Abstract This article explores the establishment of an operationally-orientated organisation to effect regional capacity building, which might serve as a focal point for coordinating unorthodox responses to contemporary security challenges within the region. Such an organisation would be capable of providing strategic deterrence through the employment of land-based anti-ship missiles to deny maritime chokepoints in an Australianised version of an anti-access, area-denial strategy. Habitual …

Abstract The friction of war, heavily influenced by logistic factors, ultimately determines how military capabilities will perform. Despite the intended strategy and tactics of a force, captured in the operational concepts developed by Army’s staff and established in principles employed in the introduction into service of new capabilities, logistics reveals itself to be much more than a mere afterthought. This article examines how often overlooked logistics factors, considered in unison with strategy and …

Abstract Social media and strategic communication sit at the heart of the war of ideas between the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the West. The West is critically vulnerable to ISIL’s use of social media, shrewdly exploited in the recruitment of potential jihadists. This article argues that the Western world is losing the digital propaganda war waged by ISIL. At the strategic level, ISIL plans, synchronises and coordinates its social media efforts. Commanders provide operational updates …

It is human nature for the weak to take the measure of the strong. Global underdogs — both states and non-state actors — are taking stock of the strengths and weaknesses of today’s dominant military power. And since 2001, the United States has obligingly displayed them. Having been at war for the past fourteen years, the United States and its allies have offered adversaries plenty of opportunity to school themselves on our tactics, operations and technologies. As social networking makes every major …

Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin E.G. Keogh Visiting Chair in Land Warfare Studies, 2015 The E.G. Keogh Visiting Chair in Land Warfare Studies is an annual visit by a selected eminent academic in strategic or war studies designed to increase the profile of debate on land warfare issues in Australia. The Chair is named after Colonel E.G Keogh, MBE, ED, (1899 – 1981) who served in the Australian Imperial Forces during both the First and Second World War. He was the founder and editor of the Australian Army …

The French Army and the First World War   Written by: Elizabeth Greenhalgh Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014,  ISBN: 978-1107605688469pp Reviewed by: Brigadier Chris Roberts (retd) In a conflict in which the French bore the greatest burden on the Western Front, the English-speaking historiography of the Great War includes few books that describe the French contribution. Naturally, Australia’s focus on that conflict is predominantly Anglo-centric with a consequent na-tionalistic flavouring of …

The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East   Written by: Eugene Rogan,  Basic Books, New York, 2015,  ISBN: 9780465023073, 485pp Reviewed by: Dr William Westerman With much of the attention of the First World War focused on the Western Front (both when it was being waged and ever since), it is a welcome change to explore a different theatre of that immense conflict. To the Entente powers, the war in the Middle East served simply to divert both their attention and, importantly, their …

To Kokoda   Written by: Nicholas Anderson Australian Army Campaigns Series 14 Big Sky Publishing, 2014,  ISBN: 9781922132963 186pp, 186pp, Reviewed by: Wing Commander Mark Smith The Kokoda campaign ranks second to the Gallipoli campaign in the national psyche and also probably in the number of Australian military history books devoted to a single campaign. With the approach of the 75th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign in 2017, there are likely to be more dissertations published and the myth versus …

Australia and the Vietnam War   Written by: Peter Edwards New South Publishing, 2014, 338pp, ISBN: 9781742241678 Reviewed by: Wing Commander Mark Smith The year 2015 saw a number of commemorations of significant military events culminating in the April commemoration of the centenary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli. The year 2015 was also the 200th anniversary of Wellington’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo. Lesser known, and largely overlooked by most Australians, were the 50th anniversaries of the …

Abstract The twenty-first century is increasingly challenging the efficacy of Cold War era non-proliferation regimes intended to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There are significant limitations to the contemporary reliance on these regimes and associated interdiction activities intended to prevent proliferation. The existing controls have failed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to states that previously did not possess such weapons, and there are also continuing concerns …