Ball was a political realist, and a believer in liberal institutions and solid defence strategies. He used an inductive, investigative approach to security studies. During the
Cold War, Ball was invited to critique US nuclear defence plans—his analysis persuaded the US that its plan to destroy selected Soviet targets in a limited strike would not work in practice and would lead to all-out nuclear escalation. His analysis was acknowledged by President
Jimmy Carter. Ball worked on Australia's signal intelligence and exposed Australia's secret history of cracking diplomatic cables. In 1998, with
David Horner he confirmed wartime Soviet spying in Australia revealed by the
Petrov Affair, carried out by staff in Evatt's Foreign Affairs Department. He studied, and was active in, some of Southeast Asia's "shadow wars". He was a supporter of
Karen independence, having discovered the extent of Burmese Army human rights abuses, and advised the
Karen National Liberation Army along the Thai/Myanmar border on successful guerrilla warfare from the early-2000s. He made over 85 research trips to the region. He worked with the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and believed the biggest threat in the early 21st century would be the potential for conflict escalation in north-east Asia. ==Awards==