There are all sorts of reasons that the Persian Emperor Darius I finally decided he’d had enough and prepared to invade Greece. After all, it was probably just a matter of time before the noisy, …
Articles by: "Nic Stuart"
When the moment finally came, Eric Arthur Blair (or, as he’s better known to history, the author George Orwell) had no doubt. The Eton-educated writer did his duty. He handed a list of 38 names—all, …
I spent September 1984 sleeping in German forests and barnyards. It was Exercise Lionheart and my regiment, the Royal Yeomanry, was providing rear area security for the British Army of the Rhine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the …
It was meant to be merely a rhetorical question. Why, I wondered, do we need a submarine fleet? Before that, like most Australians, I’d just assumed that our government would replace like-for-like. This meant we’d …
Early in the New Year, this government will take what will come to be seen as its single most significant Defence decision. More than anything else, the choice of new submarine will become the issue …
In a recent post on force structure, Peter Layton dramatically highlighted the continuing tension between future capabilities and existing requirements. The problem is, of course, (as Andrew Davies likes to say) that there are a …
In the film Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise’s client Rod Tidwell believes that the only way a team can ever really demonstrate that they value him is to pay him more—leading to the famous ‘show me …
Airpower enthusiasts have always faced three significant difficulties when it comes to converting unbelievers to their cause. Two of these have their antecedents deeply rooted in what occurred during the Second World War; the origin …
Sometimes an aside illuminates the important underlying drivers of issues. At Wednesday’s ASPI–Hewlett-Packard Defence and Security Lunch, retired US Admiral Gary Roughead mused briefly about rebalancing of US forces to the Pacific. Pressed later to …
The loss of any soldier is terrible. When that death is at the hands of one of the very people they had been sent to mentor, the psychological impact is even more telling. Late last …
The first step to victory is always working out the vital ground. Occupy that and you force the enemy to come to you. You’ve already achieved dominance and are halfway on the path to victory. …