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Abstract The Australian Army is facing a shifting operational landscape, where nation state actors are pushing boundaries in cyberspace. Largely the approach by the Australian Army to protect its networks within cyberspace has followed the broader Australian community and government by prioritising information assurance and reacting with defensive actions. This article contends that this approach is not suitable in modern warfare as it essentially cedes the initiative to the enemy and may be missing the …

The war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise … except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these. Fleet Admiral Nimitz 1 Abstract Unrestricted wargames can build confidence, test mental models, and provide a method to create military experiences outside of live exercises and direct combat operations. By pitting an individual or group against …

Abstract Historically, the Australian Army has been precluded from a role in deterrence, but recent documents indicate that the Australian Government no longer wants its Army occupying a strategic backseat when it comes to deterring actions against Australia’s interests. At the same time, integrating mobile long-range, land-based rocket artillery will be inherently complicated, and needs a strategic community of teams to forge these systems into an accepted and credible deterrent. In moving to ‘ride …

Abstract As a Military Self Defence Instructor, I have noted over the last five years a variation in levels of enthusiasm towards this fundamental skill set. Commanders and Physical Training Instructors alike have demonstrated everything from willing acceptance to total indifference. This article aims to generate discussion at all rank levels as to the success or not of Military Self Defence within the Australian Defence Force, to look critically at what has been achieved and, most importantly, propose …

Abstract The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the role a conventional parachute capability can have in modern expeditionary operations. It will argue that a conventional parachute capability is still viable and relevant in the Australian Defence Force, either as a single capability or in support of the amphibious capability, particularly in regard to the force required to undertake modern expeditionary operations. In addition, this article will query the viability of the development of the …

Abstract The recently endorsed and released Adaptive Campaigning  had been cited as ‘fundamental to achieving the Adaptive Army’. The late Colonel John Boyd, USAF, famed for his work on the ‘OODA loop’ also conducted a considerable amount of research on adaptation in times of conflict and peace. This article reviews the lessons that Army could learn from his work. The article also argues that some elements of his work have been corrupted in Adaptive Campaigning,  in particular the new ‘Adaption Cycle’ seen …

  Crumps and Camouflets: Australian Tunnelling Companies on the Western Front ,  Written by: Damien Finlayson,  Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2010, ISBN 9780980658255, 480 pp   Reviewed by: Michael Molkentin In Australia during the two decades following the Great War, publication of ‘unit’ or ‘regimental’ histories was prolific. Typically written by battalion associations or ex-unit members possessing a literary flair, the genre was encouraged by funding from the Australian National Defence League and the …

  Anzac Fury: The Bloody Battle of Crete 1941 , Written by: Peter Thompson,  William Heinemann, Sydney, 2010, ISBN 9781741669206, 506 pp   Reviewed by: Eleanor Hancock, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales@ADFA The battle of Crete remains contested in historical studies of the Second World War. Was the German decision to wrest the island off the Allies a mistake? Was the German victory a pyrrhic victory as many have claimed? Did mistakes by the Allied defenders lose the …

  The Road to Singapore: The Myth of British Betrayal , Written by: Augustine Meaher IV, Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9781921509957, 243 pp, RRP AU$39.95   Reviewed by: John Connor Sometimes it takes an outsider to provide a clear-eyed interpretation of a controversial event in a nation’s history. In this book, Augustine Meaher IV—who, as his name suggests, is a larger-than-life military historian from Mobile, Alabama in America’s Deep South—provides a compelling analysis of why …

  The Media at War , Written by: Susan L Carruthers, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, ISBN 9780230244573, 329 pp   Reviewed by: Cynthia Banham Susan Carruthers wrote the first edition of The Media at War in 2000—before 11 September 2001, the war on terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before the advent of ‘new media’. Yet if one thing is clear from reading the updated version of her book, published eleven years later, it is that when it comes to the reporting of war, little if anything …