Pine Gap intelligence base in central Australia held a special fascination for him, and more than any other academic, Ball helped reveal to the public just what secrets those remote dishes and antennae plucked from the skies.

He was a patriot and a democrat, believing Australians had every right to know what the alliance with the US had brought to what he called "a suitable piece of real estate" near Alice Springs in the title of his most famous book.

But Ball - who died on Wednesday after a long illness - also took a sweeping view of defence and security threats, and had a rare influence on government thinking for an outsider of officialdom.

His warnings about the acute dangers and mad logic of limited nuclear strikes in the 1980s earned him generous praise of former US president Jimmy Carter for helping avoid a calamitous war.

Ball was also fascinated with Burma, disappearing from his Australian National University office in recent years to spend long stretches in the badlands of the Thai-Burma border - and was for a time convinced Burmese junta was secretly pursuing a nuclear bomb.

He helped expose Indonesian atrocities during the occupation of East Timor and was praised for never losing sight of the human cost of grand strategies.

"He was a towering figure in the world of security and strategic studies for many decades, both in Australia and internationally," said Gareth Evans, a former foreign minister.

Military historian David Horner said Ball was "not one of, but the outstanding security studies scholar of his era".

Ball could cut a strange figure in often conservative security circles, with crumpled clothes and rat's tail hair braid dangling behind him.

He was intrepid: ANU professor Michael Wesley said Ball was always motivated by a dedication to field research and a concern about the destructive power of modern war.

Former defence official Hugh White said Ball was far and away the most important voice questioning the role of the US-Australia joint facilities in Australia.

White said Ball's "vigorous" research had encouraged the government to speak more openly.

American researcher Jeffrey Richelson​ from National Security Archive said Ball's work on the Pine Gap and Nurrungar​ facilities "helped paved the way for understanding of how those facilities fit into US warning and intelligence capabilities, as well as the implications for Australia as the host of those bases."

Ball, born in 1947 at Nyah West in Victoria, published more than 60 books and monographs - his most recent only in the past week.

Richard Tanter, who worked with Ball on studying Pine Gap, said the transformation of the base from its Cold War role in the stand-off with the Soviet Union to suspected role in modern drone warfare had left Ball dismayed.

"Des never lost faith in his belief that if the people of Australia were told the truth about American bases in Australia, they would make judicious assessments of their value – or the reverse – for Australia's real security needs," Tanter told Fairfax Media.