Australia seems to be moving into a period of greater uncertainty and instability. The future now seems less clear than it once was; the events of the catastrophic bushfires in 2019–20 and the return of a global pandemic, in the form of COVID-19, in 2020 serve to remind us that the world in which we live remains subject to challenge and change. For the Asia-Pacific region, this is especially so, given the geopolitical, technological and economic restructuring that is currently underway. As former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted in 2020, understanding the ‘interconnectedness’ between politics, economics and technology is critical in anticipating change and disruption in the twenty-first century. That said, these challenges are not without historical precedents. History shows that Australia has faced pandemics, natural disasters, financial disruption and a number of ‘large’ and ‘small’ wars before.