Aldo Borgu from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has warned that Australia needs an exit strategy to prevent the operation dragging out, and becoming a strain on defence resources.
He says it is unlikely to be a short deployment as suggested by some.
"What we have to bear in mind is that we've only now just got out of Bougainville, and that's some five years after we initially went in there. Some four years after the East Timor deployment and we've still got roughly a thousand troops out there. So it would be a brave person to say that this is just going to be over and done with in a couple of weeks."