Reading time: 12 minutes
As famed as American commanders like Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur are today, one of the most important is the relatively little-known Joseph Stilwell.
He was one of its leading experts on a country that was to play a pivotal role in the history not just of the war, but of the 20th century: China.
Reading time: 13 minutes
Women have survived and even thrived as part of the machine of war – but are rarely part of military history. Why have their stories been forgotten?
Reading time: 6 minutes
At the age of 43 Cromwell had strapped on his sword for the first time – as a captain of a troop of horses in parliament’s army at the beginning of the English Civil War.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Sheila Sibley enlisted in the Australian Army in 1942 with a vision of becoming a wartime nurse – “an angel of mercy, the wounded man’s guide … the Rose of No-Man’s Land”, in her own words. Many women wanted to “do their bit” during the second world war, and nursing had previously been the only avenue for women to join the military. They had historically been excluded from traditionally masculine roles within the armed forces.
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Reading time: 4 minutes
What defence forces should Australia maintain at a time of strategic uncertainty and rapid technological change? This is the fundamental question currently facing Stephen Smith and Angus Houston, the authors of the defence strategic review. Much has been made of the critical nature of this review and the fact it represents a ‘huge moment in Australian defence history’. Recently, however, I was going through a previous review conducted in similarly uncertain times (although for different reasons) and it was difficult not to be struck by the enduring nature of the key issues at stake.
Reading time: 7 minutes
Questions remain about what stopped the Japanese from invading Australia, and how it was that many of our personnel came home alive and unwounded despite the dreadful conditions they faced.
The answers largely define an achievement of Australia’s World War II generation.
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Reading time: 5 minutes
The initiative in this lengthy, but intermittent war has tilted each way over the decades. In the 1980s, Armenia was the big winner, annexing the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and integrating the so-called Republic of Artsakh into Armenian territory.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Australia built a number of coastal defences to help protect the country from any enemy attack during the second world war. Now, almost 80 years later, some of the physical remnants of those historic facilities lie forgotten and decaying.
These monuments to the nation’s home defence are in desperate need of preservation. While their condition varies greatly, too many have faded into obscurity.
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Reading time: 5 minutes
Notions of ‘protecting country’ have, anecdotally at least, been a key motivation for Indigenous people to participate in Australia’s defence services since World War I. It may well be one reason they have been joining the army reserve’s Regional Force Surveillance Units for the past 30-odd years. The youngest of the three units, 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment, even has as its motto Ducit amor patriae, ‘The love of country guides me’.
Given that it’s been almost three decades since we last considered the defence of Australia’s north, it’s time to think about whether there are new ways to involve Indigenous people in that endeavour.
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Reading time: 7 minutes
Starting around 3,000 years ago, a wave of innovation began to sweep through human societies around the globe. For the next millennium the continued emergence of new technologies had a dramatic effect on the course of human history.
Reading time: 6 minutes
The Onna-Musha played an important role throughout Japan’s history. Yet, their stories are not well known.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The 200th anniversary of his death (1821-2021) renews discussion...
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