While the title suggests some kind of historical subject, Brown's essay is more about the process by which Australia chooses to go to war and discussing what we should consider fighting for. In an era when our staunch ally is squaring off against our greatest trading partner militarily, what path should Australia choose?

Brown's point is that Australia's thinking about warfare is mired in WW2 tropes and our process for committing troops to war - virtually at the whim of the Prime Minister - is woefully inadequate, as is our planning for war and its aftermath. The one thing that can be certain is that the Australian people will not get a say in whether they go to war, or why. ( )

Did you know that in 2014, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott not only sent 200 of our special forces to Europe to help with the MH17 recovery operations, but also seriously – very seriously – also considered sending a battalion? (That’s 1000 troops from our small Australian army). Fortunately he was talked out of it. Citing a report in The Australian, the man who brings matters military to the long-overdue attention of the Australian public, former Australian Army officer and author James Brown says:

“Australia’s leading military planners … argued against that proposal, telling Mr Abbott there were serious problems with the plan: Australian soldiers would not be able to speak either Ukrainian or Russian, and the Australian troops would have difficulty distinguishing between the Ukrainian and the Russian militia”. Beyond these concerns, the response of Russia to having an armed formation from a NATO partner country dropped near a sensitive border was a major issue. The potential for harm to Australian troops was all too real. The logic of deploying large numbers of troops into an active war zone alongside the border of a major global military power was entirely shaky. (p. 51)

And that’s not all. When it comes to assessing our capability to deploy troops, Australia has only the capacity to operate on a rule of three. It’s called mathematactics. That is, divide whatever our military strengths are by three, because while one third of our army, navy or air-force is on operations, one third is in for maintenance or repair, and the other third is working up the skills and procedures necessary to head out on operations next. It’s obvious, when you think about it: maintaining a unit in the field soon exhausts people and equipment. So plans to deploy a whole battalion or 200 of our special forces to anywhere for any purpose leaves Australia vulnerable if things go wrong elsewhere.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/08/18/firing-line-australias-path-to-war-quarterly... ( )

https://shawjonathan.com/2016/07/13/james-browns-firing-line/ ( )