BORN OF FIRE AND ASH – AUSTRALIA AND THE EAST TIMOR CRISIS – 1999-2000

Australia’s involvement in East Timor from 1999–2000 was this nation’s largest mission conducted under United Nations auspices, the single largest deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel since the Second World War and an instrumental part of Timor-Leste gaining its independence. The International Force East Timor (INTERFET) was the first time Australia had led such a large multi-national force. The first volume in the landmark Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor, Born of Fire and Ash is an account of the 1999–2000 East Timor crisis and Australia’s response to it. On Wednesday 29 March 2023, Official Historian Craig Stockings addressed The Sydney Institute to discuss something of the significant task he and his team accomplished in putting the volume together.

BORN OF FIRE AND ASH – AUSTRALIA AND THE EAST TIMOR CRISIS – 1999-2000

CRAIG STOCKINGS

Distinguished guests, colleagues, and friends. There has been many an occasion in the last five years that I thought we would – perhaps – never have had the opportunity to gather for an event such as this. That is, at certain points, and in my more solemn moment along what has been an interesting road, I was not certain the book we see today would exists. But it does – and that is cause enough for celebration.

I am indeed honoured to have the opportunity to talk to you about: Born of Fire and Ash, the first volume of the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Australian Peacekeeping Operations in East Timor. My thanks to Gerard for the invitation, and my thanks to you all for the opportunity to talk you about the book, and the sometimes difficult process of producing it.

An appropriate point to begin might be to quickly describe what “Official History” really means, and why this book is different from those that have come before it on the same topic, and will be different also to those that follow. The writing of Official History in Australia has a century-old tradition. It is an institution tied intimately to the Australian War Memorial, which has sponsored such work from its inception, yet the projects themselves have always been commissioned by the government. As such, they are histories of and for all Australians. They are a detailed, chronological record of all services and theatres of conflict and constitute an invaluable resource for readers at all levels, from the scholar to the general public. They are, moreover, enduring national assets – comprehensive, authoritative, independent, and accessible accounts of the Australian experience of war.

This last point is worth dwelling upon. Unlike similar projects across the Anglosphere, Australia’s Official History tradition is unique in that these works are produced “outside” the system. That is, no public service department or agency controls the research or production of Australian Official History volumes. No one may “direct” the contents of the history – or unduly attempt influence the Official Historian – in theory anyway, but more on that later. In this sense, Official Histories are “official” only inasmuch as they are commissioned by government as the national record of Australia’s involvement in particular conflicts. The official historians are granted access to a closed period and security classified government records, yet volumes contain their authors’ own interpretations and judgements and do not follow any official or government line. They are, in this sense, a record of government actions and decisions based on government sources. They are not government stories, however, or means by which certain narratives might be perpetuated at the expense of others.

The Official Histories are then the product of historical investigations by independent researchers. The government pays the bill – it does not decide what is written. Official Histories are also a foundation and framework for future historians, and an accessible way for the public and the veteran community to gain insight into the operations and theatres under examination. This is particularly important today, given perceptions of a disconnection between the wars under study and the wider Australian public. I think it important too, given what might be described as mismatches between the public narrative of events in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the historical evidence at hand. Our outlook has been straight forward. We have not self-censored. We have included the good with the bad – frictions and mistakes are as valid a part of the historical record as unbridled successes. Achievements in spite of institutional shortcomings tend to enhance the legacy of those involved, not the reverse. We have written it as we have seen it, and as the evidence trail has indicated. These volumes therefore aim to be truthful, not necessarily triumphal.

Australian governments have thus far commissioned six separate series of official war histories over this period, one for each of the major conflicts, or areas of conflict, in which Australia has been involved. The inaugural Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918 was edited by the first Official Historian Charles Bean. Following Bean, the Official History of Australia’s involvement in the Second World War represents one of the longest and largest historical projects Australia has ever seen, running from 1943-77. The third Official History series was produced under the guiding hand of Professor Robert O’Neill, who was appointed the Official Historian for a Korean War series of two volumes which published in 1981 and 1985. Next, Professor Peter Edwards was appointed as the nation’s fourth Official Historian in 1982 to produce a series on Australia’s involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts from 1948 to 1975. More recently, in 2004 Professor David Horner was commissioned to write of a fifth official history, this one relating to peacekeeping and Post–Cold War operations. I am therefore the sixth Australian Official Historian responsible, as noted, for East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan 1999-2014.

The national significance of Official History speaks for itself. Australia’s involvement in the Middle East in the 21^st Century has been complex and long-running. Well over 40,000 Australian Defence Force and public service personnel served or supported these deployments over 13 years of operations. Sadly, 44 Australians died on active service in these theatres, and hundreds were wounded. The social and military effect of these conflicts globally, and within Australia, has been profound. By the same token Australia’s involvement in East Timor from 1999-2000 was Australia’s largest mission conducted under UN auspices, the largest overseas deployment since the Vietnam War and an instrumental part of Timor-Leste gaining its independence. Subsequent ADF deployments gave vital support to the fledgling nation. Taken in total these operations constitute an important part of Australia’s recent past, and one that clearly needs to be chronicled in an analytical and authoritative manner.

There is no question that each of the five official histories that have preceded my own has faced its own specific challenges and enjoyed its own individual advantages. One key difference between this series and those that have gone before it, however, is the type and level of governance imposed upon, and within, the project. In stark reversal of the situation David’s Peacekeeping series found itself, I have been well-funded for this task and the team has enjoyed a level of resourcing not available to past Official Historians. The obverse of deep government and Memorial investment in the project is, however, an extremely tight timeline and reasonably rigid governance frameworks. My author teams initially had five years to complete their volumes – extended to six-and-a-half years in early 2018. This is a great deal less than has been available to any Official History project to date.

Importantly, as with my more recent predecessors, my commission provided for controlled access to relevant Government files and records, authorised under “Special Access’” conditions as set out in the Archives Act 1983, subject only to national security requirements and restrictions. Though these volumes are themselves unclassified, and written with this outcome in mind, they are based upon a thorough study of the classified documentary records, made available by the government, for the operations covered. Material excluded from the Official History team and from publication, in whole or in part, is that judged by relevant government departments and agencies as potentially damaging to Australian national security or national interests. Those agencies which have chosen to restrict their cooperation and access have done so on these grounds. I do not believe such omissions have altered the conclusions reached in any fundamental manner.

In terms of the volume itself, I not too proud to admit it was a difficult undertaking – difficult, in truth, on three levels – in practical terms, on a psychological level and on an emotional level.

First, was the challenge of accessing records – particularly electronic records from government departments and agencies. It was quickly apparent that the bureaucracy looked at events in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan with a whole new level of concern and sensitivity than it had with regards to the perceived “benign” nature of the peacekeeping Official History series that preceded us. The relatively free hand given to the peacekeeping series to sift through the Department of Defence’s electronic repositories was never going to be replicated for me – not that I knew it at the time. Far more appeared to be at stake for various parties. With procedural and structural barriers in place, and the flow of records unacceptably slow from Defence as the largest “customer”, for the new series, events came to a head in 2017. The best result was an 18-month extension and the raising of a whole new Directorate within the department whose sole job was to catch and forward material to the project at an acceptable rate. In the end, flow rates were attained, but the personal mental toll was heavy. At all points there were few who were aware of the intricacies, structures, forces, and personalities against and within which the project struggled.

As records began to flow into the project at a rapid rate another key difficulty emerged – this one methodological. The practical challenge might be described as the risk of drowning in a “sea of infinite data”. All records created by Defence and government officials that in any way related to events in the three theatres under investigation exist in electronic forms. All emails, texts, PowerPoint presentations, word documents, spreadsheets and any other form of data presentation conceivable – and all the drafts of those documents, complete with track changes – have been retained and are considered official records. While certainly not all such data is easily accessed or curated in a form easy to use, the point is that the amount of material open for historical purposes is enormous. What then is a researcher to do? There is simply insufficient time and resources to examine even a fraction of this record. The more typical “trawl” method or research – where a scholar might try to collect a large proportion of available records for interrogation – is simply not possible in 21^st Century Official History research. Rather, normative approaches had to be modified towards a much more targeted approach. Robust sets of “filters” needed to be built. To a far greater extent than my own previous experiences, specific sets of research questions need to be framed in advance of primary source work. That is, we seek targeted answers for specific questions, accept gaps will emerge as we progress, and fill those in a similar manner when required. This represented a challenging adjustment to the work habits of most in the team.

No less of a challenge were the psychological ramifications of infinite data. For myself, and most of the team, for example, previous empirical research projects have involved working through a finite number of archival stacks. I feel I have been duly conscientious when I can place my hand on my heart and tell myself I have viewed the whole or a goodly part of the relevant record. I write history then, from what I have seen. In truth, this sense of security has always been built on a falsehood. Intellectually I am aware that the record that has entered various archives only ever represented less than a fraction of a per cent of that produced at the time. It has long ago been collected, culled, and curated. I have only ever written history from the smallest sliver of data made available to me. Yet I find solace in the fact that what lies outside of the archival record is no longer accessible.

Now, however, the game has changed. The East Timor crisis of 1999 occurred at a point of transition, as bureaucracies moved from paper to electronic records. I benefited from a somewhat curated archival record, but also got a sense of the digital sprawl that has since become the norm – digital files made available filled with diamonds surrounded by digital clutter, some of it in file formats that have long since become obsolete. The question became: when and where to stop? Where is my solace now? To this all I can say is mindsets have (and have had) to alter. We have deadlines and fiscal constraint. We need to stop when reasonable answers have been garnered to the research questions at hand. We need to be comfortable with what has not been done. This has not been an easy or comfortable transition. It is, however, how all future empirical research in the digital age will be framed.

Another difficulty, I admit, was the subject matter at hand. The background reading was disturbing, to say the least. As many of you know, from the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 – either directly or as a consequence of the policies of occupation – as many as 200,000 people died. According to some estimates, this is a higher proportion of death within such a small population than any other twentieth century experience. It is a traumatic story. So too, in early September 1999, the surge of violence broke out in East Timor chased more than a quarter of the 800,000 inhabitants from their homes and killed many – often in gruesome fashion. This was the price the Timorese paid for their own self-determination. This is why there was an Australian response. A special note here to the bravery of the journalists who kept the flow of information, disturbing and horrific images, flowing out of the province during this period at great personal risk. Scenes of destruction and violence shocked people across Australia, from Cabinet to the street, and helped make a response inevitable. Researching the atrocities perpetrated by the anti-independence militias in this period, under the guidance, direction and with support from the Indonesian military, was a deeply troubling experience for me. Yes, this was history. It is not always pleasant.

Let me now please address something of the elephant in the room. Despite such challenges as I have listed, perhaps the most difficult, traumatic, frustrating, and mentally and emotionally draining aspect of producing this volume had nothing to do with research or writing. Rather, the bureaucratic process of “clearing” the book was the greatest challenge. In all, it took over three years of negotiation, confrontation, compromise, mediation, and conciliation to have the volume approved for publication. Of course, due to the nature of sources used in its preparation, the draft volume was produced as a “classified” document.

For appropriate reasons, it then entered the clearance process to ensure it contained no material inappropriate to release into the public domain. This part of the process was relatively quick and frictionless, and resulted in minimal changes, and certainly none that came close to compromising the academic integrity of the volume. The area of ambiguity, however, was what might be understood as a blurred line between reasonable information security and institutional “discomfort” at various levels. This discomfort was about content, not classification. A very large part of those three years of struggle were discussions, for example, about how much contextual and background material such a volume ought to contain. My view was that it needed an amount of such material such that a public reader could make sense of the events of 1999. This included, for instance, a longer-term survey of Australia’s policy position with regards the issue of East Timorese independence.

This was not a view shared by all stakeholders; indeed, it was vigorously contested by some. I remember one particular high-level meeting where a senior departmental representative congratulated me on a great book – but then asked for the first nine chapters to be removed on the ground that the book should begin when the first Australian boot trod on East Timorese soil. A great way to avoid some uncomfortable policy truths, perhaps, but no way to write history. From here the back and forths began: with agreements reached only to have a different set of judges raise new objections. Even once the book was published there remained echoes of argument long done. The AWM did not have a book launch – a remarkable and unprecedented decision – though it did hold an “event” to mark the book in mid-March.

More broadly, now that we are done, I am sometimes asked what were the main themes or threads that have emerged from writing this volume. There are many, but let me share only two – one from veterans and one from a policy perspective. If I were to point to one common refrain from most veterans we interviewed it would be a certain duality of feelings. First, most are rightly proud of their efforts in East Timor. The idea of helping the Timorese is a source of true professional satisfaction and personal satisfaction. Witnessing a transition from Dili as a city in flames, to one that was beginning to rebuild in early 2000 really sticks in the minds of many – as do the smiling faces of children and the grateful waves of their parents. At the same time, however, there is discomfort. It did not take long for the average serviceman or woman, too busy with the task at hand to be concerned with high-policy or strategic calculations, to understand the terrible acts of violence so recently committed, and to and to understand who was responsible. Indeed, the East Timorese often went out of their way to point the perpetrators out. At the same time ADF members were then often asked to work with – to conduct joint patrols, for example – with their Indonesian counterparts in the full knowledge of the role the latter had played. It was then, and is now, a type of friction few have reconciled.

I have tended not to speak of my own experiences in East Timor. I did so, however, in a recent ABC interview and I think the subject is pertinent. As such a junior officer my recollections were of little use to the project or the volume. Yet I will share once particular instance where this type of friction played out for me at a personal level. In this case my infantry company was station at the small town of Memo, on the border with Indonesia, close to the regional hub of Maliana. On one particular day, we were conducting a small medical clinic for some of the locals who had been gradually returning to the decimated village. I was observing events as the company medic and other soldiers were administering, as best they could, to the sick and injured. Suddenly a woman’s desperate and pleading voice rang out and a young mother with a baby in her arms came running towards us. Some local men were trying unsuccessfully to restrain her sobbing advance. She was distraught with fear or grief – I did not initially know which. When she made it to where I was standing, she pushed her baby forth, wrapped tight and which she had been pressing to her chest. I could not understand her panicked words, but it seemed clear she wanted help for her child. The baby, however, was dead. A large contusion on its forehead made it clear it had been struck – we soon found out – by a militiaman. There was nothing we could do. The feeling of powerlessness was remarkable.

At the policy level let me say this. One very interesting general observation would be the degree of which the public narrative about Australia’s role in the East Timor crisis has drifted from the historical truth of events. Much capital appears to have been made by many on the two decades that followed based on the nobility and morality of defending the right of the East Timorese for self-determination – and defending them physically from the violence perpetrated against them by Indonesian-backed militia groups. The reality, however, was at once much more complex, and yet distillable to a simple truth. Long term Australian policy was to ensure East Timor remained as part of the unitary Republic of Indonesian. This was constant even after Habibie’s unexpected announcement of a referendum. That the final result was independence must be understood as a significant policy reversal.

That is not to suggest that long-term Australian policy towards East Timor was without its realpolitik logic. In the words of other authors, the strategic value of the relationship with Jakarta was not going to be sacrificed for the sake of the East Timorese. A small and potentially mendicant state to the north was not seen to be in Australian national interest. Nor the potential fragmentation or “Balkanisation” of Indonesia. As this volume makes clear, Australian policy towards East Timor in 1999 was far more complex than many existing accounts allow. But it was always guided by this realist foreign policy logic, one that was at odds with how much of the Australian public sees the world and Australia’s place in it. Those two very different views became aligned in September 1999. Policy did change at this point. When it was clear that there was no option other than a military intervention then the full policy apparatus swung in behind this requirement. But not by choice. Rather because of a series of events outside of Canberra-based bureaucratic control. As a historian, I observe that in such instances where there is such a divergence between public policy and public will there is invariably a reckoning. I’m no policymaker and do not pretend to be, but significant variances are a dangerous phenomenon, and they tend not to last.

As second question that I am occasionally asked are what the most surprising specific discoveries were during the process of researching the volume? To this question I note one of the most startling individual findings was connected to Prime Minister John Howard’s famous letter to President Habibie in December 1998. Often portrayed as a significant government policy change it was, in fact, nothing of the sort, despite subsequent claims to the contrary.

The letter suggested that Indonesia should consider granting East Timor autonomy with a built-in review mechanism for self-determination at a future date. Mr Howard never advocated independence – for this was not Australia’s position. The boon would be that if such a non-specific process was begun it might take the heat out of the East Timor issue – remove the burr under the saddle – and smooth out the relationship. For his part, Habibie wanted to solve the East Timor problem, seen by him and his advisors as a money-sink but not seen that way by the Indonesian Armed Forces. He had already announced in June 1998 that he was ready to consider a special status for East Timor. After a deal of hollow bluster about Australian imperialist meddling, aimed at domestic audiences, at a fateful Cabinet meeting on 27 January 1999, President Habibie brandished a letter sent by Prime Minister John Howard the previous month suggesting that, after a period of autonomy, there should be an act of self-determination in East Timor. The rest is history.

One remarkable facet of this process was the fact that the letter itself was drafted by a small coterie of Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet officials, and communicated by Mr Downer to Mr Howard as a good idea. At no point did anyone think to include the Department of Defence in this process. Indeed, to his considerable chagrin, the Acting Secretary of Defence found out about the letter’s existence only after it had been sent. This was remarkable, given the role Defence went on to play.

Now amidst all difficulties discussed let me underscore one important counterpoint. That is, the International Force East Timor – or INTERFET was a resounding success, and a story that all veterans and the wider community ought to be proud. If the Defence forces were perhaps underprepared, if the policy framework was contorted, if the strategic context complex, then it was an even greater testament to the skill, commitment, and professionalism of those involved. It is one thing to succeed when everything is running smoothly. It is another to do so under significant pressure and despite faults in the system. So as far as I am concerned – double the praise to all involved. Not just those who deployed to East Timor, but the thousands back in Australia working in support of deployed troops. The contribution of these individuals tends to go unsung, but it was crucial nonetheless.

There is danger, no doubt, in placing an academic in front of a captured audience. I’ve talked for too long. “The role of Official Historian,” wrote Prime Mister Turnbull, who commissioned me as Official Historian, “is one of great national significance in ensuring the production of authoritative, comprehensive and accurate accounts of Australia’s military operations.” This is quite the responsibility – and I feel not only the weight of tradition, but of expectation. I only hope, therefore, that the book is judged as worthy of the efforts of all involved in the East Timor crisis of 1999-2000, and worthy of public expectations.

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Discussion – questions and answers

Question: Going back, don’t most policy decisions in government and big events start off as a bit of a miss? Are there any particular facts that are messy here or is this just part of what people call the fog of war or peacekeeping?

Craig Stockings: The most remarkable thing about Australian policy towards the East Timor question was its consistency and its clarity. There were no dissenting voices in Canberra about the correct policy that ought to be applied to this problem, and I’ve described what that policy was. Twenty thousand people marched in Sydney, 40,000 in Melbourne, demanding a military intervention if you remember. In the post-Vietnam environment, that was remarkable. This is what I mean when I talk about diversions between public policy and the public will, and how that came crashing back together. As far as defence preparedness goes, I make the observation, after what were a couple of decades worth of cost cutting in the name of efficiency, that efficiency doesn’t always mean cost cutting in the reverse. The defence forces weren’t prepared to deploy and support the scale of force that was required in East Timor. This was a permissive environment.

The decisions made were made before the force ever went. In fact, I’ll go one step further. There are a couple of boxes that need to be checked before Interfet was ever real. One of which, for example, was an unlimited American offer of insurance that existed. Another one was Indonesian agreement. That was the case. So, these decisions about what was going to happen on the ground unfolded before soldiers arrived on the ground. Hence, my point about the importance of talking about the political context. That doesn’t mean that an incident couldn’t have happened during Interfet, somebody could have got shot at any moment. In fact, if we’d have followed our own rules of engagement, there would have been a lot more shooting incidents. But there was never going to be with a fight with the corporate entity of ABRI or TNI (Indonesian Armed Forces) because that was already decided.

Question: What was it about the Australian leadership and the fact that it was a peacekeeping course, and that Australia was involved, that made it so special?

Craig Stockings: There’s a tradition within the ADF to make things work despite the circumstances. That was very much present. We fell over the line in East Timor without any opposition. There were two people qualified to operate a petrol pump in Dili at the time. That’s a significant point of failure had one of them gotten sick. There was no ammunition. It took six weeks to get water; we were living off water from the Coca-Cola factory in Darwin. Defence was hollowed out. Leadership wise – and I would never take anything away from the job done by General Cosgrove and the senior bureaucrats at the time – they made it work. It was remarkable that it did work despite the obstacles in its place. But I do make the point that, in retrospect, the outcome was, in many ways, predetermined. Because the decisions not to challenge in effect had already been made. There was always risk, as I’ve mentioned. Often people raise the fact that it was just the professional demeanour and the technology of the Australian soldiers on the ground, the labs which provided such a terror effect. Maybe. But the decision had already been made.

Question: Which decision are you talking about?

Craig Stockings: I’m talking about the decision in Jakarta not to contest the landing of Interfet. If that decision hadn’t been made, or communicated, there would not have been an Interfet.

Question: Are you saying that, because of the rundown over the period through the 1970s into the 1980s and 1990s, we weren’t prepared?

Craig Stockings: According to extant requirements in 1999 Defence was to be able to provide a brigade level group of forces, which is a significant amount – 5000 troops – overseas for an ill-defined amount of time. The ADF was not able to do that. It was barely able to sustain East Timor. You don’t get any closer to the Australian mainland than East Timor. People were writing back home and getting their rear echelons and others to post parts forward using Australia Post to make it work. It’s not a criticism of those involved, that’s just the reality of how things were. Back to the previous question, it’s interesting to reflect on how much that success, and all of the political capital and social capital that came out of that, and how much influence it might that have had on decisions to go next time. Had it not proceeded so well, perhaps those calculations might have been different. Because the national security apparatus – let’s be frank – in Canberra, was unpractised at this. Even committee structures were built on the run. There was no institutional memory of how to do this. So, as I said at the end, to me, double praise to all involved that it still worked despite those realities.

Question: Is the army going to be once more the sacrificial lamb with regards the upcoming DSR?

Craig Stockings: I suspect in some regards those discussions are already going on. There is only so much pie to be distributed. I don’t know anything more than that. To answer your question, I speak often to audiences of defence members; colonels and all sorts, and I outline these sort of difficulties. Sometimes the response is “That’s very well, but that’s ancient history. It doesn’t happen now. It’s all better.” Maybe it is. But I make this observation. Sometimes I feel that the ADF feels quite confident because, mentally, it’s been at war for 20 years, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. We have studied those theatres and the volumes will follow. Small amounts of 200-250 person groups have been in a high intensity war. But the organisation has been fitted into someone else’s strategic construct, someone else’s administrative construct, and its logistic chains.

This is not deploying a force; this is taking a very small packet and giving it to somebody else to conduct operations. That’s not to, in any way, cast aspersions on the roles played by individuals or the intensity of their experiences, because it’s high. But that is well practised at a certain type of activity, at a certain type of tactical level. What hasn’t been tested is logistics, theatre level command, Australian operational control of large-scale forces. The sorts of things that get mooted about now; the holiday from history is over and we’re concerned about the Asia Pacific and peer challenges. There’s been no experience like that since East Timor, and that was uncontested. It’s been a long time. Confidence may be well placed – what would I know, I’m a pointy head. But, maybe not.

Question: Why do you think President Habibie came to that decision, that there would be no resistance to the arrival of Interfet?

Craig Stockings: That’s not a hard one to answer. We didn’t have Indonesian documents, so we did interview senior Indonesian policy makers at the time to give some sense of what was happening in the Indonesian Cabinet room. You may recall that President Clinton, before he left APAC in August 1999 and just before he got into that really old Airforce One helicopter, made a comment. It went something like “If Indonesia continues down this path, it faces a point of no return in international relations”. That is about as strong a declaration of intent as is ever going to be found in open diplomacy. It was “Stop this nonsense or else”. In the context of the Asian financial crisis, there was significant pressure put on by places like the IMF. One of Clinton’s other comments that August was “Indonesia threatens its recovery by continuing to act in this manner”. That gets the attention of policy makers in Jakarta in a way that Canberra doesn’t.

I make the point also that Admiral Denis Blair, who was at the time commander and chief of Pacific Command, a force larger than the ADF, postured for conflict, made a number of visits to General Wiranto on the eve of his deployment. Making the American position eminently clear. There were comments in the press about America not being there in our time of need. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Americans had their own distaste for peacekeeping in that time; Congress was hostile. But American assurances were in place, and American troops were on the ground, just not many and no shooters. But they were floating around in a marine amphibious taskforce, which sends signals all of its own. Beyond that military stuff, the diplomatic and economic pressure yielded results.

Question: Given the massive evidence, are you able to comment more on why you’re confident that you’ve managed to draw the links together, but you haven’t been able to cover all the evidence that was discoverable.

Craig Stockings: I’m going to mention the word “robots” in my answer. Why am I confident? Because I had $17.6million and 22 full time staff to do this. No private individual, academic or researcher is going to have the same resources. I have in my compactus 500,000 classified documents to answer the specific questions that we have to answer. These aren’t general histories, they’re on Australian operations, so they’re quite focussed. I have 2,500 interviews conducted with veterans to that end. So, I’m reasonably confident – not wholly confident because that’s never the case – through the triangulation of evidence, both oral and written and various sources, that we’ve got it about technically right. But we will be wrong around the edges. Hopefully not in the middle. And that will be grist for future historians. Now, am I confident that PhD students are going to be able to do this work and challenge the conclusions is a different question. But there’s light here. The fact that all of the data exists is something, because it doesn’t exist for WWII, for example, or anything else.

The trick then is, how does an individual access the data in a meaningful way to write from? To find things we haven’t found? The answer to that, in my view having done a little bit of work with some of the AI folk at Kensington, there needs to be an agent between the human researcher and the infinite data. That agent, to my mind, needs to take an AI form. It needs to understand the questions I’m asking and refine the answers to it. That technology is pretty available; sort of Google on steroids, where it reacts to your choices. That’s possible, but it means reframing what an archive is. In the future, an archive is just a warehouse of stuff, and there’s a robot somewhere that helps me find the stuff I need, and shows me the links, searching metadata and this sort of stuff. So that I can answer the questions I’m after. Which is really a different way of thinking than how things are structured now. I see no other alternative, because this data is not curated, it just exists. But I think there’s hope too.

Question: The reference to the letter drafted by the Department of Foreign Affairs without consulting the Department of Defence. Was the intention to cut Defence out of the process or did it just happen?

Craig Stockings: Intentions are a very hard thing to measure as a historian. But I can give you some of my beliefs there rather than empirically based stuff. I don’t think that was deliberate in any case. Remember, Defence back in the 1990s was in a state of “Stay quiet in the back of the room, you’re not relevant here”. That’s not true now, but that was the policy dynamic in Canberra in the 1990s. You bring Defence in, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, if you bring Defence in, then the diplomatic efforts have already failed. So, there are dynamics at play here, and there’s personalities at play. I don’t think it’s deliberate. Despite the government rhetoric, it was seen as a need. Because, of course, the policy was going to work.

Question: Do we have anything to Frederick Sheddon’s war book today? Also, what do we do about preserving records so that they don’t cease to exist after a time?

Craig Stockings: Second part of the question first, if I might. The great advantage of electronic files is that they don’t decay, like paper does when it gets wet and these sorts of things. The question then is about that technology changes all the time. When I spoke about hard drives being no longer readable because the format is different, they’re eminently solvable technical questions as long as there’s a will to solve them. Then there’s backups and all the rest of it. Space is cheap. It’s doable as long as there is a will for it to be done. The first part of your question I’m in no privileged position to speak about classified defence war planning. There is a whole organisation called Headquarter Joint Operations Command. I’d be aghast if it didn’t have the modern-day version of what to do in the event of war in a number of circumstances. That’s what we do in peacetime. I don’t know that to be true.

Question: Can you comment on how you bring to bear the importance of this [digitising records] to government?

Craig Stockings: It’s a money problem. Big data is not new to industry. It’s not a new phenomenon where companies make money from it etc. What you’re talking about here – and I tried to allude to that earlier – is the intent to preserve, or the value to preserve. Why am I confident? I’m not sure I’m that confident, but there is an Archives Act that has to be adhered to. I think where it will become a point of interest to the departments themselves is if there are any legal cases that are going to involve the requirement to find records, and they can’t be found. That will focus the mind. I’m not confident right now. I’m confident that it exists and there is a way forward in the investment was made in that way forward.

Question: What’s the kind of criticism that you’re getting of the book?

Craig Stockings: Feedback thus far is reasonably positive. The interesting thing for most veterans is, as a deploying sailor and solider, you know about this much in front of you, and that’s pretty much 24 hours of your time. So, a company commander is not aware of policy dynamics in Canberra. Policy makers in Canberra aren’t aware of the experience of a platoon commander on the ground. One of the powers of these sorts of works is to bring that together. One of the pieces of feedback I get often is, “That makes sense now. What appeared insane at the time on the ground actually has a reason that it was that way.” That’s one bit of feedback. There is negative feedback too. It’s been 20 something years. It’s human nature to reflect on your experiences in a certain way and to understand your part in those experiences in certain ways. The internalisation of your own memory can diverge from one person to the next.

There are some people that are adamant that what we’ve written is wrong. I’m really open to correcting what’s wrong, I just require a bit more evidence than “I don’t remember it that way”. It’s not to disrespect those memories, everyone is subject to these challenges. But some of the negative feedback is, “It’s just not how I remember it”. That’s fair. It’s not often how I remember it either. But it’s my job to triangulate evidence and trace and explain based on evidence not on sentiment, which doesn’t make it easier.