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Winner of the WOFF-AF Creative Writing Award, this Blog investigates how Air Force can improve its enlisted aviators opportunities without requiring them to commission.

Professional military education is not just box ticking for promotion—a continuum of air and space power education is required to build professional mastery and maintain professional currency.

When was the last time you were faced with a problem that no one in the history of humankind has ever been able to define a clear solution?

As humans venture further and further into space, we begin to encounter more and more challenges, with increasing levels of complexity. Just as the early explorers ventured past the horizon, we now attempt a similar adventure by reaching deeper and deeper into space. While there may be a myriad of unknown problems waiting ahead of us, we are called upon as professionals to solve the ones immediately ahead of us.

Like all aspects of the ADF, the Air Force has the need to contribute and enable Australia’s larger national power strategies.

Defence Strategic Review and Adapt: Implementing DSR as a Wargame

David Hood
Australian Defence Force

The onset of the war in Ukraine saw one of the most dramatic shifts in combined arms warfare since the introduction of the machine gun. This shift is attributed to the wide scale introduction of drones to the modern battlefield (Kagan et al, 2024). Principally the conflict is demonstrating drones pioneering new capabilities in reconnaissance, close air support and strategic strike with virtually zero risk to the operator.

How well do Commanders know Aviator's understanding of National Power? Is there a knowledge gap? Does it matter?

This article began as a response to Daniel Cook’s recent article on ‘Turning the Tap Off – Stopping the Flow of Pointless Jobs in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)’ (Cook, 2023); as such, it will address some of the points raised in that article within the context a broader trend towards what I term ‘military populism’.

The Australian government has made very clear that, to defend the nation, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) must be an integrated force. This article contends that such a goal remains an unrealised ambition.