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The Strategists Written by: Hugh Smith (ed.), Australian Defence Studies Centre, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, 2001,  ISBN: 9780731704538, 145 pp. Reviewed by: Martin Sheehan, Strategic and International Policy Division, Department of Defence In 1989 Francis Fukuyama, then Deputy Director of the US State Department’s policy planning staff, published a curious essay, ‘The End of History?’ in the journal The National Interest . Fukuyama’s argument was that, …

Introduction The Retrospect section of the AAJ is designed to reproduce interesting articles from the Australian Army’s earlier journals, notably the Commonwealth Military Journal and the Australian Army Journal ( AAJ ) from the 1940s to the mid 1970s. In this edition of the new AAJ , we are reprinting an edited version of an article by Field Marshal Sir William Joseph Slim, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC (afterwards 1st Viscount Slim), then Governor-General of Australia. This article appeared in the …

Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Eddington Rhoden, OBE, ED (Retd) (1914-2003) Reflecting on the 2/14th Battalion’s attack at Manggar Airfield as part of the Balikpapan operations in July 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Phillip ‘Phil’ Rhoden recalled that he refused to ‘rush in’, despite pressure from his superiors to do so. Instead, he bided his time, concentrated his battalion and progressively seized limited objectives, employing his considerable fire support to full effect. It was a strategy designed to save lives, …

Major General Ross Buchan, AO (Retd) (1935-2003) Major General Ross Buchan entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1954, graduating into the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery in 1957. His 37-year career thus mirrored the role that Australia’s professional army played in the Cold War and his personal development as an officer was forged by the active and varied military life that was open to a promising officer during this period. His was a rich and exciting life, and despite his too early …

Major General Ronald Hughes, CBE, DSO (RETD) (1920-2003) Major General Ronald Hughes was an infantry officer whose distinguished career typified the critical contribution that the Australian Army’s officer corps has made to Australian security. His career spanned four decades: from entry to the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1937 until his retirement in 1977. He fought in three wars and served as Australia’s Military Attaché in Indonesia during the period of Confrontation. His was a varied and …

Editor’s Note: In April 1995 members of the Australian Defence Force Medical Support Force, a component of the Australian Contingent of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) were deployed to the Kibeho displaced persons’ camp. The camp had been surrounded by two battalions of Tutsi troops from the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), which regarded it as a sanctuary for Hutu perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. In the ethnic slaughter that followed, the RPA killed some 4000 of the camp’s …

The main and obvious difference between peace enforcement and war is impartiality. In peace enforcement, military operations are directed against anyone who has violated agreements or the formally expressed will of the international community. The key difference from war is that there is no designated ‘enemy.’ In war, the enemy has to be rendered powerless. In peace enforcement, the idea is not to render him powerless—the aim of ‘victory’ takes second place to the achievement of measures, which will …

From this place and this time forth commences a new era in world history and you can all say that you were present at its birth. With these famous words, the great German poet-philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, captured the historical significance of the battle of Valmy fought on 20 September 1792. At Valmy, ragged French citizen-soldiers used a blazing cannonade to defeat Prussian regular troops and secured the French Revolution. The age of the Enlightenment abruptly gave way to an age of revolution …

While historians have thoroughly examined the Australian and New Zealand role in the Vietnam War, much less has been written about the working relationship between the Australian and New Zealand forces and their American counterparts. Of particular interest in this regard is the 2d Battalion, 35th Field Artillery, a unit equipped with M109 155 mm self-propelled guns that operated alongside the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) from 1966 until 1971. Nicknamed the ‘Huskies’, the 2d Battalion had the …

Introduction For almost the entire period between the two world wars, Australia experienced what could at best be termed a cantankerous relationship between the Government and its senior Army officers. By the end of 1922, the Government and the Army had made conflicting assessments of the Australian national security environment and put into place divergent policies to address their separate concerns. At no point during this period were the two parties able to overcome their differing opinions and agree on …