Lessons from the National Service Scheme, 1965–1972 … 'The Army is Too Small' …

[ Editorial note : This speech has been edited for clarity.] [ZACH LAMBERT]: My name is Major Zach Lambert. I am here today to talk on mobilisation. I’ve done a fair amount of academic studies on this topic, most recently a Fulbright Fellowship in the United States where I looked into mobilisation in detail. I have a fairly significant operational background and previously I was in the divisional staff as a joint logistics planner. With me today, I have Major David Caligari. [DAVID CALIGARI]: Good …

To Win Without Fighting   by James A Siebens (ed.) New York: Routledge, Asian Security Series, 2024, 286 pp. Hardcover ISBN 9781032481838 eBook ISBN 9781003387770 Reviewed by:  Gregory Raymond Security in the Indo-Pacific region is rarely discussed without mention of China. Its military spending, expanding naval capabilities, investment in new technologies and assertiveness in the maritime domain guarantee its continued attention from journalists, policymakers and security studies scholars. So what might …

Combat Units in the US, British, and German Infantries of World War II   by G Stephen Lauer Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2022, 463 pp. Hardcover ISBN 978-1626379589 Reviewed by:  Anthony Duus In keeping with the theme of this edition of the AAJ, it is prudent to examine how the Australian Army selects, trains and sustains forces for employment. This book investigates how nations raised infantry forces up to and through the Second World War, and explores the popular [1] (or unpopular depending upon your …

The Battle to Recapture Lae from the Japanese, 1943    by Ian Howie-Willis Big Sky Publishing, 2023, 480 pp. ISBN 9781922896148 Reviewed by:  Tom Richardson   In September 1943, Allied forces seized the town of Lae on the northern New Guinea coast in an operation codenamed POSTERN. On 4 September, the 9th Australian Division went ashore east of Lae to little immediate Japanese resistance and began advancing towards their objective. The next day, the US 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment seized the airfield …

Urban Warfare on the Eastern Front    by Anthony Tucker-Jones Pen and Sword, Barnsley, 2023 Hardcover ISBN 978 1 39907 200 7 Reviewed by:  Charles Knight   Anthony Tucker-Jones’s Battle of the Cities : Urban Warfare on the Eastern Front provides a thorough overview of operational-level urban warfare on the Eastern Front, structured around 20 significant urban engagements. It presents as being dense and well researched, and for each battle it provides not only context and conduct, but great detail about …

The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March– October 1943   by Jeffrey R Cox  Osprey Publishing, 2023, 528 pp. Hardback ISBN 9781472849892 EBook PDF ISBN 9781472849854 EPub & Mobi ISBN 9781472849885 Reviewed by:  Felicity Petrie Dark Waters, Starry Skies is the fourth in a series of books by lawyer and historian Jeffrey R Cox that follows the Second World War Pacific campaign. This volume specifically covers the Guadalcanal campaign over the period March to October 1943, when the Allies began to turn the tide …

A Struggle to Prevail    by David H Ucko Hurst & Collins, 2022, 464 pp. ISBN 9781787385658 Reviewed by:  Travis Peet   The overwhelming narrative to emerge from the 20-year ‘War on Terror’ is the impotence of the counterinsurgent. The vision of desperate Afghans fleeing Kabul in 2021 seemed to confirm the inability of governments to translate great military power into victory, and the perception of the success of insurgents was further reinforced by never-ending cycles of violence in the Middle East. …

American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima   by Chris K Hemler Naval Institute Press, 2023, 229 pp. ISBN 9781682471340 REVIEWED BY:  John Nash   Many books on World War II in the Pacific focus on either land, air or naval forces, especially when examining the battles of the US Marine Corps (USMC). Chris K Hemler’s book Delivering Destruction explores four key campaigns of the Pacific War through the lens of ‘triphibious’ warfare: the land, air and sea components of these campaigns. …

The Pacific War, 1937-1945   by John T Kuehn Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2023, 220 pp. ISBN 9781682477656 Reviewed by:  Dayton McCarthy   The 19th century German polymath Rudolf Virchow wrote that ‘brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal’. If this aphorism is correct—and I suspect that most military officers would support such a belief—then John T Kuehn’s Strategy in Crisis has done its best to ensure it has wide appeal among its prospective readership. Although not explicitly …