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Abstract While the Australian Defence Force has seen an increasing range of roles become available to women in the recent past, women are still excluded from serving in combat roles. This article discusses the arguments both for and against women serving in combat roles, drawing on both Australian and overseas observations. Our combat effectiveness and performance in the field relates very much to the competence of our people—that is, their physical competence and their mental competence as well. Those …

A phone rings at the Pentagon. A journalist identifies himself and states, “I just read a blog that says Soldiers use dogs for target practice in Iraq. There’s a video clip showing it, too. What’s the Army’s position?” How should the spokesperson respond? Military web logs, known as blogs or milblogs, are small websites that Soldiers maintain as informal journals for personal comments, images, and links to other websites. Blogs emerged concurrently with the War on Terrorism and have become an increasingly …

Abstract This paper discusses the impact of the peaking and then decline in world oil production— commonly known as Peak Oil—on the Australian Army from a Raise, Train and Sustain perspective. Peak Oil is described as the implications of Peak Oil at a global and national level. The likely impacts of Peak Oil on the Australian Army are then analysed against four of the inputs to military capability, being personnel, equipment, training and doctrine. The paper suggests a number of actions that can be taken …

Abstract As the Australian Defence Force overseas deployments grow in size and tempo, Australian strategists and planners must consider the growing number of organisations our troops will work alongside, and in concert with. This article explores the relationship between Australia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an issue that is particularly pertinent considering current commitments in Afghanistan. The end of the Cold War came quickly, and unexpectedly. Talk of ‘peace dividends’ on a …

Soldiers Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point   Written by: Elizabeth D Samet, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2007, ISBN: 9780312427825, 259pp. Reviewed by: Natalia Forrest O  God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts; Possess them not with fear; take from them now The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers Pluck their hearts from them. - Henry V, William Shakespeare The debate about education versus training in military establishments is a familiar one. The Australian …

3 Para   Written by: Patrick Bishop,  HarperCollins, London, 2007, ISBN: 9780007257805, 289 pp. Reviewed by: James Cameron 3 Para  is an absorbing account of the British 3rd Parachute Battalions six month deployment in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2006. This book should be essential reading for Australian Army personnel who are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, or for those who have served there and wish to compare their experiences with those of the British forces. The narrative is sourced almost …

Through Mobility We Conquer: The Mechanization of US Cavalry   Written by: George F Hofmann, University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, 2006, ISBN: 9780813124032, 578 pp. Reviewed by: Jean Bou The mechanisation of ground forces was one of the most important developments in twentieth century military affairs. George F Hofmann, a former Armored Branch officer in the US Army and now a Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati, has sought to explain how the US Cavalry underwent mechanisation, a …

Swords and Ploughshares — Bringing Peace to the 21 st Century   Written by: Paddy Ashdown,  Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, 2007, ISBN: 9780297853039, 338 pp. Reviewed by: Colonel Marcus Fielding As a former British Royal Marine, diplomat and politician Paddy Ashdown has a broad range of experiences to call upon in his latest role, that of international statesman. It is his period as the European Unions Special Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, from 2002 to 2006, that he draws upon to write Swords …

Doves Over the Pacific: In Pursuit of Peace and Stability on Bougainville   Written by: Reuben RE Bowd,  Australian Army History Unit and Australian Military History Publications, Canberra, 2007, ISBN: 9780980320480, 259 pp. Reviewed by: Colonel Bob Breen With this book Reuben Bowd continues a fine tradition of serving army officers finding the time to write about contemporary Australian military history in order to educate, commemorate and inspire. A veteran of a peace support operation in Bougainville, …

The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War   Written by: Brian McAllister Linn, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2007, ISBN: 9780674034792, 312pp. Reviewed by: Albert Palazzo Professor Brian McAllister Linn, in The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War,  has done the US Army a great service. In a book of modest length he provides the institution with an outline of the origins and evolution of its intellectual tradition. This in itself would have been a major and important accomplishment …