The Edge

Net Assessment: Enhancing Strategic Decision-Making by Senior Defence Leaders

In an interconnected world, Australia is influenced by various strategic competition pathways. To comprehend this complex landscape and the motives of different actors, a new approach is needed. The 2023 Defence Strategic Review suggests adopting net assessment, enabling a better understanding of the circumstances Australia faces. This practice will aid in developing a long-term defense strategy, generating capabilities, and aligning military power with other national instruments to achieve government objectives. Implementing net assessment will enhance decision-making among senior Defense leaders and support national strategy implementation.

Thinking Strategically - Reflections

The Australian Government is very active on many fronts, including Defence.^[1] The relatively recent realisation that the world is heading to a great geostrategic reset^[2], leading to a new world order, has raised the anxiety of politicians, agriculturalists, miners, industrialists and the military.^[3] Both the transition and the new geostrategic state are potentially inimical to Australia’s interests and sovereignty, making the work of ‘thinking strategically’ ur

Forget the 4 Cs, Use Motivation as the Cornerstone for Successful Learning in the ADF

Within the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the four C’s – critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication – are viewed as the cornerstone for successful learning. However, education philosophers and theorists – from the Dewey era to more a contemporary 21^st Century (Pratt et. al 2022) – have all agreed that for successful learning to occur, the fundamental pillar of motivation needs to be the foundation from which all other educational constructs spring forth.

Enter, the Contemporary Australian Warrant Officer

The specialist skills of Warrant Officers have traditionally made them indispensable across the Services, but is this rank and role in a state of emergence? Could there be even more value in this cohort as modern conflicts emerge in brand new domains?

Online Learning: No Going Back

Having discovered the benefits of online learning when the pandemic gave us no choice, we should embrace it as a valuable addition to our education tools.

Information – the Missing Member of the Military Power Quartet - Part Two

Part Two

This is part two of Information - the Missing Member of the Military Power Quartet. In this part the author examines each member of the Military Power Quartet and the effects the use, or misuse, that each element has had against the backdrop of the Ukranian conflict. 

Information – the Missing Member of the Military Power Quartet - Part One

In his forward to the new capstone doctrine, Australian Military Power^[1], CDF General Campbell highlights ‘to fight and win, the ADF must fight as a cohesive force and with a clear understanding of how military power supports national power’.^[2] The doctrine attempts to distil the complex system of systems that comprise the Defence enterprise.

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.

Book Review: Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World, by Miroslav Volf

The influence of religion at its worst on violence, and its best on peacemaking, is relevant to military leaders today.

Book Review: Stopping Military Suicides, by Kate Hendricks Thomas and Sarah Plummer Taylor

Veteran suicides number 500 in Australia over the last two decades, overshadowing 41 combat deaths. This is the context of the urgent need for the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. Statistics suggest the scale of the issue but it gets starkly personal when we know or have supported someone who has taken their own life or thought about it.  

Book review: Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War, by Joan Beaumont

My fascination with the Great War, as for other amateur genealogists, begins with the involvement of my relatives. My wife’s paternal grandfather Edward Funston served on the Western Front and suffered trench feet, as well as his brother Hubert Funston who was shot beside him. Her maternal great grandfather Thomas William Austin also served, and survived the war but disappeared. On my father’s side, Fred Petty arrived on the Western Front in December 1917 and was killed by a German shell in March 1918.

Indonesia and China: Geostrategic Implications for the ADF

As security tensions heighten in the Indo-Pacific, Australia is well placed to strengthen its relationship with Indonesia by stepping up military cooperation to jointly address China's growing influence in our region.