Executive Summary Respite periods in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) have historically been subject to a range of single-service policies. While these have been recently consolidated into a single policy, there remains scope for improvement. As it stands, there is uncertainty around whether the time period designated by the ADF respite policy is enough or too much, the extent to which it should be enforceable, and its applicability to different types of operational deployments. Further, the current …

Implications for the Australian Army Introduction Armed forces are often required to maintain a forward presence beyond national territory, in support of national interests. The Cold War saw large-scale permanent deployments in defence of allies in Europe and in Asia by the United States, the United Kingdom and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. In the last decade, the United States began new permanent or near-permanent rotational presences in Darwin and, with its NATO allies, in …

Negotiating the 2023 Defence Strategic Review Introduction On 24 April 2023 the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and the Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, announced the release of the government’s much anticipated ‘ National Defence: Defence Strategic Review ’ (DSR), the unclassified version. The government had initiated the review the previous August, appointing a former Chief of Defence Force, Sir Angus Houston, and a former Minster for Defence, Stephen Smith, to lead its preparation. …

Executive Summary The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has a long history of defence international engagement in places as diverse as Fiji, Uganda and Vietnam. Most of this is routine, but some occurs on operations where it can be a critical factor in achieving strategic objectives. Fiji is a useful case study to review international and operational engagement practices. Routine international engagement was a key component of the broader bilateral relationship with Fiji prior to the 2006 Coup. This was …

Understanding the Risk of Mass Atrocities in a Changing Global and Regional Context   Introduction Global geostrategic trends directly impact Australian foreign and defence policy in a variety of ways. For a nation such as Australia, which prioritises defence of the rules-based international order, there are few violations more egregious to confront than genocide and mass atrocities. Nevertheless, genocide has killed at least 84 million civilians worldwide since 1900. Genocide and mass atrocities are not …

  Introduction This reading list comprises notable works on littoral manoeuvre. It is by no means exhaustive, nor is it prescriptive. Reading lists are often a fraught endeavour: there are countless books, articles, reports, blogs, and podcasts concerned with any topic one might choose to study. As such, it is often better to present a selection of works with the caveat that what follows is a guideline on some of the most notable literature on the topic, in this case, ‘littoral manoeuvre’. The following …

  A Plan B: How Might Australia Support Resistance? The  Defence Strategic Review (DSR) was a call for action which stated bluntly that we have seen ‘the return of major power strategic competition, the intensity of which should be seen as the defining feature of our region and time’.  Examining the ‘state of competition’ globally might also help explain what it is we are competing for. Given the march of autocratic governance regimes within the international world order – regimes that use tools such as …

Matthew Krupczak is the founder of Theta Informatics and the creator of its OpenAthena software which enables terrain-raycast localization by commercial off-the-shelf drones. He is a computer science graduate from Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. His studies focused on systems programming and artificial intelligence. His natural curiosity and experimentation on numerous software projects have led to his experience in UAS, geodesy, and machine learning. He is interested in how these concepts apply to …

  Introduction The Ukraine war has thrust small drones into the spotlight as an integral component of contemporary combined arms warfare. Cheap, plentiful, and attritable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) drones (sometimes referred to as ‘wedding drones’ with equal parts respect and derision) [i] have proven their utility for military roles such as dropping explosive ordnance onto targets and performing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) activities. [ii] Both of these capability effects …

  Biological Swarms The concept of swarms originates in nature, often referred to as biological systems or natural swarms. [1] Swarm intelligence (SI) research originally pertained to studying the self-organised behaviours of social insects. [2] An example of the SI demonstrated by social insects is provided in a 2004 study on ant colonies building networks of galleries which demonstrate path system efficiency. [3] The intelligence that emerges from collective behaviour has been harnessed in robotics …