Warfare and Culture in World History   Eds: Wayne E Lee New York: New York University Press, 2020, ISBN 1479800007, 364pp Review by: Mr John Mackenzie In the second edition of this work Wayne Lee has updated and expanded the range of essays that he offers as examples of applying ‘culture’ as a tool to analyse the conduct of warfare. Lee’s analysis of military history through a focus on culture has challenges that I assess he, and the essayists, do not always successfully address. Despite this, I commend …

Anatomy of a Soldier   Written by: Harry Parker Alfred A Knopf, 2016, ISBN 9781101946633, 310pp   Reviewed by: Dr Jordan Beavis Situated within a growing body of creative literature on the coalition wars of the 21st century, Anatomy of a Soldier is a novel that follows the story of British Army Captain Tom Barnes (also referred to as BA5799). A platoon commander operating out of a forward operating base in Afghanistan during the insurgency, Barnes is grievously injured in an IED strike, leading to the …

*This article was originally published inVolume 12 of the AAJ in May, 1950113 In time of peace no nation, with the possible exception of Russia, can afford to maintain at full strength the armed services required for the conduct of a war of the first magnitude. The most that can be done is to maintain an organization which does not impose an unsupportable strain on the national economy and which, at the same time can be expanded rapidly when war becomes imminent. So far as the Army is concerned the …

NB: This article originally appeared on The Forge on 29 January 2021. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission. Slowly and progressively over the last decade, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has become less religious. Although religion, particularly Christianity, is a part of many military customs and traditions and was once a routine part of ship and barracks life, the connection that Defence members have to any faith has decreased to a level where the majority of officers, sailors, soldiers …

Introduction To take the King’s hard bargain is a ‘traditional description for the rendering of military service to the Crown, made inaccurate in modern times only by the gender of the current Sovereign’. 1 This bargain’s hardness is multifaceted. It denotes that military service involves a unilateral agreement—that the member gives everything and expects nothing. It further represents that one takes an oath to serve within the profession of arms, whose raison d’être of warfighting is best highlighted …

Abstract Australia is a middle power that must find ways to ‘deter without escalation’; however, we are not yet able to offer military options in pursuit of this objective. How does Army tie into the joint force and our regional geography, remaining grounded in formation tactics while becoming an integral part of a ‘joint federated targeting system’? More simply: how can we become as dangerous and survivable as possible? This article suggests a force design that offers a radically different set of …

Introduction The use of nuclear weapons during the Second World War heralded a new era in warfare. The battlefield of the future was envisaged by military planners to be one that included tactical nuclear weapons and thus required a new type of infantry structure. To accommodate these tactical changes, and the desire of the federal administration to reduce troop numbers, the US Army developed the five-sided pentomic divisional structure. The new structure, introduced in the early 1950s, was to have …

Abstract This article describes our approach to developing and employing concepts to guide innovation efforts and investment for future dismounted combat teams, including a discussion of two possible future concepts. Our approach is underpinned by the philosophy that innovation should be guided by clear, conceptual aiming points in order to achieve step change in combined arms capability. We suggest this requires concepts to provide sufficient detail for a tactical setting, link to strategic guidance, and …

Abstract The informal, part-time military formations of the Australian Militia between 1930 and 1945 are an understudied aspect of military history. Part of the Australian Military Forces (AMF) (the predecessor to the Australian Army), the Militia never achieved its key founding objective: to be a sufficient force for defending territorial Australia. Official and academic accounts of the organisation are largely critical, depicting it as a victim of poor government planning and cost-cutting. However, these …

Vietnam Vanguard: The 5 th Battalion’s Approach to Counter-Insurgency, 1966   Edited by: Ron Boxall and Robert O’Neill Australian National University Press, 2020, ISBN 9781760463328, 430pp Reviewed by: Major Andrew Maher Vietnam Vanguard is an important work in the documentation of experience, lessons and perspectives from Australia’s experience in the Vietnam War. The book uses a collection of personal narratives, woven together by the editors to provide insight into life in an infantry battalion on …