In the future land force, close working relations with industry and the Australian business community will be more important than ever. Comparing the way military and business organisations work is a useful task for understanding organisational culture, and looking at how each organisation approaches leadership is a good place to start. I became interested in this comparison as I observed a recent leadership seminar with a class of mid-career business professionals. This was a group of energetic and clever …

This blog is part of a series on Quantum Technology and future land warfare, put out by the Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation and Coordination Office (RICO), a part of Future Land Warfare Branch tasked with coordination and de-confliction for Army's Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS)/Artificial Intelligence (AI) efforts in accordance with emerging disruptive technology. The trouble with quantum technology is that it seems impenetrable, improbable and impractical. In this post, I accordingly …

The future aiming mark for geospatial intelligence capabilities within Defence should be the creation of a Spatial Digital Twin: a single, dynamic dataset that represents the physical world in sufficient resolution to act as the reference point for all systems requiring mission data. As a phrase du jour there are currently many competing definitions of Digital Twin, but the most relevant to this concept being "a dynamic virtual representation of a physical object or system across its lifecycle, using …

This blog is part two of a two part series discussing the economic impacts on Defence in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.   Part One of this two-part series focussed on cost implications of a large currency depreciation for the military. It showed how these can increase the cost of maintaining capability at an increasing rate, and force difficult choices relating to allocation of scarce resources.   Part Two will now focus on the most important economic implication of the Covid-19 crisis for the …

Emerging Threats and Opportunities (ETOs) is a regular blog series on the Land Power Forum that collects together blogs, podcasts and articles of interest with the goal of creating discussion on the topic of land power. US interoperability There is a general consensus that the ‘ coronavirus pandemic may soon lead to big changes in the U.S. military ’. An argument to redirect military funding into domestic health resources has been met with the warning that pre-COVID19 security challenges persist. Analysts …

This blog is part one of a two part series discussing the economic impacts on Defence in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has already upended everyday life and work around the world. Following the lead of major stock markets overseas, the Australian stock market fell precipitously in less than two months. Additionally, in less than a month, the Australian dollar fell to its lowest level against the US dollar in the last 17 years. This exceeds anything …

Emerging Threats and Opportunities (ETOs) is a regular blog series on the Land Power Forum that collects together blogs, podcasts and articles of interest with the goal of creating discussion on the topic of land power. Lessons  The  Brookings Institute  examines policy options for maintaining military readiness during COVID-19. It argues the US DoD should extend personnel postings beyond the typical two to three years to maintain unit readiness and retain collective knowledge while exercises are cancelled …

Studies of culture in the social sciences increasingly acknowledge the reflexive approach as a useful tool for research. The reflexive approach (sometimes called  auto-ethnography ) calls on the author to be both ‘ subject and object of the inquiry ’, meaning it includes the researcher’s lived experience in the analytic process. Reflexive practices have developed as legitimate methods of qualitative inquiry in some academic fields, but military studies, which stems from the more traditional disciplines …

This blog is part of a series on Quantum Technology and future land warfare, put out by the Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation and Coordination Office (RICO), a part of Future Land Warfare Branch tasked with coordination and de-confliction or Army's Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS)/Artificial Intelligence (AI) efforts in accordance with emerging disruptive technology.  Quantum technologies exploit the fundamental laws of nature to reach the ultimate limits of sensing, imaging, …

To develop commanders that are more intuitive requires training against a demanding (near-peer) adversary and the time to allow a degree of free-play rather than just the time to tick off the mission-essential task list. This is challenging to achieve in training given resource constraints and the need for safety. We rarely re-run a training serial. Responding to Major Purdy's ' Down and Dirty Downtown: Future Land Combat 2025 ' in October last year, I highlighted that while technology and numerical …