The Edge

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – Five Lessons for Taiwan

Beijing is closely watching the West’s response to the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine for its own plans regarding the eventual subjugation of the independent country of Taiwan. The West’s desultory response to the crisis has revealed plain vulnerabilities and false assumptions about what the West would likely do in the event of an amphibious invasion or blockade of Taiwan by mainland China.

ADFA Presentation 2019 – General Sir Peter Cosgrove, AK, MC

The Governor-General of Australia, General Sir Peter Cosgrove, AK, MC, addresses ADFA staff and trainees

US Defense Implications of Expanding China

This U.S. DoD report assesses China’s global expansion efforts and the implications for the U.S. in terms of military access, logistics, force posture and training. The report has generated discussion and various assessments can be found online across the national security community.

Thoughts from The Edge

Mick Ryan is the Commander of the Australian Defence College. This column from Ryan and his contributors focusses on intellectually preparing members of the profession of arms for strategic competition and future conflict.

First Principles Review - Creating One Defence

The Review Team were tasked with ensuring that Defence is fit for purpose and is able to deliver against its strategy with the minimum resources necessary. Using a structured framework, the team have conducted an end-to-end holistic review based on the outcomes required of Defence and founded on the first principles agreed by the review team.

17 - 18 Annual Report

This is the Secretary of Defence and Chief of the Defence Force’s performance report to the Minister for Defence, the Parliament of Australia and the Australian public for the 2017–18 financial year. The report addresses the purposes and outcomes of the Department of Defence, including the Australian Defence Force—collectively known as Defence.

2018-19 Defence Corporate Plan

The 2018–19 Defence Corporate Plan sets out Defence’s role, objectives and functions and describes how we will measure our performance in achieving our Purposes. Performance against the Corporate Plan will be reported through annual performance statements, to be included in the Defence Annual Report for 2018–19.

Optimization of Condition-Based Maintenance Using Soft Computing

Due to high costs associated with conventional maintenance strategies, application of soft computing in monitoring the condition of equipment to predict the health of various components of machine tools in manufacturing processes has attracted the attention of researchers.

CDLE Leadership Paper 2 - 2018

The CDLE Leadership Paper 2-2018 is Anne Goyne and the CDLE team addressing issues around negative leadership. The paper is couched in terms of a range of events including the JEDI Council, the ADFA skype incident, the F111 deseal/reseal, the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART) and the associated findings, which relate to many negative experiences of ADF personnel. The paper goes on to explore why the ADF culture has such negative leadership experiences and what to do about it.

Australian Defence Logistics - The Need to Enable and Equip Logistics Transformation

This report aims to highlight to the wider Defence community the challenges faced by Defence Logisticians and the lack of priority that Defence leaders have placed on Logistics in the past. Defence needs to place greater emphasis on the Defence Logistic function if it is to meet the challenges of a more complex and challenging operating environment in the future.

Better Policy for Defence Officials

A series of videos describing how defence officials can better communicate and develop policy with government

Understanding Why a Ground Combat Vehicle That Carries Nine Dismounts Is Important to the Army

The Army has examined the lessons of half a dozen significant conflicts, starting with World War II, has conducted numerous studies over the last 65 years, and has found time and again that an ability to conduct dismounted fire and maneuver is the fundamental squad-level tactic.