Private military companies (PMC) form an increasingly prominent element of military operations. PMC provide a range of services including catering, logistics, administration, training, intelligence, aviation, close personal protection, keypoint security and convoy security. Some PMC also possess the capability to undertake offensive combat operations. Like other Coalition forces engaged in the Global War on Terrorism, the Australian Defence Force is increasingly reliant on PMC for support during …

Army Insights Papers produced by the War Research Centre, as part of the Army Research Papers series, comprise topics of special or immediate interest to the Australian Army and international military community. These are vehicles for offering lessons learned, and providing insights on military strategy, future land operating environments and complex military modernisation. Insights Papers are intended to provide an opportunity for debate, further research and organisational change. Recent operational …

Introduction 2021 is a new year that arrives with antecedents firmly established and continuing to drive the strategic agenda. The AARC 2020 Strategic Assessments held, at their core, a view that the events of 2020 were accelerants of existing domestic and international challenges. The 2019–2020 National Bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic; tensions between US, China and their partners, and many Western nations experiencing social and political division, led the Prime Minister to describe the …

A Note from the Editors Welcome to the second issue of the Future Land Warfare Branch’s Spotlight Brief from the Australian Army Research Centre’s (AARC). This issue has a focus on the region. The Indo-Pacific Region is vitally important. It is not only where we live, but also the place where the Australian Army and its people work cooperatively and collaboratively with our many allies, partners and friends to advance peace and security for all. This will be on display at the forthcoming Chief of Army …

Australian Army Research Centre Spotlight Briefs provide a periodically released curated overview of issues relevant to Australian Landpower. Spotlight Briefs derive solely from available open source material. Inclusion of material in a Spotlight Brief does not imply or reflect Australian Army, Australian Defence Force or Australian Commonwealth Government policy. … Spotlight Brief …

Executive Summary There is a widespread lack of confidence in data concerning the impact of COVID-19, warranting ‘warlike’ government intervention in the economy. Economic problems are creating conditions for nation states to act with ‘hardening’ self-interest. Australia’s forecast economic downturn has now transitioned into recession. Human security costs from the COVID-19 pandemic will influence state fragility and increasingly create the conditions for conflict in our immediate region and across the …

  In times of peace, a nation goes with the Army that it can afford. In times of war, it goes with the Army that it has. The problem arises if it is not ready to scale up as needed. This study examines Australia’s sovereign industrial capability to scale up for war and other critical events such as the Australian bushfires and the COVID-19 global pandemic. Additionally, it determines whether Australia has the potential to leverage its existing capabilities and redirect defence-adjacent capabilities into …

During the latter months of 2019 and the new year of 2020, Australia experienced catastrophic and widespread bushfires. As the situation worsened, the federal government unexpectedly called out the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Reserves to bolster an already significant deployment of ADF regular forces to contribute to a massive interagency and volunteer community response. This deployment was the largest ever peacetime domestic ADF operation in response to a natural disaster. The ADF responding to …

The Australia of 2020 is amid a health and economic crisis that it did not fully anticipate, after a bushfire emergency of such significance that wartime provisions for a military response were required, while witnessing dramatic shifts in the geostrategic environment. The complexity of circumstances defies memory, with events of historic scale and significance. It has been a challenge for the Army, as part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), to respond to this confluence of problems. This is not a …