Search
Using the filters to the left, click your selection, it will become bold and filter the results, click it again to remove that filter.
The paper addresses an emerging awareness of counterinsurgency in the Australian context. This work also is cautionary; arguing that the Army and the wider Australian Defence Force (ADF) needs more careful thought on doctrine, appropriate training and associated operational ability. Reflecting on the Australian Army's heritage in the realm of counterinsurgency, it looks at emerging trends in the public discourse on the ‘war on terror' and examines how Australia's traditional allies are developing doctrine …
Western militaries are moving too slowly to adapt to the needs of future warfighting. The reality of nuclear weapons and the United States hegemony have prescribed the options for current and potential adversaries, leaving them with few viable approaches. One such is ‘complex irregular warfare', a type of war that deliberately uses an asymmetrical approach in an attempt to dislocate Western strength. Countering this approach has significant implications for Western militaries. This paper concludes that: …
This paper examines two powerful motivators in US defence policy: the pursuit of network-centric warfare and the imperatives of counterinsurgency. It explores the often noted points of incompatibility between the two, before arguing that a more productive way of understanding their interaction is to examine the ways in which the two are being hybridised in practice in the testing ground of Operation Iraqi Freedom . The paper draws on fieldwork with the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division that explores their …
Successfully conducting an offensive action remains as much the ‘gold standard' for military commanders today as it was in the days of Napoleon, Frederick or Caesar. However, how commanders actually do it has changed as dramatically as society and technology has. How to conduct offensive action successfully in today's unique technological and tactical circumstances is the focus of this working paper. The authors offer readers the benefit of their combined twenty years of study into this topic, arguing that …
Insurgency is a form of warfare as old as warfare itself, and it has gone by many names in the past: guerrilla warfare, partisan warfare, revolutionary warfare, insurrectionary warfare, irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, peoples’ war and terrorism. All have been—and are—used to describe the same broad phenomenon, though they do not all have the exact same meaning and have not necessarily been used simultaneously. Modern insurgency, closely identified in the second half of the twentieth century with …
In a 2007 presentation to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), General John Abizaid, former commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and commander of coalition forces in Iraq, stated that Iraqi insurgents were threatening the humanitarian ‘neutral space'. He indicated that insurgents and terrorists were increasingly targeting humanitarian aid workers in an attempt to polarise participants in the conflict. The pressures on the neutral, or humanitarian space, however, do not only …
Private military companies (PMC) form an increasingly prominent element of military operations. PMC provide a range of services including catering, logistics, administration, training, intelligence, aviation, close personal protection, keypoint security and convoy security. Some PMC also possess the capability to undertake offensive combat operations. Like other Coalition forces engaged in the Global War on Terrorism, the Australian Defence Force is increasingly reliant on PMC for support during …
