Major Leon Young’s recent article  galvanised me to consider his question  if we wished to avoid the dystopian future for the preferred utopia, how should we design the force to operate in crowded, connected, lethal, collective and constrained environments ? I decided to go back to first principles. In Hew Strachan’s recent book  Direction of War , he highlights that if war is an instrument of policy, strategy is the tool that enables us to understand war and gives us the best chance of managing and …

In an earlier  blog post for this forum , I discussed some of the government’s latest policy, its relationship to the Joint Archipelagic Manoeuvre concept and a shopping list of new and enhanced  means . These  means  included: New long-range rocket system New deployable short-range, ground-based air defence weapons New medium-range, ground-based air defence weapons New deployable, land-based anti-ship missiles. Tempted as I was to open  Janes  and look at hardware, there are robust procedures in the …

Introduction The ‘greater uncertainty’ in Australia’s strategic environment identified in the  2016 Defence White Paper  is now perhaps  deterioration , with increasing concerns that we rely on an alliance partner that may become  decreasingly willing or able to underwrite our defence . Hugh White has questioned the ADF’s  capacity to defend Australia , Concurrently, it is the Chief of Army’s assessment that history’s continuous shift in the character of future warfare is now  accelerating .  As the …

As the integration of cyber networks reaches full saturation within the deployed environment, the time that cyber defenders and a cyber network defence framework should have been put in place has already passed. This leaves our networks and the missions reliant on those networks for command, control and communications vulnerable to exploitation by any number of adversaries within the battlespace. With  governments around the world  spending billions of dollars on the implementation of cyber defence …

"Our subordinates are from the digital and “sharing economy” generation where disruptive technologies and practices routinely replace traditional services. When our subordinates comfortably use the largest transport company in the world which has no cars and the largest accommodation provider which has no property we need to do more to harness the agility embodied in our workforce and their comfort with technology and change."   - Commander Forces Command, Major General McLachlan, 2017 As the proportion of …

A Submission to the Chief of Army’s ‘Contest of Ideas’ The basis of this submission is this cover note and the enclosed short paper authored by Dr Albert Palazzo and myself in 2016 titled  Coming to Terms with the Modern Way of War: Precision Missiles and the Land Component of Australia’s Joint Force . Much of the Western military’s attention has focussed on developments in particular technological fields such as cyber, space, artificial intelligence and hypersonics; but, by focussing on the parts we may …

Every soldier has an individual responsibility to study the profession of arms. A soldier without either interest in, or knowledge of, the history and theory of warfare - the intellectual content of the military profession - is a soldier in appearance only. ( LWD 1, The Fundamentals of Land Power, 2014 ) As a learning organisation, Army must have robust frameworks for ongoing development and continued education programs to ensure knowledgeable and competent staff. The  2016 Ryan Review  is a good start and …

Whether you’re interested by new drone technology, quantum computing or the latest mobile phone tech, this month’s METS has something for you. BIRD DRONES? THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN DRONE TECHNOLOGY   A  RMIT research team  with support from the Defence Science and Technology Group have developed a drone that is based on bird flight patterns. By using the same air currents used by birds, the drone can stay in the air for longer and have an extended flight range. The ‘bird’ drone in contrast to the current …

The  Professional Standards Councils  suggest that ‘a profession positions itself as possessing special knowledge and skills… [and] is prepared to apply this… in the interest of others’. When considering many professions, the uniting principle that defines them is relatively easy to discern. For medical practitioners it is understanding the human body; for lawyers, a nation’s law codes – these provide a unifying start point for the development of more specialised expertise. However, what is the specialist …

Close combat is Army’s strength and its foundational principle, but recent operations show how it can be turned into a weakness if we fail to acknowledge how adversaries use robot-enabled warfare. In helping Army and the Australian Defence Force grapple with the potential of robotics and automation, I have been struck by a recurring 'blind spot': a reluctance to see improvised explosive devices as robots. On the surface, there are apparent differences between (say)  an artillery shell rigged up with a …