AUSTRALIA is certain to be the victim of another terror attack - which could imitate the recent massacres in Paris and Mumbai, a leading expert says.
Former White House counter-terrorism adviser David Kilcullen says there is a 100 per cent chance there will be anattack on Australian soil. 
"We are going to get another attack without question," he said. "I think it could be a cell attack and the mode of attack could be like Paris - a military-style assault with automatic weapons and explosives.
"More common may be someone running on to a street with an axe - the berserk behaviour from someone listening to social media - that is certainly on the rise.
"You are still dramatically more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in a terrorist attack." Mr Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer, advised the US, UK and Australian governments on counter-terrorism and is due to speak at a Deakin University event today.
He has been equally critical of the Bush invasions of Iraq and the Obama administration's soft footprint approach to the Middle East.
"The Bush people were massively reckless in invading Iraq and Obama was completely feckless in the way he pulled out and allowed things to go worse than when he took over," he said.
He said Australia and the West need to realise that "continuous conflict" was the new normal and needed a strategy to deal with that circumstance.
"There is no going back to normal," he said.
"Conflict is the new normal and we need ways to handle it that are sustainable and cheap enough to not break the bank." Mr Kilcullen said he believed in Australia the lure of ISIS was more of a racial problem - affecting some youths in Lebanese, Syrian and Somalia communities - than religious.He said treating this group with automatic suspicion or using kid gloves were equally bad approaches. "The traditional counter-terror approaches are not going to work anymore," he said.