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The Applied History of Domestic Operations Abstract How the military is employed domestically is shaped by anxiety: anxiety that fuels growth, and anxiety that constrains it. It is an area of war studies that uniquely impacts the citizens of a country, in a way that external military operations often do not. It is a particularly emotive area where policy and operations fail to apply historical lessons. This occasional paper seeks to provide the first definitive study of domestic operations in Australia …

Assessing Civilian Employer/Manager Support for Employees’ Part-time Military Service   … Drawing on Reserves …

Abstract The mobilisation of national economies, industries and armed forces for war has long been a complex problem. Mobilisation brings a range of issues that both government officials and military staffs must navigate to be successful; it is no easy task. As great power competition increases across the globe, and the likelihood of conflict in the region rises, the Australian Army should consider the ways in which it might find competitive asymmetry if it were to be mobilised in defence of Australia. …

It has been said that the impact of climate change on small islands is no less threatening than the dangers guns and bombs pose to large nations. [i] Rising sea levels, ocean warming, soil erosion, and increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters all impact most profoundly on the livelihoods, human security, food security and water security of the Pacific island countries that are least able to cope with these threat multipliers. In regions where natural resources come under strain—through …

In peacetime, the most important task of any army is to think about the requirements for future war and to prepare accordingly. As JFC Fuller observed, ‘preparation for war or against war, from the grand strategical aspect, is the main problem of peace’. [i] As war never stands still, much of this preparation should be spent on learning from past wars, examining the potential of new weapons and considering changes in strategic environment, in order to adapt to emerging conditions and to take advantage of, …

Introduction The capacity to generate and project power is central to state relations in what is an inherently anarchic environment. In the absence of a true supranational arbiter, it is the relations of power that establish and influence the normative boundaries that guide state behaviour. At the global and regional levels, states balance against one another to protect and further their own interests, while ensuring their continued survival. This emphasis on relative power necessarily focuses attention on …

The Australian Army did not begin with the First AIF. On the contrary, the original force lived and died from March 1901 to December 1909. As responsibility for defence transferred from colonial to federal authorities, many problems of structure, administration and training came to the fore. The task of forging a these disparate structures into a national military organisation confronted a Federal Government already constrained by limited finances. This monograph shows how Australia's first army was …

In an era of increasing focus upon concepts such as hybrid warfare, insurgency and ‘low intensity conflict', asymmetry is often seen as a means employed by conventionally weak actors against traditional military powers. This presumption is challenged by the author in this paper. Unfortunately, most of the ADF's future operating concepts inadvertently give ground to Australia's enemies by—almost exclusively—addressing asymmetric warfare as a style of fighting in the unique realm of people who will do harm …

In this paper, Brigadier Field examines the role of the 9th Australian Division in Operation Cartwheel which involved the capture of the Japanese Base at Lae. He uses this division’s expeditionary operations and amphibious manoeuvre as the basis for analysis of the seven tenets of manoeuvre described in current Land Warfare Doctrine. The result highlights the challenges inherent to expeditionary operations and amphibious manoeuvre in Australia’s primary operating environment.  Brigadier Field also offers …

For contemporary, Western military organisations doctrine serves as the basis of their members' intellectual unity and underpins their ability to identify and incorporate change. Doctrine is held in such high regard by military professionals that one senior officer termed it 'the heart of the army.' While widely accepted now, doctrine did not appear until the mid-nineteenth century. Its origins lie in the Prussian Army, whose brilliant theorist Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke employed it with devastating …