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Abstract This article analyses Australia’s readiness to manage a complex cyber- catastrophe. It contains an analysis of both military and civilian publicly available documentation pertinent to Australia’s cyber capability and disaster resilience. The findings suggest that Australia is ill-prepared to respond adequately to the kind of complex cyber-attack that may trigger cascading consequences. This article seeks to evaluate the scope of Australian documents in the public domain that address cyber-security …

Abstract The mission-oriented performance of digital systems under attack requires an understanding of threat, vulnerabilities and impacts. Australian Army systems are likely to face credible adversaries in the future, capable of attacking digital supply chain systems and degrading the resilience of the overall force. The reality of this future requires capability development efforts now to create a force able to resist cyber-attack on the Defence supply chain and in support of deployed combat forces. The …

‘The problem has never been that the issues relevant to logistics transformation have remained unknown. Rather the problem has been the manner and means by which change is implemented.’ - Lieutenant Colonel David Beaumont Abstract The key to a strong military organisation lies not only in its combat power, but also in its ability to generate logistic and battlefield intelligence, and effectively use it to make timely decisions. In the event of a war, soldiers with different equipment, vehicles, and …

Abstract The Australian Army has lagged behind the best armies in the world when it comes to the uptake of cyber-technology. This paper aims to fill a gap in the discussion on the topic by examining why this is the case, in the context of organisational culture and the dilemmas of emerging technologies throughout history. Militaries, as a subset of organisational cultures, carry a unique set of considerations and attitudes towards innovation, born from the nature of their duties. Where there are no …

Abstract Several high profile cyber-attacks have suggested that cyber-weapons are as important a force multiplier today as airpower was in 1939. This concept requires further analysis to place the utility of cyber-weapons in context, particularly within the tactical level of conflict. To determine the potential uses of cyber-weapons, this paper examines the recent evidence of cyber- operations in conflict and extrapolates potential utility within a conventional military scenario. From this analysis, the …

The Indo-Pacific Doesn’t Exist Dinner Address by Prof Allan Gyngell President - Australian Institute of International Affairs. ‘It’s a great pleasure to be here and an honour to have been invited to deliver these remarks. I suspect that I am an outlier in this room, though. ‘Although I have spent a lot of my professional life happily hanging around with strategic analysts and military and defence types, my background, and what expertise I have, lies in foreign policy. If, as Von Clausewitz says, war is the …

Closing Address Major General Justin ‘Jake’ Ellwood, DSC Deputy Chief of Army ‘Distinguished guests, delegates, colleagues and friends—I think I can say friends now because I think the last couple of days we’ve actually made a number of really good connections at this seminar and Land Forces in general. ‘So good morning. ‘Today I’ve been given the very daunting task of summarising the outcomes and insights of CALFS. It’s daunting because of the amazing speeches and contributions of all participants, but in …

General Robert B Brown Commanding General, United States Army Pacific Every generation thinks their time is the most complex in history, but it is hard to argue that it has ever been as complex as we find the global environment today, and in the Indo-Pacific region in particular. That complexity is changing the very character of warfare. When I was coming up through the ranks, the ‘fog of war’ was not enough information. This uncertainty was best mitigated through initiative—‘do something’. Now, what is …

Professor Genevieve Bell Distinguished Professor, Florence Violet McKenzie Chair Director, Autonomy, Agency & Assurance, Australian National University ‘Well, so the good news is you were primed for divergent thinking. The bad news is I’m your divergent thinker. So listen, it is my incredible pleasure and privilege to get to be here. Unlike the previous professor I find this a slightly more daunting experience. There’s no nostalgia for me being in a room full of uniforms, mostly just a bit of fear; I fear …

Professor You Ji Head of Department of Government, University of Macau The Indo-Pacific (Indo-Pacific) idea has been around for over a decade. Professor Rory Medcalf raised it as a policy suggestion years ago but the concept remained only academic. 1 Japanese Prime Minister Abe enriched the concept with a component of democratic arch but it was more visionary than substantial as the countries placed their concerns of national interests above the ideational preferences. It was not until President Trump …