Australia's 1999 mission to East Timor part 2: lessons learned

The East Timor crisis presented Australia with a unique opportunity to act like a real regional middle power. For a long time Australia has been a middle power with small power pretensions. East Timor made Australia step up to the plate and actually lead. For years Australia really didnt want to lead: it simply wanted the problem to go away. There are some important lessons in this for Australia today, because for the 14 years or so since 9/11, with a couple of exceptionsnotably the response to terrorist bombings in Indonesia and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004the Australian Defence Force has been distracted by events in the Middle East.