Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific   by Trent Hone Naval Institute Press , 2022, 430 pp Hardcover ISBN: 9781682475959 Reviewed by: Jordan Beavis   In Mastering the Art of Command,  noted US naval historian Trent Hone investigates the leadership of Admiral Chester W Nimitz as Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and Commander in Chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA) during the Second World War. Both as a personality and as a fleet commander, Nimitz has already been the …

Business Decision-Making and Crisis Planning   by Garth Callender Wiley , 2023, xxiv+186 pp Paperback ISBN: 97813942033201 Reviewed by: Darren Cronshaw   Uncertainties and crises are a feature of contemporary global politics and business. In the face of conflict, extreme weather and natural disasters, cybercrime, pandemics, migration, and economic and supply chain instability, in what ways can leaders best lead through risk and chaos with agility and good decisions, while maintaining resilience for …

The Complete Story of the French Participation in the Dardanelles Expedition of 1915   by George H Cassar Helion , Warwick, 2019, 238 pp Hardback ISBN: 9781911628927 Reviewed by: Chris Roberts   Over a century after the last British troops were withdrawn from Gallipoli, volumes are still being written about a campaign that has been likened to a Greek tragedy. Within the historiography of the English-speaking peoples, the focus inevitably has been almost entirely on the British and Anzac contribution. Yet …

  by John D Hosler Hackett Publishing Company , 2022, 185 pp Paperback ISBN: 97813942033201 Reviewed by: John Nash   Military historians and theorists are often confronted by frustrating historical myths. Sometimes these are quite specific (e.g. a battle, historical figure, or piece of equipment), whereas sometimes they are historical constructs or historical arguments that have gained a life of their own and that come to bedevil the wider scholarship of war and military studies. The collection of chapters …

The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) was a call for action, which bluntly stated 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’. [1] Yet the DSR offers little insight into the nature of the competition that is being advanced by regimes such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and others. Terms such as ‘grey zone’, ‘irregular warfare’ and ‘proxy warfare’ simply do not appear in the DSR, even though …

Dr Andrew Maher is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. He has been a postgraduate lecturer on irregular warfare and special operations for over five years and has specialised on the analysis of proxy warfare. His forthcoming book Riding Tigers: The Strategic Logic of Proxy Warfare (2025) will explore the nature of strategic competition over the past 400 years. Dr Maher has also taught with Arizona State University, Joint Special Operations University and NATO Special …

Dr Gregory MacCallion is a Senior Managing Consultant for OCRT. He has a career that spans Australian academia and public service in the Department of Defence. Gregory contributed to Defence’s first deterrence polices, the 2020 Force Structure Plan, and the 2022 ADF Theatre Operating Concept. In 2019 he published his book National versus Human Security: Australian and Canadian Military Interventions . Gregory has contributed to numerous book chapters and journal articles, and presented at international …

Ms Courtney Stewart is a Senior Managing Consultant at OCRT with over 20 years of national security experience in government, industry, and think tanks. She previously served as the US Department of Defense Policy Exchange Officer to the Australian Department of Defence. In the Pentagon she worked in the offices of Nuclear and Missile Defense, East Asia, and Nuclear Matters, and on the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. In 2013 Courtney was the lead author and negotiator of the US–Republic of Korea Tailored …

Dr Andrew Frain completed his PhD in social psychology at the Australian National University. His research interests centre on the social identity approach and science integrity, with particular interest in research translation. Andrew has worked in the Australian Department of Defence Directorate of People Intelligence and Research, and was the convenor of the Australian War College ACSC Leadership Theory module from 2016 to 2022. Andrew would typify one of Michael Billig’s ‘antiquarian psychologists’, …

Nick Jans’s career began conventionally enough, with the Royal Military College (Duntroon) followed by regimental service in Vietnam. But after that it was distinctively unconventional, as he rotated between internal consultancy, research and policy roles, all guided by the longstanding principle that ‘There is nothing as practical as a good theory’. After 25 years of regular service, he then spent nearly as long in the Reserves. In the meantime, after a few years at the University of Canberra, he moved to …