Written by Allan Behm, director of the Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program, No Enemies No Friends asks how should Australia re-calibrate its national security settings to deal with global disruption.

Deeply informed, finely written and passionate, Allan Behm’s No Enemies No Friends shows how much of Australia’s ability to successfully navigate an increasingly dangerous world demands that we look with the same sharp clarity at ourselves as at the world outside.

No Enemies No Friends calls for a collective reckoning, and a collective renewal of leadership, ambition and imagination. The book outlines practical ways to begin such a transformation, without ever pretending that it would be easy or that one analyst alone could possibly have all the answers. In his embrace of that complexity, Behm offers real hope for a radically different future for this country and its place in the world.

Get your copy of No Enemies No Friends: Restoring Australia’s Global Relevance.

Congratulations to the other nominees for the Award, it’s a list filled with compelling and well-researched books:

• Bob Hawke: Demons and Destiny by Troy Bramston
• The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison by Sean Kelly
• Telling Tennant’s Story: The Strange Career of the Great Australian Silence by Dean Ashenden
• The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent by Gideon Haigh
• Sold Down The River: How Robber Barons and Wall Street Traders Cornered Australia’s Water Market by Scott Hamilton and Stuart Kells
• Keeping Them Honest: The Case for a Genuine National Integrity Commission and Other Vital Democratic Reforms by Stephen Charles and Catherine Williams
• Waiting for Gonski: How Australia Failed Its Schools by Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonnor
• Rogue Forces: An Explosive Insiders’ Account of Australian SAS War Crimes in Afghanistan by Mark Willacy
• The Idea of Australia: A Search for the soul of the nation by Julianne Schultz

The Australian Political Book of the Year Award was established to highlight the significant role Australian political books play in better understanding politics and public policy. The longlist has been decided by the Award’s distinguished judging panel Laurie Oakes, Laura Tingle, and John Warhurst AO. The longlist are those books they believe provide the most compelling contribution to understanding Australian political events and debates.

The shortlist will be announced on 24 October 2022. The winner will be announced by the Treasurer of Australia, the Hon Dr Jim Chalmers MP, on 9 November 2022 at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra.

Watch Allan’s book launch event with Jane Golley and his webinar discussion with Melissa Conley Tyler.