The Australian Army Research Centre (AARC) strives to challenge the present and debate the future. In this edition of the Australian Army Journal we are pleased to feature a collection of articles which challenge the present by identifying problems from a variety of perspectives and offer innovative solutions. The topics cover a broad spectrum of Army capabilities from people, organisation and doctrine to training, command and support. These are the components of land power to which every Army member can contribute and which deserve continual inquiry and debate. However, it is important that we do more than challenge the present. These articles also debate the future by representing the ideas within Army’s Futures Statement Accelerated Warfare, which is characterised by the complexity of multi- domain environments, emerging technology and adaptability.
No more clearly are these ideas seen than in our leading article by Dr Charles Knight. The author, a veteran of both British and Omani armies, questions Army’s readiness for urban operations and discusses the moral challenge of civilian casualties in a media-dominated battle space. Dr Knight offers the reader a series of questions to prompt further thinking on the subject and invites contributions for a future urban operations themed publication. As a fitting segue, Captain James Lewis presents an analysis of urban operations in the southern Philippines city of Marawi, highlighting the need for Army to develop individual skills and focus on small, agile combined armed teams if it intends to fight the intense and chaotic battles of the urban environment.
In the next two articles, Lieutenant Colonel Kane Wright and Colonel Richard Barrett explore the efficiency of innovation in the modernisation process. Lieutenant Colonel Wright examines the financial challenges of sustaining a technically aspirant force, and Colonel Barrett proposes a new activity which brings together industry developers and soldiers in a collaborative exercise, developing and testing equipment with immediate feedback to the designers.
Addressing the capability elements of people, organisation and command, Dr Jason Mazanov offers an engaging study on the ways we respond to a workforce that has experienced toxic leadership. Dr Mazanov, an organisational behavioural psychologist, applies the methodology of business ethics to propose policy frameworks that can anticipate and treat the legacy of damaging leadership experiences in Defence. Contributing to the area of doctrine and training, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Sinclair introduces the reader to Army’s newest OPFOR construction—the Decisive Action Training Environment, known as DATE. Contextualised against a comprehensive review of Army training adversary doctrine since 1948, the author positions DATE as a sophisticated construct which can be continuously updated to reflect real-world operations.
The last two articles concern the essential support of transport but on very different scales. Captain James Barrett proposes that the challenge of patrolling in harsh environments be met by a reintroduction of camel transportation for Regional Force Surveillance Units, Special Forces and international commitments. Lastly, we feature a group of researchers—Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Wright, Commander Mark Page, Jasmine Connell and Janet Chaseling—who were recipients of the Army Research Scheme grants program and whose report evaluates new methods of transporting and preserving samples of DNA used to identify military casualties.
In this edition, we also present six book reviews on topics that range from leadership to the social history and human geography of armies, including accounts of Australian military involvement in France in World War I and Papua New Guinea in the 1950s and 1960s. Finally, we would like to congratulate Major Andrew Maher on winning the 2018 Chauvel Essay Prize for his article ‘The Middle Eastern Advisory Competition: The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force’, which appeared in the Australian Army Journal, Volume XIV, Number 1.
As the AARC expands its engagement with the research community, the Australian Army Journal continues to play an important role in both representing Army members and communicating Army ideas to the world. I am continually encouraged by the breadth of interest in Army publications and I commend this edition of the Australian Army Journal to you.
