The Edge

War-Fighting and the Production of Non-Sense

The 2020 Defence Strategic Update provides a strategic demand signal for Defence to think equally and iteratively across shape, deter and respond. In this context, the notion of warfighting warrants a reconsideration in terms of the dominant position it occupies within the ADF. If this term no longer simply speaks to the activity of fighting a war, what does it actually do, and how does this affect Australia’s current approach to military strategy?

The National Security Thinking of Australia and Singapore

Australia and Singapore have benefited from different “means” for the same “ends” in their national security reasoning to date, but China’s potential to overtake US influence in the Indo-Pacific region challenges both ways of thinking.

Operations in deception: corrupting the sensing grid of the enemy

Fooling the enemy’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) artificial intelligence system will be as critical as refining our own in a live situation. AI is the future, but it has its vulnerabilities.

Countering Robotics and Autonomous Systems through Maritime Area Denial

Muddying the waters acoustically will be equally important as guided munitions when it comes to underwater mine warfare in the new age of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS). Let’s look at both the kinetic and the non-kinetic approaches.

Synchronising Counterinsurgency Ops with Effective Intelligence

All combat operations need real-time, concrete intelligence, but the counterinsurgency operations’ (COINOPS) margin of error runs thinnest. In their fast, multidimensional context, COINOPS demand more comprehensive intelligence at platoon/company levels than conventional warfare does. This article explores the need for tactical unit leaders fighting insurgencies to have more intelligence assets available in the field in order to offer swift analyses to aid decision making in highly fluid environments.