Lieutenant Colonel Dayton McCarthy  is currently the Staff Officer Grade 1 Special Projects in the G5 Cell, Headquarters 2nd (Australian) Division. He served in the Australian Regular Army from 2005 to 2013 in a number of regimental, training and staff appointments. Transferring to the Army Reserves in 2014, he was the Commanding Officer of the 9th Battalion, Royal Queensland Regiment from 2021 to 2022. A defence analyst in his civilian career, LTCOL McCarthy is the author of several books and numerous …

Dr. Albert Palazzo is an Adjunct Professor at University of New South Wales –Canberra in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was formerly the long-serving Director of War Studies for the Australian Army. He has written more than twenty books and monographs on the art of war, including The Australian Army: A History of its Organisation, 1901–2001, The Australian Army and the War in Iraq, The Battle of Crete, and From Moltke to Bin Laden: The Relevance of Doctrine in the Contemporary Military …

Michael Evans is the General Sir Francis Hassett Chair of Military Studies at the Australian Defence College and a Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University in Victoria. He is a former Head of the Australian Army’s Land Warfare Studies Centre at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. He has held fellowships at King’s College London and at the universities of York, Cape Town and New South Wales and is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Defence Force Command and …

Lieutenant Colonel Melanie Lenaghan has been at the forefront of operational roles in information operations and advising on the impact of war on women and children to ADF and coalition senior leaders during recent conflicts. … Melanie Lenaghan …

Ian Morris is Professor of Classics and a senior fellow of the Archaeology Centre at Stanford University. He has published thirteen books, including Why the West Rules—For Now (2010), War! What is it Good For? (2014), and most recently Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve (2015). He has directed archaeological digs in Greece and Italy, has held visiting professorships in anthropology, archaeology, business, international studies, and psychology, and is a contributing editor at …

A logistician by background, he recently Commander the Army School of Logistics Operations and has seen operational Service in Joint and Army logistics roles. He is a graduate of the University of New South Wales (Master of Business) and the Australian National University (Master of Arts (Research)) through the Australian Command and Staff Course. He is undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy through the Australian National University; in this research he is examining the effectiveness of the ADF’s approach to …

Dr Thomas Richardson is a historian at UNSW Canberra. After completing his doctorate in 2014 he worked as a researcher on the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping (2015), and as a researcher on the Official History of Australian Operations in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan (2016–2018). His first book, Destroy and Build: Pacification in Phuoc Tuy, 1966–1972, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017; his second, Soldiers and Bushmen: The Australian Army in South Africa 1899–1902, will be …

Tom Hamilton is acting Deputy Secretary of the Strategic Policy and Intelligence Group in the Department of Defence. He was promoted to the position of First Assistant Secretary Strategic Policy Division in March 2016. The Strategic Policy Division develops policy, military strategy and strategic planning and advice for the Australian Government, senior Defence leaders and other government agencies on the strategic implications of defence and national security matters. Prior to this position, Mr Hamilton …

Dr Samuel White is a Senior Lecturer—School of Law at the University of Adelaide. He is the Army Fellow at the Australian War Memorial, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Defence Force Academy, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of New England. Samuel has served as both a Royal Australian Infantry Corps and an Australian Army Legal Corps officer in a variety of tactical, operational and strategic level postings. He currently holds the rank of Major. … Samuel …

Dr Charles Knight is a senior operations analyst conducting wargaming for land capability. He has an enduring interest in urban warfare, sparked by being tasked to prepare his UK Parachute Regiment unit to defend the German city of Hildesheim against the Soviets in the 1980s. His PhD examined coercion during counterinsurgency, and as a university lecturer he taught subjects including strategic security, unconventional/asymmetric warfare, and terrorism. He remains affiliated with Charles Sturt University …