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Australian policymakers have long recognised that the resilience of Southeast Asia, as a region bordering the nation’s northern approaches, is fundamental to Australia’s national security. Australian Army Occasional Paper 17 examines how the Australian defence community, with its extensive array of networks in Southeast Asia, can best engage the region in the years ahead.     … Occasional Paper 17 released - Southeast Asia’s Security …

New capabilities enabled by quantum sensors This post continues a series on quantum technologies. The 2023 Defence Strategic Review has brought into sharp focus the Indo-Australian Archipelago. This chain of islands could be a difficult untrusted littoral environment that Army must learn to work around, where of prominence is the need to know structure inside, under and next to islands and coastlines. Such structures can’t be seen using existing detection techniques. Furthermore, the extended nature of the …

What can the benefits of Train, Advise and Assist missions be for members of Army and the ADF? Train, Advise and Assist (TAA) missions have been a major component of Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Army operations since the end of the Second World War. Defence undertakes these missions, as directed by government and its ministers, to aid, train and develop the forces of Australia’s partner nations. Although these partner forces are the focus of training, it is wrong to characterise these TAA missions as …

Army’s Role in Train, Advise and Assist Missions In June, the AARC launched its winter series ‘ Short Thoughts Competition ’ on Army’s role in train, advise and assist missions. The purpose was to encourage authors to think about whether such a capability could play a part in Army’s post-DSR future, and encourage them to think about the shape of proposed activities in the Indo-Pacific that could inform and shape the organisation’s future. The forthcoming Spring Short Thoughts Competition will be similarly …

The proliferation of information technologies, the rapid pace of military modernisation and the return to Great Power competition are challenging traditional notions of national security as it applies to Australia and its coalition partners.  The impact of information on modern warfighting is unhinging the asymmetries traditionally afforded to Australian and allied Special Operations Forces (SOF), calling for new ideas, concepts and capabilities. Taking a uniquely Australian perspective, in this AARC …

War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 By Ian, W. Toll WW Norton and Company, 2015. 688. Paperback ISBN: 9780393353204 Hardcover ISBN: 9780393080643 Reviewed by Sam Baumgarten The Conquering Tide is an outstanding book for those wishing to understand the American conduct of war in the Pacific. It examines the war in the Pacific islands from the aftermath of the Battle of Midway to the Battles of Saipan and Guam in mid-1944. This is the second part of a trilogy. The other two books cover firstly the war in …

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. Sun Tzu Introduction The Australian Army has an extensive history of conducting train, advise and assist (TAA) missions. These missions represent a flexible, scalable and low-risk component of national strategy.  The Defence Strategic Update [i] (DSU) highlighted the requirement to shape, deter and respond to challenges within the Indo-Pacific region. In describing the shaping function, the DSU …

The Oboe landings – well planned, resourced and executed – were, and are, rightly considered the acme of amphibious operations. Dayton McCarthy Introduction to The Oboe Landings 1945 Australian Army History Unit, Campaign Series 32 “G’Day Sir, I’m looking for your support to attend a staff ride.” These were my hopeful words to my boss shortly after learning of an opportunity to travel to Borneo to study a series of 1945 amphibious operations. A staff ride wasn’t something I had previously heard of, and I …

Over the past decade, the Australian Army has established itself as the ‘preferred partner’ within the Indo-Pacific region. The Indo-Pacific region covers the area from India to Papua New Guinea, extending to North Korea in the North, our greatest footprint landing within the archipelagos of the Pacific Ocean north of Australia. The importance of maintaining or gaining the ‘preferred partner’ status with the countries in the region is highlighted by the meagre 800km stretch of ocean that separates the …

Introduction Since 2017, measles outbreaks have been surging around the globe, with many Indo-Pacific nations experiencing disease outbreaks due to low vaccination rates [i] . A targeted vaccination program provides opportunities for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to supplement its traditional train, advise and assist missions with a low-risk and cost-effective public health intervention while delivering a strategic deterrent effect within our region. Measles vaccinations provide a legitimate reason …