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Timor Timur is a memoir by Lieutenant General Kiki Syahnakri (retd) who was plucked from relative obscurity to restore a degree of order in East Timor and hand responsibility to the International Force East Timor (INTERFET) which arrived in September 1999. 1 In total Kiki spent 11 years (one third of his military career) in Timor, commencing as a platoon commander in a territorial battalion and then as commander of a small regional military command (KORAMIL Atapupu) on the West Timor border with East Timor …

Abstract Military organisations struggle with defining culture, a problem exacerbated by the lack of agreement on when cultural training should occur and what it should consist of. In the Australian Army cultural training is typically delivered to personnel during operational force preparation. This paper argues that cultural skills need to be developed much earlier, preferable at points throughout a soldier’s entire career. This paper uses the seemingly unrelated issues of mental health, insider threat …

Abstract This article is written as an element of future war analysis conducted at the US Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting and uses primarily US doctrine and concepts relating to cyberspace. Such concepts may not correlate specifically to those used by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) or Australian Army as open source US military perspectives on cyberspace consider both defensive and offensive aspects, while Australia generally provides only a defensive view. However this article aims to …

Abstract This article examines the combined arms imperative driving Plan Beersheba. It begins by describing the major organisational changes occurring in the regular manoeuvre formations of Forces Command as background to discussion of the combined arms imperative behind these organisational changes. Evidence of this imperative is supported by historical analysis of combined arms warfare during the twentieth century and the Australian Army’s experience of employing tanks in Vietnam. The more recent …

Abstract The conclusion of combat operations in Afghanistan opens the debate over how land forces can be best structured, equipped and manned for future tasks. In conditions of substantial uncertainty roughly equivalent to those that prevailed in the lee of the Cold War, the British Army must shape the broader defence debate if it wishes to remain relevant. While this will present a challenge given current resource constraints, this article offers a potential roadmap for the journey ahead, building on the …

Abstract The traditional Army capability-based approach to the 2014 Force Structure Review (FSR), no matter how coherent, is likely to continue to see Army as comparatively worse off than the other Services. For greater success, Army requires a long-term strategy, over a number of years, to break down decades of strategic culture and defence policy trends. Most importantly, Army needs to redefine the current (albeit undeclared) defence policy priority of providing niche combat forces to United States-led …

Pacific 360°: Australia’s Battle for Survival in World War II 1   Written by: Roland Perry, Hachette, 2012, ISBN 9780733632778, 512pp   Reviewed by: Wing Commander Mark Smith When I first pick up a book I usually read the cover flap to gain some understanding of its subject matter. The cover flap of Roland Perry’s Pacific 360° told me that, ‘In the dark days following the 1941 fall of Singapore ... Churchill was demanding our troops stay in North Africa and Greece ...’ This did not bode well! Next, with …

The Valley’s Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban   Written by: Daniel R. Green, Potomac Books, 2012, ISBN 9781597976947, 288pp   Reviewed by: Timothy Moore Modern Western militaries arguably need political capability — not to ensure internal ideological purity, but to identify, analyse and engage the politics of an operational area and secure peace. A successful war degrades foreign government, and the burden of stabilisation and restoration often falls on occupying forces. …

Every Nation For Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World   Written by: Ian Bremmer, Portfolio Penguin, 2012, ISBN 9780670921058, 217pp   Reviewed by: Ben Moles In Every Nation For Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World Ian Bremmer, President and founder of the political risk research and consultancy firm Eurasia Group, offers an insightful overview and useful guide for the general reader and armchair enthusiast of international affairs as to what he perceives as the fundamental challenge to the …

The Australian Army from Whitlam to Howard   Written by: John Blaxland, Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 9781107043657, 434pp   Reviewed by: Bob Lowry As the title neatly encapsulates, the Army is an instrument of politics and this book concerns the use of the Australian Army during the period embraced by these two political leaders. As Blaxland clearly articulates, armies do not exist in isolation; they are a microcosm of their own societies and operate within their own and other societies in …