‘The military that is able to figure it out and… that can weave together the old and new, not just old and new technology but old and new thinking, they will be the ones that win.’ ( Peter Singer ) Inevitable hardening of  military robotics  suggests that development of war munitions won’t be immune to the impact of  mechatronic warfare . Like the almost indestructible  killer robot  immortalised in the popular science-fiction franchise  Terminator , near-future military robots portend to be tenacious and …

Emerging Threats and Opportunities (ETOs) is a regular blog series on the Land Power Forum that collects together blogs, podcasts and articles of interest with the goal of creating discussion on the topic of land power. Understanding the emerging threats and opportunities presented by the operating environment is an important aspect to organisational adaptation. Akin to the Boyd cycle, or OODA loop, continuous observation of the environment can help the organisation orientate-decide-act, and do so in a …

Emerging Threats and Opportunities (ETOs) is a regular blog series on the Land Power Forum that collects together blogs, podcasts and articles of interest with the goal of creating discussion on the topic of land power. Lessons From the Modern War Institute , and continuing with the trend from last week, a summary of the tactical lessons from the Battle of Marawi, articulated by Lieutenant General Pamonag of the Filipino Army. This is a long talk (approximately 90 minutes in total), which explores a host …

Welcome to the Australian Army’s Land Power Forum . The forum, now six years old, exists to sustain a conversation about Army and its future. It is a place for the stakeholders of this future to offer their perspectives, whether they be serving military personnel, civilian officials, academics, members of industry and other partners invested in Army’s growth as an institution. These perspectives may include discussion on topics extending from the theoretical to the immediately practical; from perspectives …

Emily Defina is a Legal Advisor with the International Committee of the Red Cross Australia Mission. … Emily Defina …

Pat Griffiths is a Communications Officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross Australia Mission. … Pat Griffiths …

Cities can be as vulnerable to the effects of conflict as the communities that live within them. After critical infrastructure serving the residents of Aden city in Yemen was damaged by fighting in August 2019, nearly 200,000 people were left without clean drinking water. It took only 72 hours of fighting with heavy weapons to disrupt this critical service that had endured since the start of the Yemeni conflict in 2015. And Aden is only one example within Yemen. Between January and September 2019, the …

Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) RAS can be viewed as the application of software, artificial intelligence and advanced robotics to perform tasks as directed by humans. Simply “ autonomy is the ability of a machine to perform a task without human input. Thus an autonomous system is a machine, whether hardware or software, once activated performs some task or function on its own ”. The term autonomy can be a barrier to understanding as it is, generally, specific to a system or sub-system. Therefore, …

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Major Rebecca J Lacey is the 2021 Chief of Defence Force Fellow. She is a Royal Australian Signals Officer who holds a Bachelor of Economic and a Bachelor of Science from the Australian National University and a Master of Business from the University of New South Wales. She is currently pursuing a Professional Doctorate in Public Management through the University of New South Wales that she hopes will provide a significant contribution to Defence through the effective design, implementation and activation …