Now this new Cold War is taking place as much in Australia as it is on the other side of world, as external powers fuel internal forces to undermine belief in ourselves. Today we live in the second Cold War – a period of renewed and intensifying great-power rivalry. Hot little wars are one of the greatest tests of constraint for leaders, whose decisions risk wider more serious consequences. Some allies such as the United Kingdom, are becoming unrecognisable and an example of what losing looks like in this new Cold War. Yet the hot little wars of the twenty-first century are not distant abstractions; they are flashing lights on the dashboard of Australia that cannot be ignored.