John P. Kotter , the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School, argues that successful transformation requires time to succeed, usually measured in years. Kotter emphasises that successfully transformation includes eight distinct stages, worked through in sequence. [i] The success of any given stage of transformation depends on the work done in previous stages. A critical mistake, or skipping a step, in any of the stages, can have a devastating impact. Kotter …

2022 AARC Short Thoughts Competition Australia’s strategic environment is complex, increasingly contested, and rapidly evolving. Major power competition, militarisation, disruptive technological change and new threats pose challenges to Australia’s national security. These developments test Army’s capacity to generate highly trained, disciplined and fit tactical units; preserve its capacity to operate within the joint force; while simultaneously delivering Army forces in support of the national interest …

As the Australian Army contemplates the transformation of land power, one area that is worthy of focused effort is the development of a deep battle concept. [1] Currently, Army lacks a unified concept for how it intends to employ its incoming deep-ranging platforms to achieve advantage in depth. To remedy this, Army must expand its concept of land power to include methods of credibly competing in areas of the battlespace beyond the influence of its close combat formations. To create a deep battle concept, …

Close Air Support with Unmanned Combat Aerial Systems “ Strategy sometimes matters a lot. ” John Mearsheimer Introduction The 2020 Defence Strategic Update (DSU), the most recent articulation of Australian military strategy, describes the objectives to shape, deter and respond as the centrepiece of the Australian defence strategy. [1]   The strategic situation has worsened since the DSU’s release with war in Ukraine, and increasing Chinese belligerence, increasing the requirement for a credible ability to …

Reimagining land warfare through technology Robotic and Autonomous Systems represent the potential future of land warfare where militaries can effectively strike their opponents while removing humans from the conflict zone. Looking back at his experiences leading up to the Second World War, in The Gathering Storm Winston Churchill quipped that, “the War Office is always preparing for the last war.” Churchill was chiding the tendency of military planners not to appreciate the potential of new technologies …

Army is transitioning to a more mechanised, mobile and protected force structure. Amid billion-dollar materiel investment, the 2016 Ryan Review, [1] a subsequent professional military education (PME) strategy [2] and its accompanying CA Directive 22/17 [3] determined that the most pressing transformation that needs to occur in Australian land power is intellectual. Since then, a range of meaningful initiatives and contributions have made PME more accessible and prevalent in the Army training landscape. One …

Flight Lieutenant Daniel P Baxter is a current Jericho Fellowship Scholar. Daniel is an Electronics Engineer (Networks), resident at the University of New South Wales as a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science. He received his B.Eng in Electrical Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Canberra (2017). His current research focus is explainable artificial intelligence for human-swarm teaming, neural machine translation, and real-time reasoning for action production for intelligent swarm …

Mr Joshua C Keene is a Machine Learning Researcher at 12th Level and formerly an Operations Research Analyst at the Defence Science and Technology Group, specialising in joint force modelling and simulation. Josh received his BE (Hons) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Queensland (2020). His current research at 12th Level is focused on merging classical optimisation, machine learning, and quantum computation techniques to solve complex problems. More broadly, Josh is interested …

Squadron Leader Kate J Yaxley is the 2021 Sir Richard Williams Scholar, 2021 Australia-New Zealand Women in AI in Defence award winner, and an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, where she is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering. Kate is an Electronics Engineer (Aviation), specialising in electromagnetic warfare. Kate received her M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology (2015) and B.Eng in Electrical Engineering from the University of New South …

John Brennan has served in a range of regimental and instructional postings across the Army Reserve, and commanded a reserve infantry battalion in 2006-7. He has held a range of appointments as a colonel, including a senior UN role in Africa. John holds a number of post-graduate qualifications, and has worked in industry, public service and the police. … John …