Titles to Note

Listed below are a select group of books recently or soon to be published that either contribute to the discussions initiated in the articles in the Australian Army Journal or on subjects that may be of interest in the near future. Some of these books may be reviewed in forthcoming editions of the Journal.

• Nathan Mullins, Keep Your Head Down, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011, 347 pp, ISBN 9781742377940, AU$24.99.

  The war in Afghanistan has been the subject of many first-person narratives offering insights into the soldier’s experience of the difficulty of engaging a population that is so diametrically opposed to theirs. In some ways this book is one more among the many. In other ways though, Nathan Mullins’s account of the four months he spent in Uruzgan as part of the Second Commando Company Group is radically different. Mullins and his group are reservists. In his civilian life he is the International Program Manager for an international humanitarian organisation, and was a police officer and private security consultant before this. He has worked on aid projects in difficult and frequently dangerous environments throughout Timor-Leste, Pakistan, Thailand and Burma. He was also a member of the Australian Army Reserve for fifteen years prior to this deployment. Deploying to Afghanistan was, for him, both a decision to be made, and an opportunity that had to be earnt. It required him to question his reasons for going and his purpose once there. Mullins readily admits that the deployment of Second Commando Company Group did little to immediately improve the overall life of the Afghani villagers—unlikely in the short space of four months—but his account offers well-reasoned observations of the changes that he saw among individuals, both Afghani and Australian and adds a different perspective to the growing literature in the area.

• James Hurst, Game to the Last: The 11th Australian Infantry Battalion at Gallipoli, Big Sky Publishing, Newport NSW, 2012, 267 pp, RRP AU$34.99.

  As part of the first wave of the Australian and New Zealand landings at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion has been part of many historical accounts of Australia’s involvement in the Great War. In this book James Hurst builds a portrait of this battalion from their enlistment in Western Australia, embarkation for overseas service, time in Egypt and eventual landing on the beaches at Gallipoli. Released in time for Anzac Day, this book adds to the extensive history of these events by focusing on the effect of this far-away war not just upon the men who served, but also on their immediate families and the greater community. Richly visualised through the words of soldiers involved, Hurst’s book presents a detailed and multi-layered narrative that avoids both sentimentalism and emotionalism, leaving the reader with a strong image of the practicality and pragmatism of those involved.

• Bruce Picken, Fire Support Bases Vietnam: Australian and Allied Fire Support Base Locations and Main Support Units, Big Sky Publishing, Newport NSW, 2012, ISBN 9781921941542, 759 pp, RRP AU$34.99.

  In structure and content Bruce Picken’s book may appear to be simply a reference to the construction and use of fire support bases by Allied forces during the Vietnam War. It is far more than this though. Using a combination of official sources, Australian Unit War Diaries and military maps, Picken reconstructs not just the construction and use of these bases, he also provides an insight into the changes that this war brought upon the Australian Army’s operational procedures. Beginning with 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR) at Fire Support Base (FSB) Bien Hoa in 1965 and ending with the final battle in Nui Le in 1971, this is a detailed account of how engineering, artillery and infantry combined to create more flexible approaches to enemy actions necessary in jungle environments. Although this is the book’s primary purpose, Picken also provides a window into a past landscape that is rapidly disappearing. For the increasing number of serving soldiers and veterans visiting Vietnam, this book provides an entry into the ‘thriving digger community [that] has now merged into the landscape’.

• Tom Lewis, Lethality in Combat: A Study of the True Nature of Battle, Big Sky Publishing, Newport NSW, 2012, ISBN 9781921941511, 368 pp, RRP AU$34.99.

  The demands made upon soldiers today have created intensive ethical debate with implications that go beyond the battlefield. Counterinsurgency, humanitarian and peacekeeping operations all require individual soldiers to evaluate legal and ethical issues on-the-fly, often under the scrutiny of a watchful media. In this environment, violence is frequently presented as an unnecessary and ‘evil’ consequence of political power. In this book though, Tom Lewis, a former officer in the Royal Australian Navy, focuses on the very real consequence of going to war—as unpleasant and uncomfortable as it may make us he argues, ‘warfare is about exterminating the enemy’. Using analyses of wars from the Boer War in the late nineteenth century through to Iraq in the twenty-first century, Lewis argues that although soldiers bear the ethical fallout that accompanies contemporary war, those that send soldiers to war should face the grim reality that ‘rules of war’ may be inadequate to the task they set.

• Elinor C Sloan, Modern Military Strategy: An Introduction, Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2012, ISBN 9780415777711, 151 pp, RRP AU$55.00.

  As the title of this book makes clear, this is an introductory perspective on military strategy. Focusing on post-Cold War strategic thought, Elinor Sloan offers some interesting perspectives on how both civilian and military strategists have applied past theory to better understand the direction of future war. Organised functionally with sections on the traditional domains of warfare—land power, sea power and air power—Sloan also covers newer battlespaces, particularly space and cyberspace. But she does more than just cover the major strategic theories in each of these spaces; she develops a considered view of how changes in relations between countries pre- and post-Cold War have created overlaps in how these domains are viewed by the different Services. For example, whereas once the oceans were considered the primary domain of Navy, the current focus on amphibious warfare, with emphasis on the littoral environment and sea lines of communication is increasingly of interest to strategic theorists and planners across Army, Navy and Air Force. It is important to remember though that this is an introduction to major principles and themes in modern military strategy; Sloan does not claim to present the ultimate text in this area. The strength of this book is its clarification of the links between current military strategists and their predecessors. Its weakness is in its format. As a textbook its structure is designed for clarity rather than the promotion of debate—and modern military strategy, obviously still a work-in-progress, needs debate.

• Steve A Yetiv, The Petroleum Triangle, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2011, ISBN 9780801450020, 241 pp, RRP AU$47.95.

  Al Qaeda and its affiliates throughout the oil-rich region of the Middle East have become the face of international terrorism. In this book Steve Yetiv presents a compelling argument that this most recent terrorist threat is not just linked to oil and globalisation—it is intertwined with them. Today, oil not only funds terrorist infrastructure, but economic agreements devised in international forums also fuel political resentments and increasing anti-Western sentiments throughout the Middle East. On its own, oil could not have created such a pervasive terrorist network as al Qaeda has become. Globalisation has allowed terrorists to travel extensively, make use of sophisticated technologies to communicate with current networks, engage new members, and even fundraise. The convergence of the effects of globalisation with oil in the 1990s allowed terrorist organisations to become both real and perceived threats—real because of their actual capability to do harm, and perceived due to the fear that they sow well above this capability. Although not a unique argument, the strength of this book lies in Yetiv’s clearly explained links between the economic domain and the development of contemporary warfare. Economic interconnectedness is often seen as a guarantee of peaceful relations between states, even those with differing values and ideologies. Yetiv argues that this interconnectedness has actually led to an increase of terrorism and the rise of non-state actors as a threat throughout the region, implying that hybrid and irregular warfare are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

• Toby Dodge and Nicholas Redman (eds), Afghanistan to 2015 and Beyond, Routledge, Oxon, 2011, ISBN 9780415696425, 300 pp, RRP AU$48.95.

  An Adelphi publication, this edited book is the culmination of a research program instigated by the International Institute for Strategic Studies after President Obama announced the United States change in policy toward Afghanistan in 2009. It takes into account not just US political policy, but also the anticipated future of NATO and reductions in budget allocation for defence. Although the outcome of the research is cautiously optimistic, the researchers recognise the difficult road that both the Afghan Government and its international supporters will face in the future. Through an analysis of the local historical and cultural context, and considering regional political tensions and economic competition, the authors predict that Afghanistan will remain poor, weak and unstable. The obstacles and challenges seem insurmountable on the surface, but the overall findings of this research project indicate that the fledgling Afghan Government and its security forces have a good chance of maintaining general control of the country against insurgents—but only with continued Western military assistance and financial aid.

• Dilip Hiro, Apocalyptic Realm: Jihadists in South Asia, Yale University Press, 2012, ISBN 9780300173789, 352 pp, RRP AU$36.95.

  Dilip Hiro is not as convinced as the Adelphi authors above. He believes that the terrorist groups using Pakistan as a base will continue to destabilise the region. Since its foundation as a nation in 1947, Pakistan has had a complex cultural and political relationship with its neighbours—India and Afghanistan. In this book, Hiro analyses the development of the jihadist movement throughout these three countries, focusing on Pakistan’s liminal position as both proving ground and haven. In this attempt at an historical analysis of the development of Islamism in the region, Hiro uses sources that have previously been unavailable to argue that the jihadist movement that originated in Afghanistan could easily escalate tensions between Hindus and Muslim and extend the aims of al Qaeda and associated organisations throughout the region. This book is a timely analysis of not just the development of terrorism in the region, but offers some interesting insights into potential flashpoints that will challenge fledgling Afghan security forces and their Western mentors.