged recipients of his annual Anzac Day email to staff to watch 1995 Hollywood blockbuster Crimson Tide.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The veteran public servant made international headlines with a similar note to department employees in 2021 when he said free nations “again hear the beating drums” of war, amid rising military tensions in the Indo-Pacific.
Several Labor frontbenchers strongly criticised Pezzullo at the time for his inflammatory tone, with Penny Wong, who was then opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, saying it was a poor choice of words when “we are trying to be sober and cautious”.
Since then, the West has united to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion in February last year, while global leaders try to remain unified against China’s rising assertiveness in the region and threats towards Taiwan.
In a reflective message, Pezzullo wrote that after centuries of wars, it shocked the world to think that its terror was still being felt, highlighting the “brave people of Ukraine … who simply wish to live in peace”.
He referenced Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front and the writings of British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill and Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz to say: “We are all bound in a sacred duty to do whatever we can to prevent war, by whatever means of diplomacy, resolve and other efforts, such as we might be able to bring to bear.”
“In an era of nuclear weapons, and the unpredictable effects of the rapid application to war of generative artificial intelligence and other rapidly emerging disruptive technologies, let us heed Churchill’s warning, more than has been done in the past,” he wrote in the note, titled “The End of War”, while in London last month.
“While we might think that we can master it through reason, in war we are the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. We should always approach questions of war, and peace, with sober, measured and restrained minds, not least because as we might be tempted to calculate our odds of victory, there is someone else who is calculating theirs.”
His message also encouraged recipients to watch 1995 Hollywood blockbuster Crimson Tide, starring Denzel Washington, which takes place on a nuclear submarine during a period of political turmoil in Russia.
‘We should always approach questions of war, and peace, with sober, measured and restrained minds.’
Pezzullo quoted a line from Washington’s character, Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter, who told a naval colleague, played by Gene Hackman, in a heated debate about the morality of war: “In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.”
A one-time adviser to former foreign minister Gareth Evans and Labor leader Kim Beazley, Pezzullo leads the department responsible for the co-ordination of strategy, planning and policy related to issues affecting domestic security, immigration and borders.
A keen student of military and political history, he regularly composes lengthy opinion pieces on significant times of reflection including Australia Day, Anzac Day, Easter and Christmas. Under criticism in the past, he has said his messages were not part of a government strategy and he had not sought permission from the government of the day to communicate them.
He said the end of war was “a noble human aspiration” and paraphrased Jesus from the Book of Matthew that “blessed indeed are the peacemakers”. “If only we could throw away the rifles and the uniforms, we would be able to live peaceably in the fellowship of humanity,” he wrote.
Pezzullo’s administration of the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders targeting illegal boat arrivals made him a controversial public figure; however, he survived last year’s shake-up of top public servants following Labor’s election.
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