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.

International Law: A Primer for Military Readers

International law is a topic which confounds most lawyers, let alone members of the general public or military personnel. Despite so much of it having been incorporated into the US Army’s DNA through the law of land warfare, the foundational premise of international law is so poorly understood that it tends to fall into the category of something soldiers have to learn about and comply with, but none really understand.

Working With Civvies – the Integrated Workplace

There are so many public servants working for Defence that it is important to know how to work with them.

‘Department of Defence analysis, produced last year and seen by The Mandarin, raises concerns that cultural differences between navy, army, air force and Defence public service can be a structural source of workplace bullying, mistreatment of women and other unacceptable behaviour.’^[1]

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.

Climate and Australia’s National Security

Climate change matters to Defence and has a direct effect on warfighting. Inaction threatens to undermine Defence’s contribution to Pacific Step-Up initiatives and puts us at a competitive disadvantage in developing regional influence and power projection.

Break in the Chain - Intelligence Ignored Launching of the Easter Offensive of 1972

As publishers and historians have now pushed the Vietnam War into a few paragraphs in a Cold War section of United States and world histories, the events contained in most discussions of the war usually ignore the Easter Offensive of 1972. If mentioned at all, it often centres on the Paris Peace Talks and Operation Linebacker but not on why and how it occurred nor the NVA^[1] and VC massacres of their own people.

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.

Counterpropaganda is Not a Dirty Word

Democracies need to shed the ethical baggage associated with counterpropaganda and harness the integrity of their institutions to engage in positive information offensives in a hyper connected age.

The US’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 remoulded the global geopolitical terrain in ways the strategic punditry is still grappling with. The international media was awash with the scenes of the mujahideen confidently posing for the cameras as they occupied the complexes of Kandahar, peering straight into the West’s bone-weary democratic soul.

Privatisation and the Pitfalls of ADF Expansion

If the ADF is to retain its best people as well as drive recruitment, it needs to match the attractions of private enterprise and not submit to an erosion of its core purpose.

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.