Australia should measure security by the crises it prevents, not the wars for which it prepares, writesDavid Higginbottom.

THE ARGUMENT aboutAUKUSis framed as though Australians must choose between being well armed and being nave about the world.

Why do we accept this dichotomy? Whilst Australia needs the capacity to defend itself, it also needs a security policy that asks a more basic question: What would make conflict less likely, communities more able to survive disruption and people less likely to be driven from their homes in the first place? This matters because refugees are not a threat to be used in an invasion metaphor.

They are people living with the failure of security.

A person who crosses a border after a war, persecution, drought, crop failure, or the destruction of a water system is evidence that prevention failed somewhere earlier.

A humane country must offer protection.

A serious country must also ask what policies reduce the pressures thatmake displacement, humanitarian crisis and regional instability more likely.

TheUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR)scurrent assessmentof climate, conflict and forced displacement provides the necessary caution.

The Hormuz crisis shows why Australia cannot fight this centurys war with last centurys weapons.

Conflict remains a primary driver of displacement.

Climate change is not a simple explanation for every war, nor does it mechanically produce refugees.

It aggravates existing vulnerabilities: homes are destroyed, livelihoods collapse, essential services are strained and communities already affected by violence have less capacity to recover.

UNHCR estimates that more than 120 million people are now forcibly displaced and calls for climate-smart, conflict-sensitive and peace-responsive action.

That is a security problem in the fullest sense.

It belongs alongside the protection of territory, but it is not solved by the protection of territory alone.

If climate hazards, food and water stress, economic shocks and political exclusion make a crisis harder to contain, then emissions reduction, climate adaptation, conflict prevention, humanitarian capability and respectful regional partnership are not charitable extras they are preventive forms of defence.

The Pacific has been saying this for years.

ThePacific Islands Forums 2050 Strategydescribes a regional future of peace, security, inclusion and prosperity, while placing climate resilience, cooperation and the wellbeing of Pacific peoples at its centre.

Its members understand that the region cannot be made safer simply by becoming a forward map for great-power competition.

Australia will be a better neighbour and a more secure country when it treats Pacific priorities as security priorities in their own right.

This is not a call for unilateral disarmament and it does not require pretending that coercion and aggression have disappeared.

Military capability has a role in deterring and responding to particular threats.

A nuclear-powered submarine may be valuable in a high-end maritime conflict, where long range, endurance and stealth matter.

But the question for a mature public debate is not whether such a capability can have a role.

It is whether we allow that role to become the definition of security.

The costs of such a narrow definition are visible even before anyone fires a shot near Australia.

Recent disruptions to fuel, shipping and fertiliser have shown how quickly conflict affects freight, food, farmers, small businesses and household budgets.

A country that can send an advanced military platform far from its shores but cannot keep energy, communications, transport and essential inputs functioning under stress has not solved its security problem.

It has simply defined the problem in a way that suits a particular institution or....