Development aid is a strategic issue too

Likewise, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) isn't known for being a warm and fuzzy organisation. I've never attended a staff meeting, but it's difficult to believe they all sit around, holding hands and singing Kumbaya. The organisation has a 'realist' world view which, translated, means it's based around the realisation that conflict remains an integral part of our world. So when ASPI chooses to offer its key, landmark speech to Stephanie Copus-Campbell, who's the former head of our aid project in Papua New Guinea and director of three not-for-profits, it's worth examining what this means.

The only way to understand security now is to recognise how it fits into the bigger picture. Sure, we're getting future frigates, but these are irrelevant if we don't have close allies with whom to operate as friends.

Now this isn't all simply about China. The only way we can create strategic space is by ensuring we're a partner - an equal partner - prepared to work in and with the island nations of our region. That's just strategic reality.

But there's an urgent humanitarian reason to be involved too.

Australia is one of the richest countries in the world. The IMF says we're 17th by per-capita income, raking in just over US$52,370 each. PNG, by contrast, is 148th. People there make barely $3,600, and geographic challenges multiply the difficulties.

Unless you've walked the tracks in the highlands and flown to the islands, as Copus-Campbell has, it's difficult to understand just how problematic simplistic solutions are.

The Kokoda track, for example, the only way of crossing between Port Moresby and the palm-fringed northern coast, begins just a short drive outside the capital. After that your choice is either to walk or to fly; to tackle the Golden Staircase and heave yourself up and down the vertical ridges, or retreat. But flying isn't an option for locals and without transport you can't get goods to market. Yet roads bring new diseases (like AIDS).

Copus-Campbell emphasises that without the software of health and education, the hardware of roads and power can never be fully harnessed.

In both the remote villages and along the mountainous, forest and jungle covered spine of the country, geography shapes destiny. Unless communities are independent and resilient, they simply disappear. That's why Copus-Campbell is so determined to push her message. We need to engage with our closest neighbour, she says.

"We can't solve the problems, but we can plant the seeds. If we're to achieve this we need to think differently. We need to engage with the people and foster leaders."

There's more to her pitch than just the strategic and the humanitarian, of course. She realises that we are all driven by personal motivations and that's why she quickly segues to expand, at length, on the beauty of the vegetation, spectacular diving, and utterly remarkable cultural experiences to be discovered in a country that is, at it's closest, just six kilometres away from the northernmost part of Australia.

As she leans forward, yet again, speaking with just the hint of a soft Alaskan accent, Copus-Campbell can be so passionate it's exhausting. So what made this US citizen such a determined advocate for the Australian/PNG relationship?

In the early 90's Copus - as she then was - went to study at Cambridge. She came in late to a tutorial presented by another student but, by the close had decided she wanted to know more; much more. He walked her back to Darwin College and, 11 months later, the couple were married.

He was the 'Campbell' she later added to her name, although he's better known today, of course, as General Angus Campbell, Chief of the Defence Force.

Copus-Campbell claims she discovered New Guinea looking at a map. She realised, if she wanted to maintain a relationship with a husband based in Townsville (and who had, incidentally, grown up playing on the beach at Wewak), maybe developing a specialised interest in this country wasn't such a bad idea. Her analysis proved spot on.

And that's the reason she presented at ASPI's dinner. Not because of who she's married to, but because Copus-Campbell's message is vitally important.

Military hardware's great and necessary, but relationships are just as vital. It's time we placed a bit more emphasis on engagement with our region, otherwise we just may find we've lost the battle before it starts.