There were several perspectives published last week which addressed the question of whether Australia was now at war with Iran, but to me they left some major aspects unanswered. Consequently, I wanted to tease out my thoughts in some more detail here and address some of the tangled, messy complexities of what this war means for Australia.
Given the seriousness of the war with Iran, the manner in which Israel and the US initiated it, the lack of evident strategy, and its cascading impacts and prospect of further harm for civilians across the Gulf states, in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and beyond, it is entirely wise and reasonable to question what the implications might be of Australia’s (presently limited) contributions. That said, the picture which was painted struck me as incomplete.
Status update
These analyses followed the decision by the Albanese government on 10 March to send an E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft and a stockpile of AIM-120 AMRAAMs (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles) to support the United Arab Emirates in defending against attacks by Iranian missiles and drones.
This contribution was described by the Prime Minister as defensive in nature, in response to a request from the UAE, and intended to help protect citizens (including Australians) on the ground, with the E-7A to be deployed for an initial period of four weeks. Based on all that’s happened since then, it seems reasonable to expect that its stay will extend beyond a month, with the conflict deepening.
Australia conducted a similar deployment last year in support of Ukraine, with a RAAF E-7A operating from Poland from July-October 2025 as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission “providing critical surveillance, communications and early warning capabilities to protect supply lines delivering international aid to Ukraine.” Australia has also contributed substantial quantities of vehicles, munitions, and training to Ukrainian personnel as part of Operation Kudu. An E-7A had also been deployed to Germany from November 2023-April 2024 to support “the multinational effort to provide early warning for potential threats from Russia outside of Ukraine” and in the Middle East from 2014-2020 as part of Operation Okra to combat the Daesh threat in Iraq.
Analyses
The first of these pieces featured my ANU colleague and Professor of International Law, Don Rothwell, who noted for Stephen Dziedzic at the ABC that while “our contribution might be small-scale, we are now a party to the conflict…That applies irrespective of a distinction Australia may make between engaging in ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ conduct.” Our forces, the Prime Minister stated, will be acting in support of the UAE’s right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
However, this felt a bit incomplete to me. Particularly insofar as the UAE has explicitly stated that they are not a party to the war between the US, Israel, and Iran. That being the case, is it correct to frame Australia’s contribution as “a party to the conflict” if we are defending a country who is not? I’m not a lawyer, and I appreciate that this is somewhat of a technical rather than substantive distinction, but if this is the peg that the government has hung its hat upon, that distinction surely matters.
I would also be interested to understand when we would cease to be ‘at war’ by this definition. Is it when the Wedgetail comes back to Australia? When we stop sending munitions to the UAE? Linking back to the Ukraine example, how (if at all) is this deployment legally distinguished from the previous missions in support of NATO and Ukraine, along with Australian arms and vehicle transfers to Ukraine? Are we also technically at war with Russia? If not, how does that differ from what is happening in the Middle East?
Second, James Massola opened his piece in the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age with the assessment that even if “Anthony Albanese isn’t quite ready to admit it, but as of Tuesday, Australia is formally committed to participating in the military campaign targeting the Iranian regime.” Not only this but, “He can describe it however he likes, but there’s no mistaking what it means. Anthony Albanese has now followed Donald Trump into a Middle East conflict.” Quite a heavy-handed framing, for mine, which carried strong implications of the ghost of Iraq in 2003 and gave the impression of seeking to excessively tar Albanese with the Trump brush.
Again, if the Australian mission is limited to the defence of the UAE and other GCC states, is it true to suggest that “Australia is formally committed to participating in the military campaign targeting the Iranian regime”? Perhaps I’m getting a bit wrapped around the axle on semantics and this is a bit like distinguishing between the King of Australia vs. King of the United Kingdom in that they are technically two separate entities but in practice are one and the same, but I can’t help feel that there is a very real and important differentiation to make, and not everything is Trump.
Thirdly, in The Conversation, Griffith University’s Dr Peter Layton noted Australia’s previous deployment of E-7As to Ukraine and how these platforms would assist the UAE in filling a gap in their surveillance systems after several ground-based radar systems have been damaged by Iranian attacks. Additionally, he flagged the longstanding Australian presence in the UAE at Al Minhad Airbase (where Australia has had an operational headquarters for nearly 20 years), the indirect manner in which Australia’s deployment “could help the US…[as it]…will reduce the need for the US to help defend the UAE, potentially freeing up US forces to strengthen its attacks on Iran”, and the worry that “Australia could potentially become enmeshed in other operations now that it has assets there.”
This, I think, gets to the practical vs. technical/legal distinction in Australia’s commitment to aid the UAE which sits alongside the US-Israeli offensives against Iran and the level of integration between Australian Defence Force and US military assets. That risk is more pronounced in its perceptions, I should expect, when Minister Marles has spoken of his desire to “move beyond interoperability to interchangeability.” Where and how are the lines practically drawn here?
Finally, Michael Shoebridge of Strategic Analysis Australia made a similar argument with regard to Australia’s involvement in the war. While he agreed that the Wedgetails are well suited to the role that’s been outlined by government, he argues that “to do this job, the Wedgetail and its crew will need to be plugged into the US command and control and data stream—both to receive information about US and Israeli activities and to provide threat data and airspace deconfliction data to them. This means that the Wedgetail’s operational activities will be informed by US and Israeli decisions but will also help enable and inform those decisions.” By this reckoning, he says that the E-7A “will likely play a more hands on role in the US and Israeli campaign” that what has been acknowledged. Therefore, he argues, “with the Wedgetail now deployed to the Middle East, Australia is a part of the Iran war. But you won’t hear that from our government.”
Reflections
To be quite frank, I’m unsure whether I have made the picture any clearer for myself, particularly with the fast-moving pace of conflict over the last week since I started turning over these ideas. There is a legal and semantic distinction that government has drawn, which I fully expect has been deliberately constructed to allow greatest freedom of manoeuvre while maximising alliance ‘presence’, but in practical terms, where does that leave us?
The initial statement from the Albanese government which provided strong (though conditional and narrowly bounded) support for US strikes against Iran was surprising to me, particularly given Labor’s traditional emphasis on international law and preference for acting as part of a larger coalition beyond its traditional Anglophone security partners. I can understand the desire to put down a public marker with the Trump Administration, but when compared with the US’s major European allies the lack of equivocation was notable, and I suspect regrettable in hindsight. There are reports that these concerns are also present in the Labor caucus.
This has been a remarkably foolish, ill-considered, and illegal war, the impacts of which upon the global economy may yet cause even more devastation as food and resource shortages begin to bite the longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed. However, as the conflict continues to spiral, with multiple declarations of victory by Trump, and a lack of evident strategy and achievable end state, we may find ourselves quite exposed. I can see no reason for Australia to make a greater contribution to the conflict than is already the case, but pressure for more assistance is almost certain to come from the White House.
Rather than doubling down on our initial support, and committing forces to the air assault on Iran or naval assets to escort ships through the strait, by focusing on the support which Australia could offer to a non-belligerent middle power—who also happens to be our closest partner in the GCC and with whom we established a new Strategic Partnership in September 2025—I expect this was seen as a good way to play a part but at something of an arm’s length from the main campaign.
At the same time, all that doesn’t make the desire to defend the UAE and other GCC states illegitimate. They didn’t ask for this conflict and yet are bearing a heavy toll of Iranian attacks. There are tens of thousands of Australian citizens in the region and it’s a zone that is central to the flow of critical materials and resources into the global market including oil, gas, and fertiliser. UN Security Council Resolution 2817 was passed on 11 March with 13 votes in favour, none opposed, and Russia and China abstaining. It was co-sponsored by 135 countries and “condemns in the strongest terms the egregious attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran” against the GCC states and Jordan, who are affirmed in this resolution as not being party to the conflict. China has separately condemned the attacks—from Iran as well as the US and Israel—and called for peace. All this would seem to put the government on strong legal and moral ground for contributing to the UAE’s defence.
There’s so much more which could be said, but to return to where we started with the question of whether Australia is indeed at war, I still feel I have more questions than answers and this has opened up a whole political-legal-policy-strategic can of worms for me—before you even get to the possible question of war powers reform that has been circulating in the Australian political waters for years. In short, to reiterate my earlier questions:
- Is there a consistently held view that Australia is in fact a party to the conflict? Is this/would this in any way be impacted by the fact that Australia is taking limited action to support a country who is not party to the conflict, rather than contribution to the actions of the belligerents?
- If, regardless, Australia is still deemed to be at war, when would we cease to be? Under what circumstances?
- How does this compare to the support Australia has made to Ukraine (particularly given its substantially similar nature to that which is being offered to the UAE) over several years? Is Australia therefore at war with Russia? What are the legal and practical differences?
It looks like I need to consult some lawyers…
David M. Andrews 
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