​This research stream analyses key policy challenges and controversies in the area of cyber war and peace. Professor Greg Austin and Dr Gary Waters are our senior advisers on this work. Their related publications are referenced here, including authored or edited books, and a number of authored and co-authored articles, papers and book chapters.

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Pioneering work by Dr Waters

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Australia and Cyber Warfare

Gary Waters, Des Ball and Ian Dudgeon, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No.168, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 2008, 173 pp. Full text here

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Transforming the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for Information Superiority 

Gary Waters, Des Ball, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence No.159, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 2005, 104 pp. ​

 

Continuation ​

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Cyber Civil Preparedness and Resilience: Twin Strategic Imperatives

Gary Waters and Greg Austin, Social Cyber Institute, 2025  

This new report analyses a major shift in Australian cyber policy: recognition of the need to prepare for a national cyber catastrophe announced on 1 June 2025. Two of Australia's most experienced analysts in the field, Gary Waters and Greg Austin, call for more rapid and comprehensive reforms to reflect this dramatic change. The focus on the relationship and differences between cyber civil preparedness and national cyber resilience. Click here for the report 

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​​Published paper: Winning in the Cyber Frontier: Developing Cyber Targeters and Military Daring

The Air Power Journal (Dubai) Fall 2024, pp. 61-70

​The specialists needed most for winning battles in cyberspace are the targeters. Their role is a highly complex one: to discover and exploit vulnerabilities in adversary systems to disrupt or disable them while achieving cognitive or physical impacts on enemy forces. The corps of targeters must be highly trained and have considerable experience across many intelligence-related domains, including politics and psychology. The targeters must also exist in large enough numbers, with a high diversity of specializations to support operational goals. Their leaders must have the military daring and expertise needed to achieve operational outcomes based on their advice. The relationship between targeter and commander in cyberspace is potentially more significant than in any other field of operations, save for nuclear weapons. The development of a standing force of highly capable cyber targeters, supported by advanced processes for linking them with forward-deployed military commanders, is the main priority for success on the digital battlefield

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Project: Australia India Joint Technology Assessment for Peace and Stability

On 29 November 2024, the Australian National University and InKlude Labs hosted a launch event for an ambitious new project in Australia India relations, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, under the Australia India Cyber and Critical Technologies Partnership.  The launch was supported by the Social Cyber Institute which contributed to development of the project. All six Australian participants are associated with the Institute. Two Indian researchers associated with the Takshashila Institution were an essential part of the team. Find details for all of our products over the one-year life of the project at this link.

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Discussion Paper: Australia’s Cyber Surge

The Institute discussion paper from Greg Austin  is at this link. The press release with a summary of key points is here. In March 2022, Australia announced the biggest expansion and upgrade of its cyber capabilities for national security and intelligence at any time since creation of its national-level signals intelligence organisation in 1947. In political terms, there were likely three main geopolitical motivations or drivers for the Australian cyber surge: containing foreign interference in Australia, the need to deliver new levels of cyber operations as part of the AUKUS reorientation and strategic uplift, and the government’s exaggerated view of deteriorating strategic circumstances in the Indo-Pacific.

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International Webinar: Cyber Resilience Lessons from the Russia/Ukraine War (Webinar)

The webinar featured Professor Andrii Paziuk who draws on the 2024 report he coordinated, A Decade in the Trenches of Cyberwarfare:  Ukraine’s Story of Resilience. The report was published by the Cyber Diia Platform, a non-profit public association that combines the expertise and resources of various civil organizations, research and academic institutions, companies, and international partners. Commentary on the presentation is provided by Professor Ganna Pogrebna, Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Cyberfutures Institute in Sydney, and a co-author of the report. Video at this link.

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International Webinar: information warfare 
On 25 July, Professor Dan Svantesson of Bond University and Professor Mathieu O'Neil of Canberra University led a webinar on Australia's readiness to defeat information warfare. Watch video recording here. Svantesson presentation here. O'Neil presentation here​​.

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​Crowdsourcing an Australian cyber intelligence and information militia 

Professor Dan Jerker B. Svantesson​

June 2024 Paper is at this link.

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Co-edited volume: Cyber Capabilities and National Power (Volume 2)

IISS - 2023 at this link

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Russia, Ukraine and offensive cyber options

IISS - 24 February 2022: Greg Austin, Nadya Kostyuk, Eneken Tikk, James Crabtree

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Co-edited volume: Cyber Capabilities and National Power: A Net Assessment

IISS - 30 June 2021: Greg Austin, Gil Baram, Elina Noor, James Crabtree

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China's weak cyber defences

IISS - 3 June 2020, Greg Austin, Simone Dossi, Tim Huxley

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US coercive cyber campaigns: methodology and assessment

IISS - 20 November 2020, Greg Austin, Max Smeets, Franz-Stefan Gady

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​Related publications on cyber war and conflict by Professor Greg Austin or Dr Gary Waters, the project advisors  in SCI, are listed below. For a selection of related videos, go to this other page.

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• ‘Quantum Sensing: Comparing the United States and China’, IISS, February 2024, 30pp link 

• ‘Impact of the Russia Ukraine War on National Cyber Planning: A Survey of Ten Countries’, IISS, January 2024, co-authored with Natallia Khaniejo, 21pp, link

• ‘Winning in the Cyber Frontier: Developing Cyber Targeters and Military Daring’, The Air Power Journal (Dubai) Fall 2024, pp. 61-70,  link

• ‘Australia’, in George Christou, Wilhelm Vosse, Joe Burton and Joachim Koops (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Cyber Diplomacy, 2025

• ‘Evaluating Australian Cyber Policy Reform: Urgency, Coherence and Depth’, Social Cyber Institute, June 2023, 20pp link

• ‘Assessing Cyber Military Maturity: Strategy, Institutions and Capability’, IISS, 2022, co- authored with Jason Blessing, 49pp link

• ‘Military Ambitions and Competition in Space: The Role of Alliances’, IISS, 2022, co-authored with Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopolan and Tim Wright, 37 pp link

• ‘Australia’s Drums of War’, Survival 63(4), 2021, 229-236

• ‘Opportunity, Threat and Dependency in the Social Infosphere’, in Paul Cornish ed. Oxford Handbook on Cyber Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) 32-48

• ‘Global Trade and Cyber Security: Monitoring, Enforcement and Sanctions’, co-authored with Franz Gady, in Paul Cornish ed. Oxford Handbook on Cyber Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) 514-530

• ‘The Strategic Implications of China’s Weak Cyber Defences’, Survival, 2020, Vol. 62, Issue 5, 119-138

• ‘Creating Social Cyber Value as the Broader Goal’, in Greg Austin ed. Cyber-Security Education Principles and Policies (Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, 2020) 99 – 118, co- authored with Glenn Withers

• ‘Five years of cyber security education reform in China’, in Greg Austin ed. Cyber-Security Education Principles and Policies (Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, 2020) 173 – 193, co- authored with Wenze Lu

• ‘Twelve dilemmas of reform in cyber security education’, in Greg Austin ed. Cyber-Security Education Principles and Policies (Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, 2020) 208 - 221

• 'National Cyber Emergency Policy for Australia: Critical Infrastructure', in Greg Austin, ‘National Cyber Emergencies: The Return to Civil Defence’, 1st Edition, Routledge, 2020 (Gary Waters)    

• ‘From Cyber Resilience to Civil Defence: contested concepts, elusive goals’, in Greg Austin ed. National Cyber Emergencies: The Return to Civil Defence, (Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, 2020) 10 – 30

• ‘US Policy: From Cyber Incidents to National Emergencies’, in Greg Austin ed. National Cyber Emergencies: The Return to Civil Defence (Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, 2020) 31-59

• ‘Australia Needs Civil Defence against the Cyber Storm’, Working Paper #7, UNSW Canberra Cyber, March 2019, co-authored with Gary Waters

• Strategic Implications of China's Weak Cyber Defences (2020)

• National Cyber Emergencies: The Return to Civil Defence  (2020 Edited Book)

• Cyber Security Education: Principles and Policy (2020 Edited Book)

• Cybersecurity in China: The Next Wave (2018 Book) 

• Australia Rearmed! Future Needs for Cyber-Enabled Warfare (2016)

• Cyber Security Policy in the Energy Sector (with Luigi Sorbello), Public Policy Paper 4/2016, Energy Policy Institute of Australia, 2016.

• Are Australia's responses to cyber security adequate? (2017) PP. 50-61

• Restraint and Governance in Cyberspace: Balancing War and Justice Imperatives (2017) pp. 215-234

• Robots Writing Chinese and Fighting under Water (2017) pp. 271-290

• Building a Resilient Cyber Eco-System: National and Regional Considerations (Gary Waters, with Brett Biddington and Professor Craig Valli), Kokoda Paper No.21, Institute for Regional Security, 2016 

• Middle Powers and Cyber-Enabled Warfare: The Imperative of Collective Security (2016) pp. 23-56

• International Legal Norms in Cyberspace: Evolution of China's National Security Motivations (2016)

• China’s Security in the Information Age (2015) pp. 355-370

• Promoting International Cyber Norms: A New Advocacy Forum (2014)

• A Measure of Restraint in Cyberspace: Reducing Risk to Civilian Nuclear Assets (2014) 

• Australian Defence Policy in the Information Age (2014)

• Getting it Right: Integrating the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Enterprise, Kokoda Paper No.18, The Kokoda Foundation, 2014 (Gary Waters)

• Resetting the System: Why Highly Secure Computing Should Be the Priority of Cybersecurity Policies

• Cyber Policy in China (2014) Book

• Cyber Detente between the United States and China: Shaping the Agenda (2012)

• Russia, the United States, and Cyber Diplomacy: Opening the Doors (2012)​​​​

• Optimising Australia’s Response to the Cyber Challenge (Gary Waters with John Blackburn), Kokoda Paper No.14, The Kokoda Foundation, 2011