Category: Military History

How the Great War shaped the foundations of Australia’s future

Reading time: 9 minutes
It is striking that 2015 is the 110th anniversary of the Gallipoli offensive, the 80th anniversary of end of the Second World War in the Pacific, and the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. This is a good time to reflect not only on the actions of those wars, but on their consequences and their enduring legacies.

Read More

Rome’s Greatest Technological Developments

Reading time: 7 minutes
Rome.
The capital city of modern day Italy, and one of the most famous, successful and longest-lasting empires to ever exist on planet Earth.
The Romans, both in the eras of the Roman Republic and the Empire, had a knack for stealing, adapting, and improving upon technologies, tactics, and ideas they encountered from other cultures – often those they fought, ranging from the Etruscans to the Greeks and Persians.

Read More

The sources of Russian conduct

Reading time: 14 minutes

This essay examines the sources of Russian power and conduct from an historical, cultural and geopolitical perspective. It aims to help assessment of Russia’s future behaviour. My approach is based on the essay The Sources of Soviet Conduct written by the famous US State Department diplomat and leading Russian expert George Kennan (under the pseudonym ‘X’) in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947. Kennan was struggling to get Washington to understand the threat from the Soviet Union so soon after the end of World War II, when the USSR had been an ally of the United States.

Read More

Adventurous identities: intersex soldiers and cross-dressing women at war

Reading time: 4 minutes
Pulaski is a hero of the struggles for Polish and American independence. He is credited with saving George Washington’s life in battle and with establishing the first American cavalry force. According to the documentary, DNA testing has confirmed a female-appearing skeleton is indeed Pulaski’s. This new evidence is the first hint that Pulaski – who seems to have lived as male from childhood – was anything other than a cisgendered man.

Read More
Loading