Stopgap Weapons as a Feature of Warfare

Theorising from the Past to Prepare for Future Wars

Now, men, you answered your country’s call today.

We’re all here to defend our homes and loved ones.

I know you will not shirk that duty.

With no guns, we are naked, but we have one invaluable weapon –

ingenuity and improvisation.

(‘That’s two’)

I want you all to go to your homes.

Gather what weapons you can and come back here in an hour’s time.

From tonight, whatever the odds, we Englishmen …

We British …

We here are going to be able to say,

‘Come on, Jerry, we’re waiting for you!’^[1]

Introduction

It is need, not want, that produces the great human discoveries and inventions, and war is the great crucible of need for humans. Much of the material modern world has its origins in the conduct of warfare and the need to survive. The internet, global positioning system technology and the humble duct tape are military inventions that many people use every day.^[2] Medicine and medical technology, too, have been transformed by the need to care for the wounded.^[3] Even so, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to the instruments of ingenuity and improvisation that met those needs or the conditions in which they were born. In this, stopgap weapons have usually represented little more than curiosities for historians and the military profession. Certainly, some of these weapons served a transient purpose, or they were a failure of design or use. However, others evolved to enter the inventory of warfare or were influential in a battle or, cumulatively, in a war. What has largely gone unrecognised, though, is that stopgap weapons have been a recurring feature of war in the post-industrial age and will likely continue to feature in warfare as necessity dictates.

By examining the conditions for their creation, we can anticipate the circumstances for the presence of stopgap weapons on the future battlefield. And by studying the history of stopgap weapons we can create a military culture that fosters different thinking about how to exploit an adversary’s situation and how to defend against sudden vulnerability. The Defence Strategic Review 2023 cautioned that Australia faces the most challenging strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War.^[4] As a future war will potentially be fought, in part, in the vast remoteness of the Pacific region, necessity will likely dictate the need for ingenuity and improvisation—indeed, for a resourcefulness that harkens to an earlier age of Australian soldiering. It is within this geostrategic context—and acknowledging the Chief of Army’s 2024 speech ‘The Challenges to the Australian Army Profession’^[5]—that this article aims to provide an original and overdue contribution to the field of stopgap weapons, and so to expand the body of useful military knowledge.

This article is divided into three parts. The first part examines the historiographical and theoretical dimensions of stopgap weapons. Here, we offer a working description (not a definition) of stopgap weapons. The second part examines some stopgap weapons as short case studies in different war periods. There is a long history of the development and use of stopgap weapons in war. Our selection of wars and the stopgap weapons in them is far from exhaustive. We confined the study to several wars of continuing relevance to the Australian Army, and the Australian Defence Force more broadly, in which stopgap weapons played a notable part, or where there was an inflection in the development and use of stopgap weapons. Despite its being a contemporary conflict, we have included the Russia–Ukraine War as the final case study, as it clearly demonstrates the continuing relevance of stopgap weapons on the battlefield. In the third part of the article we make several observations, based on the historical cases studies, which we believe will better equip Army to imagine and prepare for future wars, especially for littoral warfare. We consider the relevance of stopgap weapons for Australia’s contemporary defence strategy, for acquisition processes and defence innovation, and for some of the intellectual dimensions of warfighting.

Part One: Context

In the history of military improvisation, particularly in the context of stopgap weapons in war, the field consists of a fragmented assortment of articles, books, reports and uninterrogated museum records focused on the resourcefulness of the soldier under fire or, less frequently, on the features of a weapon. For example, the Australian War Memorial has produced a publication on Australian wartime innovation that meets both these descriptions.^[6] In America and Europe, accounts of stopgap weapons in war are likely to take the form of informal accounts and discussions, or else to become folded into narratives about shifts in military technologies and broader combat histories.^[7] Where there has been scholarly engagement with the theoretical relevance of stopgap weapons, it has usually been in terms of how a specific weapon fits within existing innovation models used by military organisations, such as the top-down or bottom-up field-modification dialectic.^[8] Even in military schoolhouses, stopgap weapons are often seen as a dated feature of warfare, a marker of a time before professional standing armies, defence bureaucracies and armament industries.

The lack of scholarly interrogation of stopgap weapons as a field of study indicates a widespread assumption that stopgap weapons were a naturally occurring phenomenon among soldiers, who identified and, on their own initiative, quickly filled a capability gap of little enduring importance or strategic consequence. There is also, as we observe it, an assumption among Western militaries that armies will be equipped with the weapons and other materiel needed to fight their next war, and that any deficiencies or new requirements found during fighting will be quickly rectified through normal military procurement processes. However, these assumptions do not align with the chaos and uncertainties that are inherent in warfare, what Clausewitz described as part of the trinity that characterises war.^[9] Indeed, the fact that American soldiers in the Iraq War used scrap metal to protect their vehicles, so-called ‘hillbilly armor’^[10] and that there were lengthy delays in manufacturing sufficient countermeasures to the insurgents’ use of improvised explosive devices demonstrates the danger of these assumptions.^[11] Unprepared for an insurgency,^[12] 48 per cent of the American soldiers killed between 2006 and 2021 were killed by improvised explosive devices.^[13] As the case studies in this article will show, the study of stopgap weapons as a distinct field offers strategic, theoretical and instructive lessons for future warfighting.

It is an ideal time, then, to examine stopgap weapons and the conditions for their development in an organised and rigorous manner. The Iraq War showed, as the Russia–Ukraine War does now, that stopgap weapons and battlefield innovation are an enduring feature of modern warfare. The use of adapted drones and other modified technologies in the Russia–Ukraine War, as well as the combination of old and new weapons, has garnered significant attention for how it might shape future wars.^[14] As Nina Kollars described it, ‘Field level inspired solutions have a peculiarly gritty sensibility to them: a grounded and oddly anachronistic feel that combines cutting edge technology with duct tape.’^[15] There is also growing scholarly interest in fields adjacent to stopgap weapons, such as how, in contemporary conflicts, sub-state armed groups and non-state actors have improvised or adapted the use of explosive devices, drones, lob bombs et cetera.^[16]Additionally, limited resources and a need for extreme secrecy have led to the use of innovative weaponry and tactics by terrorist organisations.^[17] There will be an expectation, indeed an imperative, for military professionals to understand the field of stopgap weapons as part of their body of professional knowledge.

However, a detailed study of the development of stopgap weapons and their use is not without its challenges. The character of stopgap weapons is fluid because they are a response to immediate, often transitory, military circumstances. This makes them difficult to classify (when they have been documented) in a systematised manner. Another issue is terminology. The term ‘stopgap weapon’ has been used often interchangeably with terms that have adjacent definitions. These include ‘tactical innovation’, which is ‘the process by which operational Army units leverage innovative methodologies to develop solutions to their problems at the edge’, ^[18] and ‘field modification’, which describes low-end military innovations.^[19] In more recent years, ‘improvised’, ‘experimental’, ‘innovative’, and ‘adapted’ have become terms which can sometimes be understood as descriptive substitutes for stopgap weapons.^[20] A similar, but notionally different, term is ‘makeshift weapons’, which has more affinity with improvised weapons, in describing the rudimentary conversion of common objects into a form of weapon.^[21] That the Virginia-class submarine has been described as a ‘submarine stopgap’ for Australia illustrates the terminological difficulties with researching the field of stopgap weapons.^[22]

For present purposes, we conceptualise (and describe) stopgap weapons as a subset of military innovation intended to meet a military need but occurring in a compressed timeframe, from identifying the need to implementing the solution. A stopgap weapon is a response to a situation in war, or its anticipation, but it can include a response on the edge of war. While ‘stopgap’ indicates immediacy, meaning a stopgap weapon is intended for immediate use, on occasions it could be a weapon rapidly created for use, if needed, in a future specific situation. Similarly, ‘stopgap’ indicates a temporary measure, something not originally intended for military inventory. And ‘weapon’ should be understood as encompassing methods, which are something other than means, in tangible form, thus capturing the notion that a weapon is something intended to cause harm to an adversary or to counter their harm. Finally, we are concerned here with ingenuity at the tactical and operational levels of war, recognising that stopgap weapons of the strategic form are likely of a different nature.

In this article, we have consciously relaxed the definitional parameters around ‘stopgap weapons’ for several reasons. As the initiating effort, one is to open the field widely for examination. Another is that we locate stopgap weapons on a continuum of ‘improvised’ weapons in warfare. This allows the associated improvisation process to be read back onto their longer history and the history of those weapons with shared characteristics. This also allows for a broader multidisciplinary approach to the study of stopgap weapons, which maximises the theoretical and strategic benefits, including new ways to imagine capability development. This way of conceptualising stopgap weapons also allows for generous engagement with the associated human dimensions, which help draw out the intellectual and socio-military dimensions more clearly. Individual ingenuity and adaptability have long been recognised as important on the battlefield. The 18th-century soldier-philosopher Maurice de Saxe, in his Reveries on the Art of War, argued that the military professional:

should possess a talent for sudden and appropriate improvisation. He should be able to penetrate the minds of other men, while remaining impenetrable himself. He should be endowed with the capacity of being prepared for everything, with activity accompanied by judgment, with skill to make a proper decision on all occasions, and with exactness of discernment.^[23]

To explore the processes by which soldiers have responded to the ‘fog of war’ through the development of stopgap weapons is to begin to understand the mindset for this vital battlefield ingenuity and unique form of intelligence, which, along with historical knowledge, have long been understood as ‘the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practices’.^[24] Sun Tzu remarked on the importance of wisdom in The Art of War,^[25] and Clausewitz, in On War, was clear on the need for ‘sensitive and discriminating judgement’ in a context where ‘three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty’.^[26] Yet Williamson Murray has observed, ‘Adaptation in war represents one of the most persistent, yet rarely examined, problems that military institutions confront’ and, moreover, ‘one of the foremost attributes of military effectiveness must lie in the ability of armies, navies, or air forces to recognize and adapt to the actual conditions of combat’.^[27] Training soldiers in the theory and practice of stopgap weapons may help win wars and save soldiers’ lives.

Part Two: Case Studies

First World War

HG Wells famously lamented ‘man's increasing power of destruction’^[28] when he observed the rapid technological changes occurring during the First World War. Unlike previous conflicts, the First World War was shaped by pre-existing trends towards industrialisation and methods of mass production. Prior to the war and throughout its duration there were major advances in artillery, grenades, machine guns and submarines as well as the development of new weapons such as poison gas, tanks and warplanes. These advances were combined with new methods of production, which meant that weapons and munitions could be made in large numbers and quickly.^[29] On the battlefield, however, 20th-century technologies collided with 19th-century military science and models of warfare, greatly interfering with the equilibrium in warfare between firepower and manoeuvre.^[30] The result was high casualties, horrendous battlefield conditions, and the stalemate and attrition of trench warfare for several years. The war was a modern form of medieval violence.

From those conditions emerged an assortment of stopgap weapons of impressive efficacy and ingenuity. In the rival trenches of the Western Front, especially those in close proximity, where there was a relatively high degree of creativity and technological sophistication, a kind of ‘technological meta-system’ ^[31] or ‘complex adaptive system’^[32] developed, as each side was motivated to create novel devices to match or better those of their enemy. As Williamson Murray reminded us:

The harsh fact is that the enemy is a community of living, breathing human beings who may be able to adapt to the conditions of war as fast, if not faster, than we will, or at least develop responses that lie outside our conceptions and assumptions.^[33]

The rival trenches of the war, at Gallipoli but especially on the Western Front, demonstrated the extent to which this complex adaptive system could push groundbreaking battlefield innovation in its brutal simplicity.

For soldiers at Gallipoli, scarcity in materiel became the impetus of stopgap weapons of a notably rudimentary character. Such was the reality of a campaign in a relatively minor and physically small theatre of war. For example, a shortage of grenades to attack and defend trench lines was soon addressed by the creation of the ‘jam tin bomb’. Used ration tins were filled with explosives and pieces of shrapnel such as scavenged nails, barbed wire and small pieces of shell, and were activated by a cigarette or friction device. The jam tin bombs were so effective that hundreds or more were assembled by hand each day.^[34] Similarly simple in conception was the ‘periscope rifle’, which, through the attachment of a slanted mirror in a wooden bracket, allowed an allied soldier in the trenches to fire on the enemy without being exposed to return fire. The periscope rifle was so popular that a makeshift manufacturing workshop was set up on Anzac beach, with the device later adapted and used in other theatres, including on the Western Front in trenches and fake observation trees. It was the periscope rifle which led British General William Birdwood to remark, ‘Our complete moral superiority over the Turk is partly due to a very clever invention’.^[35]

Another device, incorporated into a program of ‘silent stunts’ to ensure the safe and unhindered evacuation of allied soldiers off Gallipoli was the ‘drip rifle’. Because of the proximity of the rival trenches, measures were taken to distract Turkish forces from the withdrawal of contingents by creating the impression of a greater presence than was the case. In the early phases, soldiers played cricket in the ravines and gave the sense that the trenches were still full by soldiers smoking the 100 cigarettes each had been provided.^[36] The drip rifle was employed to provide a distraction for the final and most dangerous phase of the evacuation. Created by an Australian soldier, the drip rifle used a system of weights to provide delayed fire until the trenches had been evacuated. It was made from string and two empty ration tins placed one above the other. The top tin was filled with water and had small holes in the bottom. Water dripped into the lower tin, and, when it was full, the sandbagged rifle was threaded for the weighted tin to pull the trigger. This gave the Turkish soldiers the feeling that they were still encountering harassing or targeted rifle fire. Some 80,000 soldiers were evacuated from Gallipoli, with only three casualties.^[37]

By the late stages of the First World War there was a convergent mass of innovation that was enough to eventually overcome the defensive strength of trenched warfare. This innovation was particularly in the form of aerial surveillance, chemical weapons, and tanks employed with existing means in a coordinated way. While we may no longer regard these weapons as stopgap, as they have entered the inventory of warfare, they were thought of as temporary measures at the time. Chemical weapons, though, warrant further comment. Even by the violent standards of the First World War, chemical weapons such as chorine and mustard gas were viewed with horror and moral unease. But both sides used them extensively because of the cost of war and the drain on resources. Germany needed to break the impasse before its war-making capacity was entirely depleted.^[38] As the German imperial minister of war observed, ‘The ordinary weapons of attack often failed completely’ and, therefore, superior weapons needed to be found. ‘Such a weapon’, he stated, ‘existed in gas’, which had the added benefit of ‘not excessively tax[ing] the capacity of German war industry in its production’.^[39]

Second World War

Technology played a decisive role in the Second World War, to the point where stopgap weapons often become lost in the breadth and scale of military innovation which occurred during the six-year period. At the start of the war, soldiers were armed with weaponry that was little different from what had been used towards the end of the First World War. By its end, there were ballistic missiles, jet-powered aircraft, helicopters and atomic weapons. And soldiers faced even more changes on the battlefield. But, while technological innovation was fundamental to the war, it was in the Second World War that we found the clear emergence of civic-spirited, mobilised populations seeking to ‘do their bit’ to win the war through creating stopgap weapons and other improvised warfare measures. This was clearest in wartime Britain. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, animated this civic spirit with his ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ speech in 1940,^[40] which he delivered as the evacuation of Dunkirk was ending and Britain faced the prospect of an invasion by Nazi Germany.

The national salvaging campaigns that followed, such as encouraging Britons to donate their pots and pans so the aluminium could be reused for military aircraft,^[41] reflected the ‘doing their bit’ spirit of that wartime period. This was later captured in Dad’s Army, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s popular comedy television series involving a fictional British Home Guard unit during the Second World War. The series included comical innovations such as a grenade made from a cabbage and a rifle made from a broom handle. But it was the character of Captain George Mainwaring, the commander of this motley unit, who memorably said in the first episode, ‘We have one invaluable weapon—ingenuity and improvisation’.^[42] And while we might laugh at the thought of the cabbage and broom handle, or at Mainwaring’s numeracy, they comically reflected the genuine effort by those at the time to create weapons from anything available. It reflected the ‘make do’ determination of a people in a war of national survival.

Perhaps the most notable of rudimentary stopgap weapons was the Northover projector. With the German invasion imminent and weapons in short supply, a home guardsman developed, in late 1940, an anti-tank weapon made from a hollow metal tube on a tripod with a basic breech at one end. The stopgap weapon used rounds fired with black powder and a musket percussion cap.^[43] Despite its many limitations, Churchill ordered its immediate production for Home Guard units because it was economical, simple to manufacture and simple to operate. By mid-1941, nearly 19,000 Northover projectors were in service.^[44]

Similar in conception, but developed by the Royal Navy’s Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development,^[45] the Holman projector was an anti-aircraft weapon, used on British merchant ships to defend against German aircraft, that fired hand grenades using steam from the ship's boilers.^[46] The directorate also created the Hedgehog, which was an anti-submarine mortar that was eventually used by other navies during, and well after, the Second World War.^[47] The Australian Army mounted the Hedgehog on several of its Matilda II tanks for use against the Japanese in the Pacific campaign.^[48] Less useful weapons created by the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development included the ‘Great Panjandrum’, a giant explosive Catherine wheel intended for storming enemy beaches.^[49] Such is the hit-and-miss of military invention.

Many of the stopgap weapons developed during the Second World War were field modifications using scavenged parts to make weaponry to overcome specific battlefield situations. During the Battle of Normandy, American soldiers found the hedgerows and embankments of that part of France difficult for their tanks to quickly breach without exposing their weaker underside to anti-tank fire. Many implements were created, the most effective of which was the ‘rhino tank’, which initially involved using steel from the German beach obstacles to make a form of shears that were welded to the front of the tanks.^[50] Within a week, three out of five tanks in the breakout were equipped with ‘tusks’ of various forms. Similarly, the AN/M2 Stinger rifle was developed using scavenged parts of crashed aircraft. It was created by American soldiers in the Pacific theatre who sought greater portability and higher firepower. They essentially converted an aircraft machine gun into a man-portable heavy assault weapon which they used for attacking Japanese bunkers on Pacific islands.^[51]

The Second World War demonstrated the need, but also the ability, to rapidly mass-produce stopgap weapons within the mindset that a weapon fielded sooner was better than a perfected weapon fielded later. This ‘must do’ mindset was shown with the development of the Boomerang aircraft. In the mid-1930s, as the threat of war grew, there were concerns that Australia’s small aircraft industry would not have the capacity to produce the combat aircraft that wartime conditions might demand. To establish a self-sufficient industry, three companies entered a joint venture, forming the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC).^[52] Following the Japanese attack on America at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, it was clear to the Australian government that a stopgap aircraft was needed until a frontline fighter could be sourced. The CAC repurposed designs and techniques used for a training aircraft already in production to develop the Boomerang. The urgency was such that no prototype was produced, and the first five Boomerangs were already being manufactured before the aircraft was first test-flown. All this manufacture and testing occurred by May 1942, within six months of the Pearl Harbor attack.^[53]

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War demonstrated the need for constant innovation in challenging terrain, between asymmetrical forces and against new ways of waging war. While the Americans were able to draw on emerging and mature technologies, including laser-guided munitions, radar warning equipment and ground sensors, they soon found that these advances could not offset their flawed strategies and the marked change in tactics and patterns of attack adopted by contending forces compared with those used in the Second World War and the Korean War. The North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, particularly during the early phases of the war, sought to avoid direct battles unless on favourable terms. Instead, they preferred jungle warfare, where their offensive actions would inflict casualties and destroy equipment through ambushes, raids and other forms of attack.^[54]

In contrast to the relatively narrow and distinct division of territory between friendly and enemy forces of past wars, fields of combat shifted across all of Vietnam and into adjacent countries. This had an extraordinary impact on every aspect of the war.^[55] While there was a suite of new weaponry for American soldiers to use, there was a more urgent need to adapt at the operational and tactical levels, and to employ stopgap weapons to respond to the enemy's methods of operation. As General C Westmoreland observed:

Because of the nature of the war, tactical units had to be scattered throughout the nation at widespread locations. The lack of a sophisticated transportation system necessitated major units establishing their own logistic bases rather than one central dept serving a number of units …^[56]

As there was no clear front line, there was also no safe rear area. This was a problem for American transport units, which faced continued attempts from the enemy to shut down supply routes.^[57] The convoys were repeatedly exposed to ambush, disruption and hijacking, as the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong recognised that their advantage lay in bleeding the American soldiers dry through the supply lines rather than in trying to defeat them in pitched battles. American convoys were constantly attacked using a variety of both explosive and non-explosive booby traps, ranging from the rudimentary to highly sophisticated weapons.^[58]

Indeed, because the North Vietnamese Army and, especially, the Viet Cong did not have the munitions and other materiel to fight on the same terms as the Americans, they used retrieved unexploded ordnance to create a variety of stopgap weaponry. They rescaled the war in their favour by scavenging and stealing aircraft bombs, artillery shells, mines, mortars and grenades, using them to attack American personnel, convoys, structures and even helicopters. Large munitions were cut open and the explosives used in various improvised devices, as Ukrainian soldiers are doing now,^[59] whereas smaller munitions, such as mortars or shells, were fitted with remote- or victim-triggered switches and employed in creative ways. A favoured tactic of the Viet Cong was to place mortars in tree lines above routes frequented by American soldiers. As the soldiers moved beneath the branches, the suspended shells were remotely detonated.^[60] The splintering trees added to the shrapnel.

The Viet Cong used explosive and non-explosive booby traps in such a variety of ways and over such large combat areas that American soldiers and their allies had to be constantly on guard.^[61] But innovations only provided an advantage during the brief period in which the adversary was taken by surprise, and before they were able to devise effective countermeasures.^[62] Frequent encounters with new kinds of booby traps meant the Americans began to catalogue them and to publish manuals to keep up with the enemy’s continuous process of improvisation. American forces also started training their soldiers in the detection and neutralisation of enemy improvised devices.^[63] For both sides, predictable methods, patterns and tactics became a vulnerability and were readily exploited by the other. It quickly became clear to the combatants that battlefield ingenuity and improvisation were the only means to avoiding defeat and greater casualties.^[64]

The Americans developed ways to protect their convoys from attacks by adding field-made armour and guns to selected ‘gun trucks’ which would then be designated for escort combat roles. There were countless experimental designs for bumpers, windshields and side armour, the materials for which came from trading, repurposed resources, and scavenged timber, sheet metal and discarded truck parts. ^[65] The parallels with ‘hillbilly armor’ in the Iraq War are obvious. Miniguns sourced from helicopters were also mounted on the trucks. In some cases, the M2 Browning heavy machine gun set in single, dual or sometimes quad formation served that role. These hardening measures quickly spread to other units, becoming accepted practice despite lacking official approval.^[66]

An almost legendary stopgap weapon devised by the Americans to overcome fighting in jungles and mountainous terrain was the Douglas AC-47 gunship, a modified version of the C-47, which was a 20-year-old cargo aircraft not designed for combat. The AC-47s were equipped with surplus Second World War weapons and, later, electric miniguns which provided a semi-permanent action and sporadic fire. The gunships could loiter for hours to effectively corner an enemy force. The AC-47s could be used for close air support, to strike deep into enemy territory, and to defend allied bases and villages. At night, flares were discharged from them to illuminate enemy positions. The light trails gave the aircraft the look of a fire-spitting Dragon, hence the monikers ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ and ‘Spooky’.^[67] Eventually, these stopgap AC-47s were replaced with Fairchild AC-119s, and now the Lockheed AC-130s, each an improved version of the previous gunship, though still based on the same design and thinking as the AC-47.^[68]

Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

It is convenient for present purposes to examine the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as one case study, because they were contemporaries which shared several important features. Before that, however, it is useful to mention two American stopgap weapons from the Persian Gulf War, the war that in many ways began these later wars.^[69] During the planning for Operation Desert Storm, the Americans were concerned that their existing bombs lacked the explosive power to penetrate Iraq’s deep bunkers. Consequently, they took ‘barrels from M110 howitzers, filled them with explosives, and fitted them with laser guidance flight-kits’. ^[70] Within three weeks, the Americans went from designing to dropping these stopgap bombs in Iraq, with devastating effect.^[71] Similarly, the Americans designed, tested, prototyped, assembled and used the GBU-28 ‘bunker buster’ bomb in Iraq within two weeks.^[72] These bombs show how stopgap weapons remain a feature of modern war, but what they especially show is what can be quickly achieved with imagination, technical mastery, resources and motivation. The Americans went on to use these bunker buster bombs in Afghanistan in 2001 and later.^[73]

The dominant features that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars share are the threat posed by improvised explosive devices and the stopgap countermeasures deployed to stop them. In the Iraq War, 48 per cent of American soldiers killed between 2006 and 2021 were killed by improvised explosive devices, and in the Afghanistan War it was 45 per cent in the same period.^[74] As insurgency wars, what they also had in common was a fight to gain the control or support of the local populations. General Petraeus observed that the key terrain was ‘the human terrain’,^[75] indicating how inextricably the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan formed part of the larger human landscape. The use of improvised explosive devices was so prolific, and their designs so varied, that they shaped the wars into a ‘series of moves and countermoves as each side adapt[ed] to the latest innovation by the other’.^[76] Many of these devices were assembled from everyday civilian objects, and their broad-based use and evolving sophistication, enabled by local social systems.^[77] Some devices were crudely designed and detonated by garage-door openers or washing machine timers, but over time they were triggered by infrared signals, mobile phones or pressure plates.^[78]

The improvised explosive device could be anything, and anything could be that device. The threat seemed everywhere in both wars. The catalogue of devices eventually included:

fertilizer, palm oil, a wooden box, homemade chemicals, a forgotten land mine mated with a cell phone, strung-together bits of old copper wire, a nine-volt battery, or a dead goat stuffed with artillery shells rigged to set off a daisy chain of other explosives buried in the road.^[79]

These devices were concealed behind signs or in roadside debris, litter, foodstuffs and building walls, or placed inside vehicles which were driven directly at a target as a victim-triggered explosion. Suicide bombers carried explosive vests triggered by them or someone else. Countermeasures implemented by coalition forces included the use of electronic jammers, radars, X-ray equipment, robotic explosive ordnance disposal equipment, equipment for personal security, and armoured vehicles. But there were frequent shortages of items such as body armour, lithium batteries and up-armoured humvee vehicles.^[80] As a result, battlefield innovations like the gun truck reappeared, as did the creation of ‘hillbilly armor’ made from scrap or trade. ‘You wheel and deal to get what you can for your soldiers.’^[81]

However, many of the countermeasures and mitigations had limited effect in these wars. And several of the stopgap measures, like ‘sniffer bees’, were a failure of common sense.^[82] Insurgents adapted more quickly with their weaponry, and they had relative freedom of action. They engineered their devices to penetrate coalition armour and varied the ways in which they employed them.^[83] One way was to draw coalition soldiers into an ambush with a blast, then, as the rescue was occurring, detonate another improvised device or launch some other form of attack.^[84] The insurgents also launched improvised explosive devices, or lob bombs, which were gas canisters or repurposed munitions set into the ground or from a civilian vehicle to fly haphazardly to their target.^[85] Insurgents also used cheap, commercially available drones to launch improvised explosive devices. Drones allowed them physical separation from the attack and the means to target more destructively,^[86] and they added another psychological element to the situation. Despite the coalition forces’ superior technology and weaponry, they had capability and knowledge gaps. They tended to be reactive to each new stopgap weapon or measure. And, among other sociocultural blind spots, they had a poor understanding of the societal networks supporting the insurgencies. Eventually, America embedded social scientists in every combat brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan,^[87] recognising the ‘need to understand culture as a necessary element of overall victory’.^[88]

Russia–Ukraine War

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the continued fighting between these states since that date, may become the most consequential war in modern times. This can be understood in several terms, but it is the technological developments in this war which are clearest at present. For over three years, Ukraine and Russia have sought the means, often in conjunction with methods, to attack or defend against the other in what has become protracted positional, and frequently attritional, warfare. History may revise the assessment, but so far it has been Ukraine that has arguably led in technological ingenuity and improvisation.^[89] This is because Ukraine has sought to compensate for its battlefield vulnerabilities, especially in manpower and firepower, and its dependency on allied countries for critical ammunitions, weapon systems and enabling capabilities.^[90] And Ukraine has done so while also relying on much older stopgap weapons and measures, such as its use of the levée en masse and the Molotov cocktail bomb and the breaching of its own dams in the defence of Kyiv.^[91]

Ukraine’s technological innovations are now most visible in its efforts with artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons systems, and unmanned systems like aerial and maritime drones.^[92] Of course, none of these technologies are new, or new to warfare, with debate about their legal and ethical implications and whether they revolutionise war having occurred for years.^[93] Nonetheless, they may still be thought of as stopgap weapons, not only for their rapid invention or innovation but also for their novel application to meet immediate battlefield needs. The Ukrainian approach to stopgap weapons has included refreshing obsolete air defence heavy weapons, such as remounting them on all-terrain vehicles for increased mobility and survivability or pairing them with advanced radar systems to increase their accuracy and lethality.^[94] It has also involved using old and modern munitions in different delivery systems as well as converting anti-ship missiles into land-attack systems.^[95]

At the same time, Ukraine has been able to inflict significant losses on the Russian navy while not having a navy of its own, particularly through its creation and use of sea drones against anchored Russian warships.^[96] Likewise, first-person videos of commercial drones dropping mortars onto (sometimes into) Russian armoured vehicles and defensive positions are also now common on social media platforms. Even more spectacular are the videos of Ukrainian ‘dragon drones’, which discharge thermite or other incendiary compounds onto Russian positions hidden in dense vegetation.^[97] Ukrainians went on to use these incendiary drones against Russian armoured vehicles and fortified positions like bunkers. More recently, Ukraine announced that it had developed its own ground-based laser anti-aircraft weapon.^[98] Indeed, the pace at which Ukraine has invented and innovated in military weaponry and equipment has meant that it is now able to manufacture a range of capabilities for defence export while still fighting the war.^[99]

It is the case that the Russians have also been gradually innovative and developed their own stopgap weapons in the war. Early on, the Russians placed vehicle tyres on top of their parked aircraft to confuse the targeting system on Ukrainian missiles.^[100] But their more well-known weapons have been intended to defeat Ukraine’s extensive use of aerial drones. Both sides have improvised armour structures, such as slate armour and ‘cope cages’.^[101] These are intended to better protect against anti-armour weapons and particularly against the proliferation of cheap and disposable terminal drones on the battlefield, a phenomenon which has collapsed the notion that a common soldier or ordinary vehicle is not worth being targeted. It is estimated that about 70 per cent of all Russian and Ukrainian casualties, up to 80 per cent in some battles, are now caused by ‘drone bomb’ attacks.^[102] More recently, Russian innovation led to its battlefield deployment of bomb-laden drones operated by miles of fibre-optic cable.^[103] This reduces their disruption by electronic warfare means.^[104] So Ukrainian soldiers use shotguns to down these drones.^[105]

The Russians have also improvised ‘turtle tanks’ (or ‘assault sheds’) which involve armour structures wrapped in building materials, sometimes also housing electronic warfare measures, to protect the lead assaulting armoured vehicles from drone strikes.^[106] These vehicles are reminiscent of the ‘land battleship’ concept. The Russians have also developed mesh-netting ‘tunnels’ on key supply routes to protect their logistics vehicles against terminal drone attacks.^[107] It is notable that Russian forces retaliated within weeks of first being attacked by ‘dragon drones’ with their own incendiary drone attacks on Ukrainian positions,^[108] and that Ukrainian forces now use anti-drone netting on their defensive positions.^[109] Ukraine and Russia are bound in competing technological innovation cycles, a mortal contest, creating stopgap weapons and their countermeasures, where the military advantage in being quicker to adapt to the battlefield situation is often short-lived but holds out the possibility of a tactical or operational victory.

Part Three: Observations

Strategy

The Defence Strategic Review 2023 and the National Defence Strategy 2024 stated in clear terms that Australia is facing the most complex and challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War.^[110] The worrying implication is that Australia is militarily unprepared to meet these challenges as great-power competition increasingly shapes Australia’s security situation. Australia finds itself, as the Melians did in Thucydides’s account of the fate of Melos,^[111] a lesser power unsure about how to secure itself within a contest of two greater powers. The Australian Defence Force is currently invested in a ‘strategy of denial’, which involves ‘signalling a credible ability to hold potential adversary forces at risk’ by shaping the strategic environment, deterring actions against Australia’s interests and responding with credible military force.^[112] But the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. An important lesson from the case studies here is that the war Australia might next fight will not be the one for which it has planned. Strategic effort and judicious actions can shape the character of war, but success on the battlefield comes from adaptation to the specific conditions encountered there.

Familiarity with stopgap weapons development may be particularly valuable given the recent focus of the Defence Force on littoral warfare. The Defence Strategic Review stressed that Australia must enhance its capabilities for littoral warfighting in the Indo-Pacific, prioritising ‘a littoral manoeuvre capability by sea, land and air … and close-combat capabilities … able to meet the most demanding land challenges in our region’.^[113] The littoral domain is understood as ‘the part of the country that is near the coast’ or ‘the area in which shore-based forces can exert influence at sea, and forces at sea can exert influence ashore’.^[114] The Chief of Army described it as ‘the shallows, beaches, rivers, jungles and coastal towns that characterise our region’.^[115] As indicated, the littoral environment is more than the physical environment, drawing in ‘the land, rivers, people, infrastructure, coastal waters, airspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum in these coastal regions … and even the space above them’.^[116] But as the present Chief of Army observed about littoral warfare:

Not since the Pacific Campaigns of the early 1940s has our Army had to seriously consider fighting conventional adversaries in the littoral geography of our region: perhaps one of the most remote, dispersed and challenging battlefields.^[117]

The Australian Army Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2024 recognises that the Army must:

be highly versatile in the littoral terrain, able to achieve tasks ranging from rapid stabilisation and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, to denying access into Australia’s northern approaches through long-range missile strikes, air and missile defence, and close combat.^[118]

If the Defence Force finds itself engaged in littoral warfare in the Indo-Pacific region, the Army must be able to operate for extended periods with limited to no communications, resupply or external support in the Pacific Islands chain and elsewhere in Australia’s near regions. As was the case during the Vietnam War, warfighting in the complex and varied terrain of the littoral will likely result in patterns of warfare where forces are asymmetrical and there is no distinct division of territory between friendly and enemy combatants, driving a need for constant innovation. We foresee stopgap weapons and other forms of military ingenuity and improvisation will likely return as critical factors in Army’s ability to conduct sustained operations in the littoral warfare environment, but also—to reprise Churchill’s speech—not just to fight on the beaches and landing grounds but to fight in the fields and streets and in the hills, and, if Australia or parts of it ‘were subjugated’, to carry on the struggle for the ‘rescue and liberation’ of their fellows.

Wars have historically been ‘prolonged struggle[s] between determined adversaries and will end with one or both sides’ exhaustion’.^[119] The army is often at the determining end of these contests, and, as a result, many stopgap weapons have been the product of the battlefield. The Australian Army, by acknowledging that ‘[s]eldom do we have everything we’d like or indeed need’, has stressed the importance of ‘resource stewardship’, treating deficiencies as opportunities for innovation and applying the principle to ‘do the very best you can, with what you have, wherever you are’.^[120] While ‘resource stewardship’ refers to sustainable management in peacetime to ensure readiness and operational effectiveness, stopgap weapons are a lesson in military stewardship on the battlefield. They are the practical embodiment of how to do much with little in times of urgent need, which, as we think, may become particularly relevant in the littoral geography of the Indo-Pacific. American soldiers discovered during the Pacific campaign that the terrain and a stubborn enemy demanded more than their issued weapons provided, leading to the creation of stopgap man-portable heavy assault weapons like the AN/M2 Stinger rifle to attack Japanese bunker systems.^[121] Indeed, ‘how to do much with little’ should be Australia’s watchwords. That same sentiment should also encourage the Defence Force to document stopgaps and other battlefield innovations in history as a form of catalogue for use when needed by battlefield commanders. As it watches another old ally possibly drawing away, Australia finds itself once more isolated and vulnerable in the event of war. Overcoming the tyranny of distance,^[122] in its geographic and figurative senses, will require the same national spirit of ingenuity and improvisation, the same resourcefulness that once defined the nation and its soldiers.

Technology

Stopgap weapons fill gaps in military capability through their imagination and purpose. As a means by which to meet an immediate battlefield need, they demonstrate the process of ‘adjustment from the war you planned for to the one you have’,^[123] In that, they bring into sharp relief deficiencies and opportunities in strategic, operational and tactical planning. War metes out harsh discipline for militaries.^[124] Combat provides, better than arguments, clear justification for jettisoning old ways of fighting and adopting new ones.^[125] Stopgap weapons are a conspicuous enforcement of this discipline. They are borne of the necessities of war, which is critical to their worth. In so being, they are a missing piece in how we conceptualise military acquisition and innovation in peacetime.

In the Australian defence innovation ecosystem there has been a strong emphasis on the importance of industry and job creation, which has, in many cases, impeded radical innovations.^[126] In part, this perhaps occurs because Australia has not been a battlefield, nor faced an existential threat for decades, and so capability development in defence bureaucracies has arguably become detached from a war-fighting mentality. Stopgap weapons may have a corrective role in that process, as they represent a means to conceptualise capability so that it is foremost a rapid, uncongested effort in meeting battlefield demands. Stopgap weapons are lifted from the ‘frictions’ of development and acquisition to represent the mindset of ‘minimum viable capability in the shortest possible time’.^[127] Historically, battlefield commanders usually approved the use of stopgap weapons, or else they went unauthorised except through their tolerance by commanders. This occurred in many of the case studies, notably the use of improvised vehicle armour in the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Where stopgap weapons required a higher level of resourcing, as in the case of the CAC Boomerang developed during the Second World War, bold production and manufacturing decisions enabled their realisation. The joint venture of three companies to form the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation allowed for rapid production of a stopgap aircraft, showing the importance of sovereign industrial capacity and collaboration as well as the value of a skilled workforce and supplies of critical equipment and materials.

Stopgap weapons depart from usual military acquisition processes, described in the Defence Strategic Review as the ‘pursuit of the perfect solution or process’,^[128] for whatever works and can be fielded rapidly. They are ‘brutally radical instead of starry-eyed and fantastical’.^[129] The periscope rifle used in trench warfare during World War I exemplified this gritty, brutally expedient character. Its simple design, efficacy and popularity resulted in its rapid production in makeshift manufacturing workshops on the battlefield and its use in other theatres. Usually, too, there is little need for stopgap weapons to neatly align with strategic priorities, because the rationale for their development is typically determined at the tactical level and in response to those immediate demands. In this sense there is also no ‘valley of death’ in the transition from one capability or technology to the next, as it is an unapologetic disposal in weapons, based on military utilitarian principles tempered by legal and moral considerations. Moreover, there is usually no great cost involved with stopgap weapons. As the case studies show, stopgap weapons tend to involve repurposing materials, including obsolete weapons.^[130] This makes a case for keeping old military equipment as a sort of stopgap inventory.

The stopgap weapons in the case studies do not merely reveal deficiencies in capability processes and planning. In several of the case studies, we can identify a distinctive innovation mode which corresponds with a complex adaptive system—that is, a system that ‘involves great numbers of parts undergoing a kaleidoscopic array of simultaneous interactions’ and that has the characteristics of ‘evolution, aggregate behaviour, and anticipation’.^[131] In the rival trenches of the Western Front, each side was motivated to keep creating novel devices to match or better those of their enemy, which drove groundbreaking battlefield innovation. A similar process is presently occurring in the trench warfare of the Russia–Ukraine War. The cycle of competing technological improvisation that often occurs between opposing forces, and which pushes groundbreaking battlefield innovation, is a reminder of the importance of incentivised rivalry in military innovation; indeed, in the important role of enemy agency in that process.^[132] In stopgap weapons and their development we have observed a truncated innovation timeline, where information is dispersed rather than drawn from a centralised directive and which draws on a complex system of influences from diverse sources in a process of adaptation, learning and self-organisation.

The innovation hubs, technology accelerators and ‘MakerSpaces’ which epitomise modern military innovation in Australia are in part an effort to artificially reproduce the tempo and cognitive demands of the battlefield and align technology development with the needs of the soldier.^[133] But, because these organisations are largely created during peacetime and physically removed from battlefield conditions, they risk becoming more responsive to stakeholder interests and the need to align with policy than to ‘the warfighter’s problem set’.^[134] Indeed, many of the stopgap weapons explored in the case studies used methods and materiel that would likely have no place in modern innovation hubs, where the primary interest is in the latest technologies and away from simply design and manufacture. Those wartime soldiers and others used modified vehicles and aircraft that were never designed for combat roles, adapted weaponry such that it better suited conditions, created bombs from the most commonplace of materials, repurposed stolen and scavenged munitions, and used technologies and innovations from civilian society to such effect that they changed the character of that war.

Intellect

Another important aspect of stopgap weapons is how they are institutionalised or intellectually situated by a military organisation. Here we briefly consider the doctrinal, leadership, command, legal and ethical frameworks from an Australian Defence Force perspective. Our focus, though, is on the imperatives for the battlefield commander. The most violent form of human activity, which is warfighting, is also the most chaotic of human endeavours.^[135] As Clausewitz observed, ‘Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult’.^[136] In similar sentiment, warfare has been described as ‘pervaded by great chance, uncertainty and friction, while inescapable emotions impact behaviour’.^[137] Success in warfighting, as Australian Defence Force doctrine observes, demands agility, adaptability, problem-solving, critical thinking, and resilience of the organisation and the person.^[138] This requires a soldier-scholar mindset to see through the chaos and emotion of war, indeed its destruction and violence, and to understand the basic problems and how they can be solved.^[139] That is why the Defence Force regards doctrine, and the outworkings in learning and training, as foundational to the ability to achieve its missions and taskings.^[140] And learning, as the Defence Force points out, is not simply about conditioning how a person thinks, acts and responds but also about how learning in its widest sense ‘denies our competitors intellectual seams to exploit’.^[141]

Defence Force doctrine points out that innovative and inquiring minds are better equipped to adapt to technological changes and rapid changes on the battlefield.^[142] No doubt that is why the Chief of Army regards ‘expertise’ as one of the three pillars of the Army profession.^[143] But what the doctrine seems to overlook is that innovation is not only a forward-looking process.^[144] By that we mean—and the case studies have shown—that some problems or situations have occurred so repeatedly that past solutions can sometimes be lifted and adapted into place as a stopgap measure. The field improvisation of armour for vehicles in the Second World War, and in the Vietnam and Iraq wars, is an example. Further, looking backwards to problems and solutions may shorten the critical-thinking and problem-solving processes, offering battlefield commanders especially the better means to exploit fleeting opportunities or to quickly defend against sudden weaknesses. The American MRAP vehicle program was an urgent response to the threat of improvised explosive devices in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.^[145] These vehicles, like the Australian Bushmaster vehicle, used a V-shaped hull to deflect the blast from the passenger cabin.^[146] This V-shaped hull was developed by the South Africans and Rhodesians in response to the landmine threats their troops faced during their 1960s and 1970s wars.^[147] And that design was based on improvised field engineering for Portuguese troops during the Angolan War.^[148] The study of stopgap weapons, then, like other forms of military history, can educate the commander and the soldier to reimagine their capabilities and resources in ways that out-think and defeat their adversaries. This underscores the Defence Force’s statement that it ‘considers the mind a weapon and learning a force multiplier’.^[149]

History has shown that the quality of military leadership has frequently determined victory or defeat on the battlefield.^[150] Doctrine thus recognises that leadership has a central role in creating military power, which it explains as constituted by moral, intellectual and materiel elements.^[151] The moral and intellectual elements should be understood as bound closely together as parts of the reasoning process. Ideally, military leadership is more than making decisions and giving orders. Leadership is best exercised within a theory and context of command—that is, a practical philosophy about how a commander will best use their forces and resources in given circumstances. This allows subordinate commanders to, as it were, share the mind of their commander. In recent years, the Defence Force has ‘mov[ed] away from the unitary concept of mission command towards the concept of command on a spectrum’.^[152] Nevertheless, the Defence Force retains a ‘bias’ towards mission command.^[153] This is important to maintain. Although stopgap weapons did not occur only under one form of leadership in the case studies, mission command is ideally suited to fostering and exploiting them. This is because mission command aims to promote initiative, ingenuity, innovation and resourcefulness while also devolving authority for action to lower levels of the chain of command.^[154] Ukraine’s tactical ingenuity, the inventiveness of its battlefield soldiers, can be credited in part to the application of its own form of mission command.^[155] A critical component of mission command is ‘disciplined initiative’, which is about empowering (and requiring) subordinate commanders to act as the situation dictates so long as the action conforms to their commander’s overall intent and objectives.^[156] In many ways, disciplined initiative creates the intellectual and philosophical space, as it does the command authority, for battlefield commanders to make and use stopgap weapons as necessity dictates.

However, Defence Force doctrine repeatedly emphasises that all military activity must occur within the context of the law, ethics and values.^[157] No exception is permitted.^[158] For the battlefield commander, this requires their compliance with the laws and customs of war. The laws (or rules) of war are extensive, regulating not only who can be targeted and when but also the means and methods that can be used in warfare.^[159] Among those rules are the ‘Article 36’ obligations,^[160] which involve the determination that a new weapon, means or method of warfare, which includes their material modification, complies with Australia’s international legal obligations prior to its first use in war.^[161] This rule attaches to the use of stopgap weapons. Like many countries, Australia has developed a sophisticated process to legally review weapons (and other means and methods of warfare) for their compliance with the laws of war.^[162] But that process reflects a peacetime situation, and likely a methodology better suited to analysing weapons whose characteristics have been established by design, testing and manufacture. The situation is different in war, where the same types of stopgap weapons may vary depending upon the available resources, local conditions and idiosyncrasies, and the need to constantly adapt to changing battlefield circumstances. There is urgency, too, as there might also be no means to provide an example for examination off the battlefield. The ability to adapt an ‘Article 36’ review process to stopgap weapons, to allow their rapid use, represents a practical and moral imperative for battlefield commanders.^[163]

Conclusion

In his 1964 essay ‘Australia and Southeast Asia’, Paul Hasluck observed that Australia lay outside world affairs until European settlement, but, by that act, ‘Modern Australia was linked to world power contests … and today we cannot read our national future except in the language of world politics’.^[164] It is ‘world politics’ that places Australia, as it did the Melians, between the two great powers of the time. In his 2024 speech at the Australian National University (ANU), the Chief of Army pointed to this situation as compelling urgency in the Army to better prepare to fight and win wars.^[165] He noted, however, that the Army has limited recent experience in large-scale combat operations, and particularly in littoral warfare. In his view, ‘In the absence of personal experience, context can only be found in history, and in the study of the classical theories of warfare’.^[166] He also said, ‘It is our body of knowledge that helps us meet one of the central challenges of the profession today’, which is ‘to balance war’s enduring human nature with its ever-changing character’.^[167] It is these ideas that framed our research on stopgap weapons with the aim of expanding the body of useful military knowledge for the Army, or at least to encourage its thinking in this direction.

We believe that some broad themes emerge from our observations. One is the importance of the stopgap weapon itself—that is, its features and necessity within war. As we saw in many of the historical case studies, stopgap weapons were often assembled using crude or repurposed materials and basic design, but those features reflected the precise and absolute demands of a battle. In using only what is available and essential to meet specific tactical or operational circumstances, stopgap weapons exemplify successful military expediency. Knowledge of the design, materials and contexts for stopgap weapons development throughout history will be valuable on future battlefields or as stimulus for new capabilities, particularly as they have already been tested in wartime conditions.

Another theme is that stopgap weapons represent an adaptive philosophy for a learning military organisation. We think two points come from this theme, and they are organisational and attitudinal in nature. The first, which is concerned with the technological dimensions of stopgap weapons, is that they may be characterised as a radical form of defence innovation lifted from usual capability development approaches. The second, which is concerned with the intellectual, legal, ethical and doctrinal dimensions of stopgap weapons, is that they represent the cultivation of a form of soldier–scholar culture in a military organisation. The Chief of Army highlighted the importance of the last point when he said ‘the Army certainly needs technologists and futurists. But we also need historians, philosophers, ethicists and strategists in equal measure’.^[168] Stopgap weapons research contributes in that way to our understanding of how a military organisation prepares for, and meets, the uncertainties and frictions of war. In that pursuit, our research highlights the importance of fostering a mindset that supports adaptation, but also of having a structural system for adaptation at the strategic level, in capability planning, in military doctrine and on the battlefield.

We said at the start of the article that war is the great crucible of need for humans. We can add from the case studies that war is the great clash of human creativity. But, as the Chief of Army pointed out in his speech at the ANU, the Russian invasion of Ukraine also ‘reminds us that war is indeed a battle for adaptation’.^[169] What that means for us, as we have sought to show through our case studies, is that stopgap weapons will continue to feature in future wars. The human urge to win, at least to survive, will frequently produce new weapons to gain or deny advantage on the battlefield. To this extent, stopgap weapons are a naturally occurring human phenomenon. But we think they occur more or less because of the knowledge, experience and motivation of the soldier, and from leadership that encourages, and sets the moral conditions for, the soldier to understand battlefield problems and to create weapons and other measures that can solve them. For us, that places importance in the study, training and preparation for stopgap weapons within broader efforts to foster ingenuity and improvisation in the Army. The region in which the Army might fight a war of national survival, the Indo-Pacific, is far different to that of the Second World War. But we believe this future war, however fought, will still require the character and resourcefulness which harken to that earlier age of Australian soldiering.

About the Authors

Dr Black and Mr Webster authored the article in their capacity as directors of Norfolk Advisory. They received some funding from the Australian Army Research Centre to assist with their research for the article. All assessments, opinions, and views expressed by the authors in the article are theirs alone.

Note: The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful feedback on the draft of this article. Any errors remain the authors’ alone.

Endnotes

^[1] Said by the character of Captain George Mainwaring, with interposition by the character of Private James Frazer, in Dad’s Army (‘The Man & the Hour’ episode, British Broadcasting Corporation, aired on 31 July 1968).

^[2] ‘Military Inventions That We Use Every Day’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (website), at: https://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/declassified_215371.htm?msg_pos=1. But invention goes both ways; see Mark Strauss, ‘Ten Inventions That Inadvertently Transformed Warfare’, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 September 2010, at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ten-inventions-that-inadvertently-transformed-warfare-62212258/.

^[3] Katie Nodjimbadem, ‘How World War I Influenced the Evolution of Modern Medicine’, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 April 2017, at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-world-war-i-impacted-modern-medicine-180962623/; Andrea Signor, ‘10 Advances in Medical Technology from the Global War on Terror’, Task & Purpose, 10 December 2010, at: https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/10-medical-advancements-from-the-iraq-and-afghanistan-wars/.

^[4] Department of Defence, National Defence: Defence Strategic Review (Commonwealth of Australia, 2023), p. 17, at: https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/defence-strategic-review.

^[5] Simon Stuart, ‘The Challenges to the Australian Army Profession’, address at the National Security College of the Australian National University, 25 November 2024, at: https://www.army.gov.au/news-and-events/speeches-and-transcripts/2024-11-25/challenges-australian-army-profession.

^[6] Jennet Cole-Adams and Judy Gauld, ‘Resource: Stories of Australian Innovation in Wartime’, Australian War Memorial (website), 2016, at: https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/resource-2016.pdf.

^[7] See, for example: James Jay Carafano, GI Ingenuity: Improvisation, Technology, and Winning World War II (Stackpole Books, 2007); Jon T Hoffman (ed.), A History of Innovation: US Army Adaptation in War and Peace (Department of the Army, 2010); Thomas G Mahnken, ‘Innovation in the Interwar Years’, SITC Research Briefs, Series 10, 2018-11 (2018); David Barno and Nora Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime—Bridging the Gap (Oxford University Press, 2020); WS Peter, ‘The Evolution of Improvised Devices (IEDs)’, Armed Forces Journal, 7 February 2012, at: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-evolution-of-improvised-explosive-devices-ieds/.

^[8] Nina Kollars, ‘Military Innovation’s Dialectic: Gun Trucks and Rapid Acquisition’, Security Studies 23, no. 4 (2014): 787–813.

^[9] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 89.

^[10] ‘Soldiers Must Rely on ‘Hillbilly Armor’ for Protection’, ABC News, 9 December 2004, at: https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=312959&page=1; Scott Shane, ‘Hillbilly Armor’, The New York Times, 26 December 2004, at: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/weekinreview/hillbilly-armor.html.

^[11] Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, ‘The Conflict in Iraq: Armor Scarce for Heavy Trucks Transporting U.S. Cargo in Iraq’, The New York Times, 10 December 2004, at: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/washington/the-conflict-in-iraq-materiel-armor-scarce-for-heavy-trucks.html; Alex Rogers, ‘The MRAP: Brilliant Buy, or Billions Wasted?’, Time, 2 October 2012, at: https://nation.time.com/2012/10/02/the-mrap-brilliant-buy-or-billions-wasted/; Walker Mills, ‘Stuck in the Sand: Why the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is Ill-Equipped for Tomorrow’s Battlefield’, Modern War Institute (website), 9 November 2020, at: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/stuck-in-the-sand-why-the-joint-light-tactical-vehicle-is-ill-equipped-for-tomorrows-battlefield/.

^[12] Mark Thompson, ‘How Safe Are Our Troops?’, Time, 17 December 2004, at: https://time.com/archive/6670618/how-safe-are-our-troops/; Jason Shell, ‘How the IED Won: Dispelling the Myth of Tactical Success and Innovation’, War on the Rocks, 1 May 2017, at: https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/how-the-ied-won-dispelling-the-myth-of-tactical-success-and-innovation/.

^[13] Congressional Research Service, ‘Trends in Active-Duty Military Deaths from 2006 through 2021’, In Focus, 9 September 2022, at: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF10899.

^[14] See, for example, David Kirichenko, ‘Ukraine’s Innovative Drone Industry Helps Counter Putin’s War Machine’, Atlantic Council (website), 26 June 2024, at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-innovative-drone-industry-helps-counter-putins-war-machine/; Peter Layton, ‘Chicken Wire, AI and Mobile Phones on Sticks: How the Drone War in Ukraine is Driving a Fierce Battle of Innovation’, The Conversation, 26 July 2024, at: https://theconversation.com/chicken-wire-ai-and-mobile-phones-on-sticks-how-the-drone-war-in-ukraine-is-driving-a-fierce-battle-of-innovation-235503; K Chávez and O Swed, ‘Emulating Underdogs: Tactical Drones in the Russia-Ukraine War’, Contemporary Security Policy 44, no. 4 (2023): 592–605; Seth G Jones, Riley McCabe and Alexander Palmer, ‘Ukraine’s Innovation Is a War of Attrition’, Center for Strategic and International Studies (website), 27 February 2023, at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/ukrainian-innovation-war-attrition; Boyko Nikolov, ‘Ukraine Placed a Soviet KS-19 Anti-Aircraft Gun on a MAN 8x8 Truck’, BulgarianMilitary.com, 12 February 2024, at: https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/02/12/ukraine-placed-a-soviet-ks-19-anti-aircraft-gun-on-a-man-8x8-truck/.

^[15] Kollars, ‘Military Innovation’s Dialectic’, p. 788.

^[16] See, for example, James Revill, Improvised Explosive Devices: The Paradigmatic Weapon of New Wars (Springer, 2016); Jairus Grove, ‘An Insurgency of Things: Foray into the World of Improvised Explosive Devices’, International Political Sociology 10, no. 4 (2016): 332–351; Alec D Barker, ‘Improvised Explosive Devices in Southern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan, 2002–2009’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34, no. 8 (2011): 600–620.

^[17] See, for example, Audrey Ruth Kronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation Is Arming Tomorrow's Terrorists (Oxford University Press, 2019).

^[18] Jim Armstrong, Clay McVay, Kris Saling, Rickey Royal, Chris Aliperti, Chris Flournoy, Arwen DeCostanza and Cody Clevenger, ‘Tactical Innovation’, Military Review, November 2024.

^[19] Kollars, ‘Military Innovation's Dialectic’, p. 788. Kollars uses the term ‘field modifications’ or simply ‘field mods’ to refer to gun trucks developed during the Iraq war.

^[20] See, for example, Revill, Improvised Explosive Devices; Marijn Hoijtink, ‘“Prototype Warfare”’: Innovation, Optimisation, and the Experimental Way of Warfare’, European Journal of International Security 7, no. 3 (2022): 322–336; Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire.

^[21] Mike L Kanarek, ‘Defensive Use of Improvised Weapons’, USAdogo.com, 3 March 2005, at: https://www.usadojo.com/defensive-use-of-improvised-weapons/. See also ‘The Art of Building Effective Makeshift Weapons’, Offgrid, 19 October 2015, at: https://www.offgridweb.com/survival/the-art-of-building-effective-makeshift-weapons/.

^[22] Angus Thompson, ‘Marles Commits to Local Jobs, Won’t Rule Out Ready-Made Submarine Stopgap’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 2022, at: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/marles-commits-to-local-jobs-won-t-rule-out-ready-made-submarine-stopgap-20220707-p5azya.html.

^[23] Maurice de Saxe, Reveries on the Art of War (Courier Corporation, 2012), p. 117.

^[24] Alfred Thayer Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration, or the Place of Force in the International Relations of States (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1907), p. 206.

^[25] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Samuel B Griffith (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 65.

^[26] Clausewitz, On War, p. 100.

^[27] Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War (Institute for Defense Analyses, 2009), 1-1, at: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA509781.pdf.

^[28] HG Wells, ‘Civilization at the Breaking Point’, New York Times, 27 May 1915, p. 2.

^[29] Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior, ‘Conflict, Technology, and the Impact of Industrialization: The Great War 1914–18’, Journal of Strategic Studies 24, no. 3 (2001): 129.

^[30] Murray, ‘Military Adaptation in War’, 3-3.

^[31] Jeffrey Allan Johnson, ‘Science, Technology, and Innovation’, in The Routledge History of the First World War (Routledge, 2025), pp. 574–575.

^[32] Murray, ‘Military Adaptation in War’, 1-1.

^[33] Ibid., 1-19.

^[34] Cole-Adams and Gauld, ‘Resource: Stories of Australian Innovation in Wartime’.

^[35] As quoted in Cole-Adams and Gauld, ‘Stories of Australian Innovation in Wartime’, p. 13.

^[36] Ned Young, ‘Evacuation of Gallipoli—105 Years’, Virtual War Memorial Australia, at: https://vwma.org.au/collections/home-page-stories/evacuation-of-gallipoli---105-years.

^[37] Ibid.; Cole-Adams and Gauld ‘Stories of Innovation in Wartime’, p. 16; CEW Bean, The Story of Anzac from 4 May 1915, to the Evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Vol. 2 (Australian War Memorial, 1941), pp. 883–884; ‘Australian Periscopic Rifle’, The Age, 12 August 1915, p. 8, at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155001161.

^[38] John Mark Mattox, ‘The Moral Status of Chemical Weapons: Arguments from World War I’, in Timothy S Mallard and Nathan H White (eds), A Persistent Fire: The Strategic Ethical Impact of World War I on the Global Profession of Arms (National Defense University Press, 2019), p. 189.

^[39] As quoted in Mattox, ‘The Moral Status of Chemical Weapons’, p. 188.

^[40] Winston Churchill, ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches’, speech, House of Commons, 4 June 1940, at: https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches/.

^[41] Peter Wall, ‘Saucepans, Sources and Bombers’, Geographical Imaginations, 7 September 2012, at: https://geographicalimaginations.com/2012/09/07/saucepans-sources-and-bombers/; Henry Irving, ‘Britain’s First Major Recycling Drive Fell Apart 80 Years Ago—It’s a Warning to UK Government Today’, The Conversation, 26 June 2020, at: https://theconversation.com/britains-first-major-recycling-drive-fell-apart-80-years-ago-its-a-warning-to-uk-government-today-141472.

^[42] ‘The Man & The Hour’, Dad’s Army.

^[43] Chris Bishop (ed.), The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II: A Comprehensive Guide to Weapons Systems, Including Tanks, Small Arms, Warplanes, Artillery, Ships, and Submarines (Amber Books, 2014), p. 226.

^[44] Gabriel Moshenska, The Archaeology of the Second World War: Uncovering Britain’s Wartime Heritage (Pen and Sword, 2013), pp. 20–21.

^[45] See Gerald Pawle, The Wheezers & Dodgers: The Inside Story of Clandestine Weapon Development in World War II (Pen and Sword, 2009). For Australia see, for example, Army Inventions Directorate, 1942–46, Fact Sheet 199 (National Archives of Australia), at: https://www.naa.gov.au/help-your-research/fact-sheets/army-inventions-directorate-1942-46.

^[46] Gerald Pawle, The Secret War 1939–45 (William Sloane Associates Inc, 1957), pp. 96–101.

^[47] Ibid., pp. 123–140.

^[48] Thomas Anderson, ‘Matilda Hedgehog’, The Online Tank Museum, 28 August 2023, at: https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/australia/matilda-hedgehog/; ‘Matilda Tank with Naval Hedgehog Mounted on Back of Tank. This Equipment Consisted of Six Spigots’, photograph, Australian War Memorial, Accession no. 133687, at: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/133687.

.

^[49] Pawle, The Secret War, pp. 221–228.

^[50] Carafano, GI Ingenuity, p. 125.

^[51] ‘Iwo’, Mission: History 3, no. 2 (2001): 10, at: https://web.archive.org/web/20151107050811/http://www.navalorder.org/02-Feb-01%20MistHist.PDF

^[52] Brian Weston, The Australian Aviation Industry: History and Achievements Guiding Defence and Aviation Industry Policy (Air Power Development Centre, 2003), p. 3, at: https://airpower.airforce.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-03/WP12-The-Australian-Aviation-Industry.pdf.

^[53] Ibid., p. 12; René J Francillon, The Commonwealth Boomerang, Aircraft in Profile No. 178 (Profile Publications, 1967), p. 5; Don Williams, The CAC Boomerang—Australia’s own WWII Fighter (Avonmore Books, 2024).

^[54] John Hancock Hay, Vietnam Studies: Tactical and Materiel Innovations (Department of the Army, 1989), p. 3.

^[55] Ibid., p. 6.

^[56] Ibid., pp. 149-150.

^[57] Richard E Killblane, Circle the Wagons: The History of US Army Convoy Security (Combat Studies Institute, 2005), p. 9.

^[58] See Gordon L Rottman, Vietnam War Booby Traps (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020), p. 6.

^[59] Ibid., p. 6; Isobel van Hagen, ‘Ukraine is Forced to Recycle Unexploded Bombs Amid Serious Ammunition Shortages’, Business Insider, 9 April 2023, at: https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-recycles-unexploded-bombs-amid-serious-ammunition-shortages-2023-4; Joseph Trevithick, ‘Ukrainians Are Cutting Open U.S. Cluster Shells to Make Drone Munitions’, The War Zone, 24 August 2023, at: https://www.twz.com/ukrainians-are-cutting-open-u-s-cluster-shells-to-make-drone-munitions; Ian Lovett, ‘Ukraine’s “Mad Max” Trawls Swamps and Minefields for Shells’, The Wall Street Journal, 6 April 2024, at: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-mad-max-shells-minefields-6f3b1243?mod=djem10point; Audrey MacAlpine, ‘Ukraine’s Bomb Factory, As Told by the Man Behind It All’, United 24 Media, 6 January 2025, at: https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/inside-a-ukrainian-bomb-factory-as-told-by-the-man-behind-it-all-4895.

^[60] Rottman, Vietnam War Booby Traps, pp. 30–32; Ian Jones, Malice Aforethought: A History of Booby Traps From the First World War to Vietnam (Frontline Books, 2016).

^[61] Rottman, Vietnam War Booby Traps, p. 6.

^[62] Ibid., p. 6.

^[63] Hay, Vietnam Studies, p. 179.

^[64] Ibid., p. 179.

^[65] For a comprehensive record of gun truck development during the Vietnam War, see Killblane, Circle the Wagons.

^[66] Nina A Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam’, Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 4 (2015): 530.

^[67] Richard C Knott, ‘Fire from the Sky: Seawolf Gunships in the Mekong Delta’ (Naval Institute Press, 2016), p. 63.

^[68] ‘AC-130U’, National Museum of the United States Air Force (website), March 2021, at: https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104486/ac-130u/; ‘Douglas AC-47D’, National Museum of the United States Air Force (website), 23 October 2009, at: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/195865/gunship-i-spooky/; ‘Lockheed AC-130A’, National Museum of the United States Air Force (website), 8 January 2009, at: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196341/lockheed-ac-130a-spectre/.

^[69] Osama bin Laden justified the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in America in part based on the Persian Gulf War and the sanctions on the Iraqi people that followed it: ‘Full Transcript of bin Ladin’s Speech’, Al Jazeera, 1 November 2004, at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/11/1/full-transcript-of-bin-ladins-speech.

^[70] Carlo Kopp, ‘GBU-28 Bunker Buster’, Technical Report No. APA-TR-2005-0501, Air Power Australia (website), 2005, at: https://www.ausairpower.net/GBU-28.html.

^[71] Ibid.

^[72] Ibid.

^[73] Majie McIntyre, ‘“Bunker Buster” Dropped on Taliban Troops’, CNN Online, 11 October 2001, at: https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/10/10/ret.bunker.buster/index.html; Keith Wagstaff, ‘Why the Pentagon Is Beefing up Its “Bunker Buster” Bombs’, The Week, 9 January 2015, at: https://theweek.com/articles/464752/why-pentagon-beefing-bunker-buster-bombs.

^[74] Congressional Research Service, ‘Trends in Active-Duty Military Deaths from 2006 through 2021’.

^[75] General David Petraeus, ‘Opening Statement at the U.S. Senate ISAF Confirmation Hearing, delivered 29 June 2010’, American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank, at: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/davidpetraeusisafconfirmation.htm.

^[76] Jerry M Sollinger, Gail Fisher and Karen N Metscher, ‘The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—An Overview’, Invisible Wounds of War 19 (2008): 26.

^[77] Steven A Dietz, ‘Countering the Effects of IED Systems in Afghanistan: An Integral Approach’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 22, no. 02 (2011): 385.

^[78] Sollinger, Fisher, and Metscher, ‘The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq’, p. 26; Rob Evans, ‘Afghanistan War Logs: How the IED Became Taliban’s Weapon of Choice’, The Guardian, 26 July 2010, at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/ieds-improvised-explosive-device-deaths; Rick Atkinson, ‘The IED Problem Is Getting Out of Control. We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding’, The Washington Post, 29 September 2007, at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2007/09/30/the-ied-problem-is-getting-out-of-control-weve-got-to-stop-the-bleeding/b5333318-5622-4688-8b52-6f1c4757fd9d/.

^[79] Grove, ‘An Insurgency of Things’, p. 2.

^[80] Clay Wilson, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2007), p. 2.

^[81] As quoted in Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon’, p. 545. See also James E Lewandowski, Road Hunter in the Land Between the Rivers: Disillusioned Hearts and Minds (Prairie Hills Publishing, 2007); Michelle Zaremba and Christina Sima, Wheels on Fire: My Year of Driving (and Surviving) in Iraq (Hellgate Press, 2008).

^[82] Rick Atkinson, ‘New Type of Bomb Is Unexpectedly Lethal in Iraq’, NBC News, 2 October 2007, at: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21091678; Christina Lamb, ‘Robots and Bees to Beat the Taliban’, The Times, 21 February 2010, at: https://www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-100-tech/hardware-profile/article/robots-and-bees-to-beat-the-taliban-7ppnlfcphfn.

^[83] Kareem Fahim, ‘Lethal Roadside Bomb That Killed Scores of U.S. Troops Reappears in Iraq’, The Washington Post, 12 October 2007, at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lethal-roadside-bomb-that-killed-scores-of-us-troops-reappears-in-iraq/2017/10/11/87c5a57c-aeb7-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html.

^[84] Wilson, ‘Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan’, p. 2.

^[85] David Axe, ‘Countering Baghdad’s “Lob Bombs”’, Wired, 28 August 2008, at: https://www.wired.com/2008/08/countering-bagh/; ‘“Lob Bomb” Is Newest Peril in Iraq Warfare’, Los Angeles Daily News, 29 August 2017, at: https://www.dailynews.com/2008/07/12/lob-bomb-is-newest-peril-in-iraq-warfare/; Bill Roggio, ‘Mahadi Army Uses “Flying IEDs” in Baghdad’, Long War Journal, 5 June 2008, at: https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/06/mahdi_army_uses_flyi.php; Ernesto Londono, ‘U.S. Troops in Iraq Face a Powerful New Weapon’, NBC News, 10 July 2008, at: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25616572.

^[86] Ash Rossiter, ‘Drone Usage by Militant Groups: Exploring Variation in Adoption’, Defense & Security Analysis 34, no. 2 (2018): 116; TX Hammes, ‘The Democratization of Airpower: The Insurgent and the Drone’, War on the Rocks, 18 October 2016, at: https://warontherocks.com/2016/10/the-democratization-of-airpower-the-insurgent-and-the-drone/.

^[87] See Roberto J González, ‘“Human Terrain” Past, Present and Future Applications’, Anthropology Today 24, no. 1 (2008): 21–26.

^[88] Christopher J Sims, The Human Terrain System: Operationally Relevant Social Science Research in Iraq and Afghanistan (Strategic Studies Institute and US Army War College Press, 2015), p. 5.

^[89] Wayne Pak, ‘Ukraine’s Rapid Innovation Cycle Is Changing the Future of War’, The Cipher Brief, 14 April 2024, at: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/ukraines-rapid-innovation-cycle-is-changing-the-future-of-war;  Jones, McCabe and Palmer, ‘Ukraine’s Innovation Is a War of Attrition’.

^[90] Julia Muravska, ‘Getting Serious About Building Ukraine’s Air Defence Capabilities’, Paper No. 25 (Freeman Air & Space Institute, 2024), at: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/warstudies/assets/paper-25-julia-muravska-ukraineairdefence-.pdf; cf. Amos C Fox, ‘The Russia-Ukraine War: It Takes a Land Force to Defeat a Land Force’, Military Review, March 2025, at: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/Online-Exclusive/2025/Russia-Ukraine-War/Russia-Ukraine-War-UA.pdf.

^[91] Volodymr Zelenskyy (@ZelenskyyUa), ‘We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities’, Twitter (now X), 24 February 2022, at: https://x.com/zelenskyyua/status/1496785547594924032; David Wallace and Shane Reeves, ‘Levée en Masse in Ukraine: Applications, Implications and Open Questions’, Articles of War, 11 March 2022, at: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/levee-en-masse-ukraine-applications-implications-open-questions/; Emily Crawford, ‘Armed Ukrainian Citizens: Direct Participation in Hostilities, Levée en Masse, or Something Else?’, EJIL: Talk!, 1 March 2022, at: https://www.ejiltalk.org/armed-ukrainian-citizens-direct-participation-in-hostilities-levee-en-masse-or-something-else/; Ronald Alcala and Steve Saymanski, ‘Legal Status of Ukraine’s Resistance Forces’, Articles of War, 28 February 2022, at: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/legal-status-ukraines-resistance-forces/; ‘Making Molotov Cocktails, Ukrainian Civilians Prepare to Defend Homes’, Radio Free Europe, 26 February 2022, at: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-molotov-cocktail-russia/31725286.html

; John Spencer and Liam Collins, ‘Waterworld: How Ukraine Flooded Three Rivers to Help Save Kyiv’, Modern War Institute (website), 7 January 2022, at: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/waterworld-how-ukraine-flooded-three-rivers-to-help-save-kyiv/.

^[92] Oleksandra Bodnyk, ‘War and Work: How Ukrainians Are Using Artificial Intelligence in the War with Russia’, Zaxid.Net, 4October 2022, at: https://zaxid.net/viyna_z_rosiyeyu_yak_ukrayintsi_vikoristovuyut_shtuchniy_intelekt_n1549819; Oleksiy Melnyk and Olha Husieva, ‘Ukraine’s Defense Against Russia’s War of Aggression in 2022’, in Stefan Hansen, Olha Husieva and Kira Frankenthal (eds) Russia’s War of Aggression Against Ukraine (‘Zeitenwende’ for German Security Policy, 2023), p. 203; Drew Harwell, ‘Instead of Consumer Software, Ukraine’s Tech Workers Build Apps for War’, The Washington Post, 4 March 2022, at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/24/ukraine-war-apps-russian-invasion/; ; Zachary Kallenborn and Marcel Plichta, ‘Drone, Counterdrone, Counter-Counterdrone: Winning the Unmanned Platform Innovation Cycle’, Modern War Institute (website), 23 September 2024, at: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/drone-counterdrone-counter-counterdrone-winning-the-unmanned-platform-innovation-cycle/; ‘Ukraine Unveiled Its Own Delta Situational Awareness System’, Militarnyi, 27 October 2022, at: https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-unveiled-its-own-delta-situational-awareness-system/#google_vignette; Yaroslav Druziuk, ‘A Citizen-like Chatbot Allows Ukrainians to Report to the Government When They Spot Russian Troops—Here’s How It Works’, Business Insider, 19 April 2022, at: https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-military-e-enemy-telegram-app-2022-4; Kateryna Bondar, ‘How Ukraine Rebuilt Its Military Acquisition System Around Commercial Technology’, Centre for Strategy and International Studies (website), 13 January 2025, at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-ukraine-rebuilt-its-military-acquisition-system-around-commercial-technology; Max Hunder, ‘Ukraine Rushes to Create AI-Enabled War Drones’, Reuters, 18 July 2024, at: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ukraine-rushes-create-ai-enabled-war-drones-2024-07-18/; Joyce Hakmeh, ‘What Ukraine Can Teach Europe and the World About Innovation in Modern Warfare’, Chatham House (website), 5 March 2025, at: https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/03/what-ukraine-can-teach-europe-and-world-about-innovation-modern-warfare; Howard Altman, ‘Unmanned Ground Vehicles Controlled Via Fiber Optic Cables Being Tested by Ukraine’, The War Zone, 4 April 2025, at: https://www.twz.com/land/unmanned-ground-vehicles-controlled-via-fiber-optic-cables-being-tested-by-ukraine.

^[93] See, for example, Matthias Klaus, ‘Transcending Weapon Systems: The Ethical Challenges of AI in Military Decision Support Systems’, International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (website), 24 September 2024, at: https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2024/09/24/transcending-weapon-systems-the-ethical-challenges-of-ai-in-military-decision-support-systems/; Alexander Blanchard, ‘The Road Less Travelled: Ethics in the International Regulatory Debate on Autonomous Weapons Systems’, International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (website), 25 April 2024, at: https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2024/04/25/the-road-less-travelled-ethics-in-the-international-regulatory-debate-on-autonomous-weapon-systems/; Hartwig von Schubert, ‘Addressing Ethical Questions of Modern AI Warfare’, International Politics and Security, 21 March 2023, at: https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/foreign-and-security-policy/addressing-ethical-questions-of-modern-ai-warfare-6587/; Kristian Humble, ‘War, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Conflict’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 12 July 2024, at: https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2024/07/12/war-artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-conflict/; Arthur Holland Michel, ‘Inside the Messy Ethics of Making War with Machines’, MIT Technology Review, 16 August 2023, at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/16/1077386/war-machines/; Aaron Wright, ‘War Machines: Can AI for War be Ethical?’, The Cove, 4 December 2020, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/war-machines-can-ai-war-be-ethical; Martin Lark, ‘The Future of Killing: Ethical and Legal Implications of Fully Autonomous Weapons Systems’, Salus Journal 5, no. 1 (2017): 62–73, at: https://journals.csu.domains/index.php/salusjournal/article/view/72; Jack Mackay Stanhope, ‘Opposing Inherent Immorality in Autonomous Weapons Systems’, The Forge, 6 April 2021, at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/opposing-inherent-immorality-autonomous-weapons-systems; Rowena Rodrigues, ‘Legal and Human Rights Issues of AI: Gaps, Challenges and Vulnerabilities’, Journal of Responsible Technology 4, no. 1 (2020), at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrt.2020.100005; Ray Reeves, ‘The Ethical Upside to Artificial Intelligence’, War on the Rocks, 20 January 2020, at: https://warontherocks.com/2020/01/the-ethical-upside-to-artificial-intelligence/; Thomas X Hammes, ‘Autonomous Weapons Are the Moral Choice’, Atlantic Council (website), 2 November 2023, at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/autonomous-weapons-are-the-moral-choice/; Kenneth Anderson and Matthew Waxman, Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapons Systems: Why a Ban Won’t Work and How the Laws of War Can (Hoover Institute, 2013), at: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Anderson-Waxman_LawAndEthics_r2_FINAL.pdf; Mary Ellen O’Connell, ‘Banning Autonomous Weapons: A Legal and Ethical Mandate’, Ethics & International Affairs 37, no. 3 (2023): 287–298, at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679423000357; Paul Lushenko and Keith L Carter, ‘US Drone Warfare Faces Questions of Legitimacy, Study of Military Chaplains Shows’, The Conversation, 8 May 2024, at: https://theconversation.com/us-drone-warfare-faces-questions-of-legitimacy-study-of-military-chaplains-shows-226602; Anna Mulrine Grobe and Laurent Belsie, ‘Why Military “Drone Swarms” Raise Ethical Concerns in Future Wars, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 August 2024, at: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2024/0826/pentagon-drone-swarms-ai-ethics-china-russia; Michael J Boyle, ‘The Legal and Ethical Implications of Drone Warfare’, The International Journal of Human Rights 19, no. 2 (2015): 105–126, at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2014.991210.

^[94] Illia Kabachynskyi, ‘How the Ukrainian Army Turned an 80-Year-Old Anti-Aircraft Gun into a Self-Propelled Artillery Unit’, United 24 Media, 24 July 2024, at: https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/how-the-ukrainian-army-turned-an-80-year-old-anti-aircraft-gun-into-a-self-propelled-artillery-unit-1385; Nicholas Slayton, ‘Ukraine Is Now Fielding 1940s Era Anti-Aircraft Guns as Artillery’, Task & Purpose, 2 April 2023, at: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/ukraine-1940s-ks-19-anti-aircraft-gun/; ‘Anti-Aircraft Guns are Taking on a New Mission Amid Russia’s War in Ukraine’, Business Insider, 24 November 2022, at: https://www.businessinsider.com/old-anti-aircraft-guns-used-against-missiles-drones-in-ukraine-2022-11.

^[95] Howard Altman, ‘Ukraine Using Land Attack Variant of Neptune Anti-Ship Missile’, The War Zone, 29 August 2023, at: https://www.twz.com/ukraine-now-using-land-attack-neptune-anti-ship-missile-variant.

^[96] Abdujalil Abdurasulov, ‘Ukraine War: The Sea Drones Keeping Russia’s Warships at Bay’, BBC Online, 12 March 2024, at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68528761; Daniel Boffey, ‘Ukraine Says It Has Put Russian Warship Out of Action in Sea Drone Attack’, The Guardian, 5 August 2023, at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/04/ukraine-says-it-has-put-russian-warship-out-of-action-in-sea-drone-attack; David Kirichenko, ‘Ukraine’s Marauding Sea Drones Bewilder Russia’, Center for European Policy Analysis (website), 30 January 2025, at: https://cepa.org/article/ukraines-marauding-sea-drones-bewilder-russia/.

^[97] ‘What Are “Dragon Drones”, Ukraine’s Latest Weapon Against Russia?’, Al Jazeera, 9 September 2024, at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/9/what-are-dragon-drones-ukraines-latest-weapon-against-russia; Kevin S Coble and Alexander Hernandez, ‘Dragon Drones and the Law of Armed Conflict’, Articles of War, 23 October 2024, at: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/dragon-drones-law-armed-conflict/; Dmytro Kaniewski, ‘How Deadly Is Ukraine’s New “Dragon Drone”’?’, Deutsche Welle, 20 September 2024, at: https://www.dw.com/en/how-deadly-is-ukraines-new-dragon-drone/a-70287164; Rebecca Rommen, ‘Video Shows Ukrainian “Dragon Drone” Appearing to Destroy a Russian Tank with “Molten Thermite”’, Business Insider, 6 October 2024, at: https://www.businessinsider.com/video-ukrainian-dragon-drone-appears-destroy-russian-tank-2024-10.

^[98] Linus Holler, ‘Ukraine Claims to Have Fielded a Drone-Killing Laser Weapon’, Defense News, 20 March 2025, at: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/03/19/ukraine-claims-to-have-fielded-a-drone-killing-laser-weapon/.

^[99] Kateryna Kuzmuk and Lorenzo Scarazzato, ‘The Transformation of Ukraine’s Arms Industry Amid War with Russia’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (website), 21 February 2025, at: https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2025/transformation-ukraines-arms-industry-amid-war-russia; Bondar, ‘How Ukraine Rebuilt Its Military Acquisition System Around Commercial Technology’.

^[100] Thomas Newdick, ‘Russia Is Using Tires to Protect Its Bombers from Aerial Attack’, The War Zone, 4 September 2023, at: https://www.twz.com/russia-really-is-using-tires-to-protect-its-bombers…; Joseph Trevithick, ‘Russia Covering Aircraft with Tires Is About Confusing Image-Matching Missile Seekers U.S. Military Confirms’, The War Zone, 13 September 2024, at: https://www.twz.com/air/russia-covering-its-aircraft-in-tires-is-about-befuddling-image-matching-seekers-u-s-military-confirms.

^[101] Thomas Newdick, ‘Russian T-80 Tank with Improvised Anti-Drone Armor Reportedly Appears in Crimea’, The War Zone, 24 November 2021, at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220224022448/https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43273/russian-t-80-tank-with-improvised-anti-drone-armor-reportedly-appears-in-crimea; Dan Parsons, ‘Ancient Russian T-62 Tanks Spotted Wearing Cage Armor in Ukraine’, The War Zone, 6 June 2022, at: https://www.twz.com/ancient-russian-t-62-tanks-spotted-wearing-cage-armor-in-ukraine; Stetson Payne, ‘Russian Tank with “Cope Cage” Covered in Explosive Reactive Armor Emerges’, The War Zone, 6 May 2022, at: https://www.twz.com/russian-tank-debuts-cope-cage-covered-in-explosive-reactive-armor; Brad Dress, ‘US Tanks Weren’t Ready for Russian Attacks. Ukraine Has a Fix’, The Hill, 9 December 2024, at: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4875010-ukraine-improves-abrams-tank/; Julien Potin, Understanding Cope Cages: From Origin to Standardisation (Finabel—The European Army Interoperability Centre, 2024), at: https://finabel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IF-PDF-Julien-Potin-.pdf.

^[102] Marc Santora, Lara Jakes, Andrew E Kramer, Marco Hernandez and Liubov Sholudko, ‘A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine’, The New York Times, 3 March 2025, at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/03/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-drones-deaths.html.

^[103] David Axe, ‘Russia’s Latest Fiber Optic Drones Peek Inside Barns for Ukrainian Artillery’, Forbes, 10 March 2025, at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/10/a-russian-fiber-optic-drone-slipped-into-a-camouflaged-dugout-and-discovered-a-valuable-ukrainian-howitzer/; Christian Segura and Lola Hierro, ‘Russia Revolutionises Warfare with Fiber-Optic Controlled Drones’, El Pais, 5 April 2025, at: https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-05/russia-revolutionizes-warfare-with-fiber-optic-controlled-drones.html.

^[104] David Hambling, ‘Russian Fiber Optic Drones Beats Any Jammer’, Forbes, 8 March 2025, at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/08/russian-fiber-optic-drone-can-beat-any-jammer/; Howard Altman, ‘Ukraine Discloses New Method to Defeat Russian Fiber-Optic Controlled Drones’, The War Zone, 29 January 2025, at: https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-discloses-new-method-to-defeat-russian-fiber-optic-controlled-fpv-drones; Jake Epstein and Matthew Loh, ‘Inside Ukraine’s Race to Crank Out Unjammable Fiber-Optic Drones that Can Break Through Russia’s Electronic Warfare’, Business Insider, 7 February 2025, at: https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-unjammable-fiber-optic-drone-keep-pace-russia-2025-1; ‘Ukrainians Made an FPV with Fiber-Optic Cord Stretching for 41 Km’, Defence Express, 26 January 2025, at: https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/ukrainians_made_an_fpv_with_fiber_optic_cord_stretching_for_41_km-13327.html.

^[105] Christian Segura and Lola Hierro, ‘Russia Revolutionises Warfare with Fiber-Optic Controlled Drones’; Stephen Bryen, ‘Scattershot Shotguns a Good Way to Kill Precision Drones’, Asia Times, 5 April 2025, at: https://asiatimes.com/2025/04/scattershot-shotguns-a-good-way-to-kill-precision-drones/.

^[106] ‘What are the Russian “Turtle Tanks” Seen in Ukraine?’, The Economist, 15 May 2024, at: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2024/05/15/what-are-the-russian-turtle-tanks-seen-in-ukraine; Brandon J Weichert, ‘Russia’s Turtle Tank Is the Stuff of Nightmares’, The National Interest, 7 January 2025, at: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-turtle-tank-stuff-nightmares-214281; Julien Potin, Understanding Cope Cages.

^[107] Howard Altman, ‘Russians Erect Mesh Net “Tunnel” Over a Mile Long to Counter Ukrainian FPV Drones’, The War Zone, 10 February 2025, at: https://www.twz.com/news-features/russians-erect-mesh-net-tunnel-over-a-mile-long-to-counter-ukrainian-fpv-drones; David Hambling, ‘Ukrainian Drone Pilots Unimpressed by Russia’s Anti-FPV Tunnel’, Forbes, 17 February 2025, at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2025/02/17/ukrainian-drone-pilots-unimpressed-by-russias-anti-fpv-tunnel/.

^[108] David Axe, ‘A Ukrainian Soldier Has 10 Seconds to Escape a Thermite-Spewing Russian Dragon Drone’, Forbes, 26 September 2024, at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/09/26/a-ukrainian-soldier-has-10-seconds-to-escape-a-thermite-spewing-russian-dragon-drone/; David Axe, ‘5,000 Degrees Fahrenheit Is Really Hot: Ukraine’s Dragon Drones Are Now Burning Russian Tanks’, Forbes, 3 October 2024, at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/10/03/ukraines-dragon-drones-are-burning-russian-tanks-now/; Marc Santora, ‘Rise of the Dragons: Fire-Breathing Drones Duel in Ukraine’, The New York Times, 12 October 2024, at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/world/europe/ukraine-russia-dragon-drones.html.

^[109] Howard Altman, ‘Russians Erect Mesh Net “Tunnel” Over a Mile Long to Counter Ukrainian FPV Drones’.

^[110] Department of Defence, National Defence: Defence Strategic Review, p. 5; Department of Defence, National Defence Strategy (Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), p. 11.

^[111] Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 5 Chapter 17, translated by Richard Crawley (JM Dent & Sons, 1914).

^[112] Department of Defence, National Defence Strategy, p. 22.

^[113] Department of Defence, National Defence: Defence Strategic Review, p. 58.

^[114] John Nash, ‘Land Power in the Littoral: An Australian Army Perspective’, Journal of Advanced Military Studies 15, no. 2 (2024): 42.

^[115] Simon Stuart, ‘Strengthening the Australian Army Profession’, address at the Lowy Institute, 3 April 2025, at: https://www.army.gov.au/news-and-events/speeches-and-transcripts/2025-04-03/strengthening-australian-army-profession.

^[116] Australian Army, The Australian Army Contribution to The National Defence Strategy (Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), p. 4.

^[117] Stuart, ‘The Challenges to the Australian Army Profession’.

^[118] Australian Army, The Australian Army Contribution to The National Defence Strategy, p. 9.

^[119] Albert Palazzo, Forging Australian Land Power: A Primer, Army Research Paper (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015), p. 29.

^[120] Australian Army, The Australian Army Contribution to The National Defence Strategy, p. 2.

^[121] ‘Iwo’, Mission: History 3, p. 10, at: https://web.archive.org/web/20151107050811/http://www.navalorder.org/02-Feb-01%20MistHist.PDF.

^[122] Geoffrey Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History (Sun Books, 1966), pp. 1–5.

^[123] Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam’, p. 529.

^[124] Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 33, no. 4 (2010): 567.

^[125] Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 109.

^[126] See Phil Budden and Fiona Murray, Defense Innovation Report: Applying MIT’s Innovation Ecosystem & Stakeholder Approach to Innovation in Defense on a Country-by-Country Basis (Cambridge MA: MIT Lab for Innovation Science and Policy, 2019), p. 37, at: https://innovation.mit.edu/assets/Defense-Innovation-Report.pdf. See also Jennifer Jackett, Defence Innovation and the Australian National Interest, Black Swan Strategy Paper No. 9 (UWA Defence and Security Institute, 2023), at: https://defenceuwa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Black-Swan-Strategy-Paper-9_-Defence-Innovation-and-the-Australian-National-Interest_Jennifer-Jackett.pdf.

^[127] Department of Defence, National Defence: Defence Strategic Review, p. 20.

^[128] Ibid., p. 20.

^[129] Kollars, ‘Military Innovation’s Dialectic’, p. 787.

^[130] See, for example, how Russia is refurbishing its own tank stock: David Hambling, ‘Can Russia Beat Ukraine by Resurrecting a Zombie Army from its Tank Boneyards?’, Popular Mechanics, 14 July 2023, at: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a44536878/rebuilding-russian-tanks/.

^[131] John Holland, ‘Complex Adaptive Systems’, Daedalus 121, no. 1 (1992): 19.

^[132] Murray, ‘Military Adaptation in War’, 1-1.

^[133] Department of Defence, National Defence Strategy, 63-64; Lyndal-Joy Thompson and Warwick Miller, ‘Enhancing Army’s Intellectual Capacity through MakerSpaces’, Land Power Forum, 19 September 2019.

^[134] Richard Williamson, ‘Are We Failing the Government’s $1.37 Billion Defence Innovation Strategy?’, Australian Army Journal 16, no. 2 (2020): 63.

^[135] Brian Cole, ‘Clausewitz’s Wondrous Yet Paradoxical Trinity: The Nature of War as a Complex Adaptive System’, Joint Force Quarterly 96, no. 1 (2020): 43, at: https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2076059/clausewitzs-wondrous-yet-paradoxical-trinity-the-nature-of-war-as-a-complex-ada/. A similar sentiment is expressed in Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—7 Learning, Ed. 3 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2021), p. 1, at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/learning/adf-philosophical-doctrine-learning.

^[136] Clausewitz, On War, p. 119. See also Christopher Mewett, ‘Understanding War’s Enduring Nature Alongside Its Changing Character’, War on the Rocks, 21 January 2024, at: https://warontherocks.com/2014/01/understanding-wars-enduring-nature-alongside-its-changing-character/.

^[137] Thomas Waldman, War, Clausewitz, and the Trinity (Ashgate Publishing, 2013), p. 174.

^[138] Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—7 Learning.

^[139] On the soldier-scholar see James Joyner, ‘Soldier-Scholar (Pick One): Anti-Intellectualism in the American Military’, War on the Rocks, 25 August 2020, at: https://warontherocks.com/2020/08/soldier-scholar-pick-one-anti-intellectualism-in-the-american-military/; TM Pearce, ‘The Ideal of the Soldier-Scholar in the Renaissance’, Western Humanities Review 7, no. 1 (1952): 43.

^[140] See, for example, Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—7 Learning.

^[141] Ibid., p. 3.

^[142] Ibid., p. 2. See also Codey Anderson, ‘Adapting to the Acceleration of Technology in Warfare: A Strategic Imperative for the Australian Army’, The Cove, 3 March 2025, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/adapting-acceleration-technology-warfare-strategic-imperative-australian-army; Marlon Schroeder, ‘Adapt or Die—How Does the Army Need to Adapt to the Changing Character of War?’, The Cove, 28 February 2025, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/adapt-or-die-how-does-army-need-adapt-changing-character-war; Mick Ryan, ‘Winning Modern Wars Through Adaptation’, Futura Doctrina, 31 October 2024, at: https://mickryan.substack.com/p/winning-modern-wars-through-adaptation; Joanna van der Merwe, ‘Military Education for the Age of Hybrid Warfare’, Center for European Policy Analysis (website), 31 July 2021, at: https://cepa.org/article/military-education-for-the-age-of-hybrid-warfare/; Nathan W Toronto, ‘Military Learning and Evolutions in Warfare in the Modern Era’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 25 March 2021, at: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1880; Ian Brown, ‘Winning in the Cognitive Age: Is ’Education for Seapower’ Enough?’, War on the Rocks, 4 March (2019, at: https://warontherocks.com/2019/03/winning-in-the-cognitive-age-is-education-for-seapower-enough/.

^[143] Stuart, ‘Strengthening the Australian Army Profession’.

^[144] See, for example, Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—7 Learning.

^[145] Ethan Hoaldridge, ‘Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles Counter IEDs, Ambushes’, Marines News, 24 June 2005, at: https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/530130/mine-resistant-ambush-protected-vehicles-counter-ieds-ambushes/; Seth T Blakeman, ‘Study of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) Vehicle Program as a Model for Rapid Defense Acquisition’, MBA dissertation (U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, 2008), p. 1, at: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA493891.pdf.

^[146] Blakeman, ‘Study of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) Vehicle Program as a Model for Rapid Defense Acquisition’, p. 6; Brendan Nicholson, The Bushmaster: From Concept to Combat (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2019), p. 5, at: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2019-12/The%20Bushmaster_from%20concept%20to%20combat.pdf?VersionId=QDYuS1qI3O4nSPaZ7NBfrSlK6gLVpyz1; Ming Cong, Yun-bo Zhou, Ming Zhang, Xiao-wang Sun, Cheng Chen and Cheng Ji, ‘Design and Optimization of Multi-V Hulls of Light Armoured Vehicles Under Blast Loads’, Thin-Walled Structures 168, no.1 (2021): 2–3, at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2021.108311; Arul Ramasamy, Adam M Hill, Spyridon D Masouros, Fabiana Gordon, Jon C Clasper and Anthony MJ Bull, ‘Evaluating the Effect of Vehicle Modification in Reducing Injuries from Landmine Blasts. An Analysis of 2212 Incidents and Its Application for Humanitarian Purposes’, at: Accident Analysis & Prevention 43, no. 5 (2011): 1881, at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2011.04.030.

^[147] Nicholson, The Bushmaster: From Concept to Combat, pp. 19–20; Craig Lester, Protection of Light Skinned Vehicles Against Landmines—A Review (Commonwealth of Australia, 1996), pp. 12–19, at: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA329952.pdf; Blakeman, ‘Study of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) Vehicle Program as a Model for Rapid Defense Acquisition’, p. 6.

^[148] Nicholson, The Bushmaster: From Concept to Combat, p. 20.

^[149] Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—7 Learning, p. 2. See also Geoffrey Sloan, ‘Military Doctrine, Command Philosophy and the Generation of Fighting Power: Genesis and Theory’, International Affairs 88, no. 2 (2012): 243–263, at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01069.x.

^[150] Dan Reiter and William A Wagstaff, ‘Leadership and Military Effectiveness’, Foreign Policy Analysis 14, no. 4 (2018): 490–511, at: https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orx003; Alexander Kohli, ‘The Commander’s Place on the Battlefield’, The RUSI Journal 169, no. 4 (2024): 78–88, at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2024.2377434; Lars Henaker, ‘Decision-Making Style and Victory on the Battlefield—Is There a Relation?’, Comparative Strategy 41, no. 4 (2022): 415–436, at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2022.2087436; Ralph Rotte and Christoph M Schmidt, ‘On the Production of Victory: Empirical Determinants of Battlefield Success in Modern War’, Defence and Peace Economics 14, no. 3 (2003): 175–192, at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1024269022000000868; Mick Ryan, ‘Leadership Is Ukraine’s Secret Ingredient in War with Russia’, ABC Online News, 13 May 2023, at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-23/russia-ukraine-war-leadership-moral-intellectual-not-just-weapon/102375736.

^[151] Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—0 ADF Leadership, Ed. 3 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2021), pp. 6–7, at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/adf-leadership/adf-philosophical-doctrine-adf-leadership.

^[152] Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—0 Command, Ed. 1 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), p. iii, at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/command/command.

^[153] Ibid., p. 26.

^[154] Ibid., p. 28. See also Hans-Christian Knevelsrud, ‘Mission Command: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective’, Military Psychology 36, no. 6 (2024): 672–688, at: https://doi.org/10.1080/08995605.2023.2252718; James D Sharpe and Thomas E Creviston, ‘Understanding Mission Command’, U.S. Army (website), 30 April 2015, at: https://www.army.mil/article/106872/understanding_mission_command; Thomas Basan, ‘Mission Command: Unfinished Business’, The Forge, 18 October 2023, at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/mission-command-unfinished-business; Russell W Glenn, ‘Mission Command in the Australian Army: A Contrast in Detail’, Parameters 47, no. 1 (2017): 21–30, at: https://doi.org/10.55540/0031-1723.2833.

^[155] Valerii Zaluzhuyi, ‘On the Organisation of Command and Control in the Armed Forces of Ukraine’, Militarnyi, 20 May 2025, at: https://militarnyi.com/en/articles/on-the-organisation-of-command-and-control-in-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/#google_vignette; Daniel Michaels, ‘The Secret of Ukraine’s Military Success: Years of NATO Training’, The Wall Street Journal, 13 April 2022, at: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-military-success-years-of-nato-training-11649861339; Paul Tudorache and Maria Constantinescu, ‘Enhancing Decision-Making Resilience through Mission Command. The Particular Case of Ukraine’, Vojenské Rozhledy 33, no. 4 (2024): 20–36, at: https://doi.org/10.3849/2336-2995.33.2024.04.020-036; Mans Mannerfelt, ‘The Positive Organizational Culture of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Use of Civilian Drones in the War Against Russia, Report No. 12 (Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, 2023), at: https://sceeus.se/en/publications/the-positive-organizational-culture-of-the-ukrainian-armed-forces-and-the-use-of-civilian-drones-in-the-war-against-russia/. But see also, for example, Natalia Yermak and Francis Farrell, ‘As Ukraine’s Fate Hangs in the Balance, “Soviet” Command Culture Damages War Effort’, Kyiv Independent, 25 March 2025, at: https://kyivindependent.com/as-ukraines-fate-hangs-in-the-balance-soviet-command-culture-damages-war-effort/.

^[156] Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—0 ADF Leadership, pp. 38–39; Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—0 Command, pp. 34–35. See also Chris Field, ‘Connecting Good Soldiering and Mission Command’, The Cove, 3 December 2019, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/connecting-good-soldiering-and-mission-command; Knevelsrud, ‘Mission Command’; Sharpe and Creviston, ‘Understanding Mission Command’; Basan, ‘Mission Command’; Glenn, ‘Mission Command in the Australian Army’; William Oatland, ‘On Trust and Leadership’, Modern War Institute (website), 19 December 2018, at: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/on-trust-and-leadership/.

^[157] See, for example, Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—0 ADF Leadership.

^[158] See, for example, Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—0 ADF Leadership.

^[159] See, for example, Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume 1: Rules (Cambridge, 2009), at: https://www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/external/doc/en/assets/files/other/customary-international-humanitarian-law-i-icrc-eng.pdf; for a dynamic version of this publication, see: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1.

^[160] Article 36 of Additional Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949: ‘In the study, development, acquisition or adoption of a new weapon, means or method of warfare, a High Contracting Party is under an obligation to determine whether its employment would, in some or all circumstances, be prohibited by this Protocol or by any other rule of international law applicable to the High Contracting Party.’

^[161] Department of Defence, Australia’s Guide to the Legal Review of New Weapons, Means or Methods of Warfare (Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), pp. 2–3, at: https://files.apils.org/au/240410_adf_guide_to_art_36_legal_review.pdf.

^[162] Ibid. For other examples of state practice, see ‘Information Portal on the Legal Review of Weapons’, Asia-Pacific Institute for Law and Security (website), at: https://apils.org/legal-review/.

^[163] There is also an ethical dimension to stopgap weapons and Article 36 reviews which is not explored in this article. The Defence Force’s military ethics doctrine states that the Defence Force ‘draws on the concept of the just war tradition to guide its professional conduct’ (see p. 27). One of the criteria for a just war is the reasonable probability of success, by which it is meant that the resort to military force is justified where there is a reasonable probability that the intended military objectives can be achieved (see p. 10). And the doctrine also states that ‘it would be unethical to deploy a force that is too small, under-equipped or does not have the legal and political supporting frameworks to achieve its designated objectives’ (our emphasis) (see p. 10). If a force is not properly equipped, or suddenly needs stopgap weapons but does not acquire them or does not do so in a relevant timeframe, it raises the question as to whether there is, or remains, a moral justification for the resort to force in the circumstances.

^[164] Paul Hasluck, ‘Australia and Southeast Asia’, Foreign Affairs 64, no. 1 (1964): 51, at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1964-10-01/australia-and-southeast-asia

^[165] Stuart, ‘The Challenges to the Australian Army Profession’.

^[166] Ibid.

^[167] Ibid.

^[168] Stuart, ‘Strengthening the Australian Army Profession’.

^[169] Stuart, ‘The Challenges to the Australian Army Profession’.