ANZAC Day and a multipolar world: what “lest we forget” means now

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. - Laurence Binyon

Each year on ANZAC Day I find myself returning to the same touchstones: family stories, the ordinary diggers who never made the history books, and the uneasy mix of pride, grief, and doubt that sits under the surface of our commemorations. This year, though, that reflection emerges in a world that feels particularly brittle and different in spirit to previous years. With wars breaking out across multiple regions, democracies under pressure, and the world on the brink of deep economic strain and unexpected shifts to familiar ways of life.

From a single beach to a century of wars

On 25 April 1915 Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli, in what was then the Ottoman Empire, in a campaign that ultimately failed in its military objectives but became foundational to both countries’ national stories. More than 8,700 Australians and around 2,700 New Zealanders died there, and by the time the Allied forces were evacuated after eight months, the cost in lives and trauma was immense.

Over the decades ANZAC Day has widened from remembering Gallipoli to commemorating all Australians and New Zealanders who have served and died in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations since 1914. Today we mark the service and sacrifice of millions of service members across multiple generations, and the many thousands who have lost their lives during or as a result of their service.

Standing in the dark, again

If you have ever stood at a dawn service you will know that particular feeling: the hush before first light, the shuffle of people finding a place to stand, the mix of old uniforms and school uniforms, wreaths and smartphones. And I note how the presence of so many children and young people at ANZAC ceremonies is a reminder of how closely war brushes up against the lives of the very young even in this peaceful land.

In 2026 the familiar rhythms of these services sit alongside a more global awareness, carried to us in real time by our screens: bombardments in one city, mass displacement in another, a sudden coup or drone strike somewhere else. When chaplains and community leaders invite us into spaces of remembrance shaped by reflection, lament, and hope, they are doing so against a backdrop of domestic violence, community tensions, and international conflicts that make those words feel anything but abstract.

Lest we forget – what, exactly?

“Lest we forget” has always been more than a slogan, but what we choose not to forget changes with each generation. For some, ANZAC Day is primarily about national identity – mateship, courage, endurance, the idea that under fire we discovered something essential about ourselves as Australians and New Zealanders.

For others, especially as we move further from living memory of the world wars, the day is becoming a site for historical reckoning. The further we get from Gallipoli, the more room there is – and the more need there is – for hard historical perspective: on why we went, whose interests were served, how the ANZAC legend has been mobilised politically, and how it fits into a much longer story of empire, colonisation, and resistance.

If “never again” is to be more than a comfort phrase, then “lest we forget” has to include not forgetting the terrible physical and mental costs of war, including for those who come home changed in ways that are not always visible.

From empire to a multipolar world

The original ANZACs fought in the service of a crumbling British Empire, under command structures and strategic priorities that were very much not their own. Later generations of Australian and New Zealand forces would find themselves aligned with a different great power, as the United States emerged from the mid‑twentieth century as the dominant military and economic force in the “free world”.

We now live in a moment where that unchallenged hegemony is fading and a more multipolar world is taking shape – with rising powers, fractured alliances, and sharper contests over regional influence in our own Indo‑Pacific neighbourhood. For middle powers like Australia and New Zealand, this raises uncomfortable questions about how easily we have moved from one patron to another, and about what genuine strategic autonomy might require from us.

Remembering ANZAC in a multipolar era means recognising that our dead were often sent to fight in conflicts shaped by great‑power rivalries and imperial ambitions that they did not choose. It also asks us to think carefully about the commitments we make now, and about whether we are building a region based on collective security, diplomacy, and justice, or simply drifting into new configurations of old patterns.

Who gets remembered

One thing I’ve tried to do in past ANZAC posts is to bring the focus back to ordinary people - the family members whose medals sit in drawers, the names etched on local cenotaphs, the soldiers who were not generals or politicians, but farm boys, factory workers, clerks, and nurses. Their stories, when we can recover them, complicate the clean lines of legend.

It is also impossible now to talk about remembrance without acknowledging that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people served in Australia’s forces even while denied basic rights at home, and that they continue to serve today. Soldiers from across the empire and Commonwealth likewise fought and died in campaigns that were often far from their own homes, and their contributions are still unevenly remembered.

So when we say “we will remember them”, the “them” needs to be expansive enough to hold First Nations service, migrant and refugee volunteers, women in both combat and support roles, and those whose service does not fit comfortably into older narratives of who counts as a veteran.

Commemoration in an anxious world

The mood around ANZAC Day has shifted over the last century: from early mourning and quiet gatherings, through periods of dwindling interest, to a more recent resurgence of large public ceremonies and marches. Today these events unfold in societies that are more diverse, more secular, and more digital than those that first marked the day back early in the twentieth century.

In this moment of heightened geopolitical risk and domestic polarisation, there is a temptation to grab at simple stories: heroic sacrifice with the rough edges sanded off; a clean line of continuity from Gallipoli to whatever “values” we claim to defend now. ANZAC Day for me rings truest when it rejects the tidy nationalistic story - holding grief, doubt, and hard truths alongside pride.

The work of peace

If ANZAC Day is to remain relevant, it cannot just look backwards; it has to shape how we think about war and peace in the present. Remembering 1915 in 2026 means understanind that wars are still being fought by nations and states far outside of our own little part of the world, that today’s veterans will be tomorrow’s frail elders at the march, and that the decisions our governments make now will become someone else’s sacred story in a century’s time.

Perhaps the deepest challenge the day offers us is this: to honour the dead and the living by doing the slow, prosaic work of peace – building institutions that can withstand pressure, nurturing diplomacy, supporting those who return from service, and refusing to look away when violence is being done in our name. “Lest we forget” then becomes not just a promise of remembrance, but a commitment to action: that we will remember clearly enough, and honestly enough, to choose differently where we still can.