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This article reflects a vibrant and ongoing professional debate within the Army’s combat arms, particularly the infantry corps, about appropriate tactics for the close battle in complex terrain. In particular, this essay’s content updates and expands material in a previous article entitled, ‘Rethinking The Basis of Infantry Close Combat’, published in the June 2003 issue of the Australian Army Journal , which suggested that we should attempt to refine our tactical thinking about dismounted close combat. 1 …

* This article is based on a paper delivered in the Deputy Chief of Army’s Occasional Seminar series in Canberra on 2 April 2003. In some ways I feel like an impostor addressing a military audience because I have been warned that the only people whom the armed services take seriously are those with a long line of ancestors who have demonstrated distinguished military service. I can trace my ancestors back on my mother’s side to Charles II, but I am afraid that it is a line that is rather lacking in …

* This article is based on a presentation by Major General Lewis to the United Service Institution of the ACT on 12 November 2003 at the Spender Theatre, Australian Defence College, Weston Creek. Special operations have now become central to the conduct of joint operations in many advanced Western armed forces. However, this was not always the case, and in the past there was frequent disagreement on the resource requirements between Special Forces and their conventional counterparts. When I joined the …

* This article is based on a presentation by Major General Lewis to the Homeland Security Forum on 29 April 2003 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. The task of counter-terrorism has sometimes been compared to that of goal keeping in a soccer World Cup final. The keeper may save a hundred shots—relentlessly angled from every direction, height and velocity—aimed at the mouth of the goal, but his professional skill, tenacity and anticipation will pass largely unnoticed by spectators. What the …

In late 2002, the Australian National Headquarters Middle East Area of Operations attached the author as an ADF liaison officer to Third US Army’s Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) to support campaign planning for what was to become Operation Iraqi Freedom . The author was embedded (integrated) in CFLCC as a lead planner and this article describes ten observations made during the experience of working in a coalition headquarters. The views outlined are not offered as formal solutions to the …

* This article is based on an address to the Australian Defence Organisation’s Network-centric Warfare Conference in May 2003, in the immediate aftermath of the warfighting phase of Coalition operations in Iraq. The brevity, violence and spectacular speed of the second Iraq War demonstrated that armed conflict in the information age is likely to coexist with older aspects of industrial and even pre-industrial warfare. Kinetic effect—that is, the collective impact of blast, heat and penetration from the …

* This article is based on an address to the Socratic Forum on ‘Pre-emptive Wars: Legal? Ethical? In the National Interest?’ supported by the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University, Brisbane, on 1 December 2003. The American doctrine of pre-emptive military action, outlined by President George W. Bush during 2002, is a realistic and morally justified response to dangerous, new security challenges in the 21st century. This article identifies two basic reasons for the rise of …

* The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Dr Alden Klovdahl, School of Social Science, Australian National University, and Dr Carlo Kopp, School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monash University in developing the ideas in this paper. In the 21st century, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) cannot afford to ignore the role that mimicry will play in contemporary conflict, particularly in unconventional or asymmetric warfare. This article argues that the Australian Army needs to …

Living by the Sword? The Ethics of Armed Intervention   Written by: Tom Frame, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004,  ISBN: 9780868405193, 278pp. Reviewed by: Christian Enemark, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus admonished his disciple Peter: ‘All who live by the sword will die by the sword’. For centuries, theologians have debated what Jesus really meant by this statement in order to determine the moral status of those who engage in armed …

Globalisation and the New Terror: The Asia Pacific Dimension   Written by: David Martin Jones (ed.),  Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK,2004,  ISBN: 9781845427771, xv + 316pp. Reviewed by: Michael Evans, Head of the Land Warfare Studies Centre and coeditor of the AAJ. The study of terrorism is a field that often lends itself to sensationalism and instant books based on breathless narrative and journalistic impression. None of these features characterises Globalisation and the New Terror . On the contrary, the …