At midnight on 27 February 1942, 119 men of C Company of the British 2nd Parachute Battalion and one Royal Air Force technician parachuted into occupied France near the small coastal town of Bruneval under …
Articles by: "Andrew Davies"
The Great Man theory of history, which posits that history is shaped mainly by hugely influential and singular individuals, was once the primary form of historical writing. It has largely fallen out of favour in …
There have been a great many books written about the 6 June 1944 invasion of Normandy by allied forces. Sir Max Hastings made a fine contribution to the literature on the subject in 1984 with …
As the title implies, Iain MacGregor’s The Hiroshima Men is a people-centric history of the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945. In my view it’s only partially successful in that aim. In telling the stories …
For most of the past decade, Australia’s six Collins class submarines have provided the nation with a fine underwater warfare capability. Designed to meet operational requirements beyond the capabilities of other conventional submarines, the government …
Over the course of the past week we saw a faction within the American polity exhibit collective panic about a Chinese balloon that floated across the US. Whatever the nature of the balloon, the fears …
Just for a change, there’s a bit of heat around discussions of the future of armour and surface ships. I thought ASPI analyst William Leben’s recent Strategist piece was a good one in its attempt …
At an ASPI conference a few years ago, I remarked that I thought that major surface combatants had been obsolete for many decades, and that the only reason we hadn’t noticed was that there hadn’t …
I’ll admit to being surprised when Australia announced the termination of the deal with Naval Group to build the Attack-class submarines. Not because I thought that shouldn’t happen—I’m on the record as saying that it …
The Battle of Britain was the attempt by Hitler’s Luftwaffe in August and September 1940 to neutralise the island nation’s air defences. The aim was to achieve German air superiority over the English Channel and …
Once again there’s a lively debate on the merits of having tanks (and armoured vehicles generally) in the inventory of the Australian Army. And once again both sides are simultaneously right and wrong. In fact, …
I was pleased to become involved when ASPI was asked to run a workshop on secure communication technologies late last year. It’s been a long time since I was in the world of signals intelligence …