Intensifying geopolitical competition is combining with emerging technologies to create new frontiers for statecraft and present new challenges to the rules-based order. How should Australia engage in emerging domains such as cyberspace and outer space? How should Australia adopt new military technologies such as artificial intelligence and autonomous systems?

Australia wants to expand the rules-based order, regulate new frontiers and limit the “grey-zone”. Yet Australia must compete effectively with actors who have a lower regard for international law and norms.

In Canberra on 14 and 15 June 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted the Frontier Rules conference to examine practical manifestations of this dilemma and to consider how they should be resolved.