Introduction
Living and Thriving Under Ambiguity
Luke Houghton and Jennifer Loy
Griffith University
Space as a Strategic Geography
Pete Wooding
Australian Defence Force
Defence can only achieve an intellectual edge if its members are consistently engaged and curious.
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.
The RAAF's Frozen Middle Part Two
Dylan Williamson
Australian Defence Force
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is changing.
The 'poor man's air force' is a term for employing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hobbyist drones or uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) to strategic level military effect, and that effect cannot be understated (Waters, 2018; Nadeau, 2022; Shift, 2023). The ability for terror organisations to coordinate multiple layers of effects, including using COTS drones, to destroy Command and Control (C2) nodes in Israel causes alarm. Couple this with the use of COTS drones for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, strike and battle-damage assessment missions, and the threat posed by what are essentially toys is alarmingly real.
It is a relatively common trend that solving an organisational strategic issue reveals another.
With the implementation of digital technology, came the resistance to change and
implementing change agents brought about the awareness of having a safe-to-fail culture.
