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Abstract This article has been written to address the poor application of planning processes by junior commanders. Decision-making is explored through the biological functions of the human brain to understand what occurs at the fundamental level of decision. This will demonstrate how junior commanders can harness this knowledge to improve their military decisionmaking. The article explains the importance of both analytical and instinctive processes that occur during decision-making, concluding that …

Abstract This article explores what kind of ‘Swiss Army Knife’ Australia’s future land force should look like in relation to its foundation warfighting capability. This discussion is crucial amid ongoing debates about the ‘Army After Afghanistan’. In one respect, developing a niche specialisation in Army’s skill sets is appealing for the potential monetary, time and other resource-efficiency savings. Yet, given a future operating environment that is generally predicted to be complex, uncertain and varied …

Abstract The Australian Army is on the cusp of its most challenging period since the end of the Vietnam War. Following twelve years of unprecedented operational tempo, Army is steadily shifting towards a ‘peacetime army’. Its training focus has shifted from attaining expertise in counterinsurgency operations towards achieving mastery in combined arms warfare. It has entered a period of fiscal austerity. The future will not be easy. This article will argue that Army can readily, confidently and successfully …

Listed below is a select group of books recently or soon to be published that either contribute to the discussions initiated in the articles in the Australian Army Journal  or on subjects that may be of interest in the near future. Some of these books may be reviewed in forthcoming editions of the Journal. Charles A Kupchan, How Enemies Becomes Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace , Princeton University Press, 2012, ISBN 9780691154381, 442pp, US$24.95 Using historical case studies as evidence Kupchan …

Alan Bishop Stretton (1922–2012) Alan Bishop Stretton (b. 1922 Elwood, Victoria) enlisted in the Australian Army in 1940 and was assigned to the 2nd Cavalry Division. In 1941 he was promoted to lance sergeant, before being discharged from the 2nd Cavalry Division in 1941 and accepted as a staff cadet at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. Following his studies he graduated in December 1943 as a lieutenant, and in July 1944 he joined the 2/9th Battalion, 7th Division. At this the 2/9th Battalion was …

Major General Cedric Maudsley Ingram ‘Sandy’ Pearson AO, DSO, OBE, MC (1918–2012) Major General Cedric Maudsley Ingram ‘Sandy’ Pearson AO, DSO, OBE, MC (24 August 1918 – 7 November 2012). Pearson was born in Sydney and educated at Newington College, where he acquired his distinctive nickname after an eponymous brand of pumice soap popularly known as ‘sand soap’. He entered RMC Duntroon in January 1937, the year in which the college relocated back to Canberra from its enforced move to Sydney during the …

Brad West is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia. His recent publications include Finding Gallipoli: Battlefield Remembrance and the Movement of Australian and Turkish History (2022 Palgrave) and the co-edited collections Militarization and the Global Rise of Paramilitary Culture (2021, Springer) and The New Australian Military Sociology (2024, Berghahn). He is the founding co-Director (with Cate Carter) of the Military Organisation and Culture Studies Group (MOCS), …

Australian Army Journal (AAJ):  Warrant Officer Woods, thank you for taking the time to speak with us as part of the series of interviews we’re conducting with former senior officers and soldiers to learn from the past to inform the future as the Army transitions from operations in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. In order to understand the environment post Vietnam, what was the situation Army faced in the period after the withdrawal? Warrant Officer Woods:  I was a young soldier just after …

As the date of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan approaches, it is timely to identify organisational issues the Army faced post Vietnam, via a series of interviews with former senior officers and soldiers to be published in forthcoming editions of the Australian Army Journal. The intent of the interviews is to learn from the past to inform the future as the Army transitions from operations in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. The first of these interviews is with former Chief of …

Listed below are a select group of books recently or soon to be published that either contribute to the discussions initiated in the articles in the Australian Army Journal  or on subjects that may be of interest in the near future. Some of these books may be reviewed in forthcoming editions of the Journal. Nathan Mullins, Keep Your Head Down , Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011, 347 pp, ISBN 9781742377940, AU$24.99. The war in Afghanistan has been the subject of many first-person narratives offering insights …