This story from the Korean War goes to the heart of the unique bond between Australian and New Zealand soldiers, one cemented in mutual respect, expressed by a fierce rivalry and a steadfastness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against any foe, perceived or real. The old coat of arms for New Zealand carried the motto ‘Onward’ (also the motto of the 1 New Zealand Expeditionary Force during the First World War and of the 1 Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment today). It is a motto of modest intent somewhat in keeping with the retiring, nocturnal and flightless kiwi emblazoned on the sleeves of members of the New Zealand Army.

Between mid-2015 and 2020, as research for a doctoral thesis, I interviewed over 50 military personnel who were directly involved in a role advising a partner security force. This included Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel who participated in mentoring task forces, train-advise-assist (TAA) roles, Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) initiatives and several other one-on-one or team advisory duties. The research also included interviews with allied personnel from the United States Army, particularly where they had been involved in joint initiatives with the ADF. Interviews also included host-nation personnel from the Afghan National Security Forces and Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF), to provide the views of personnel being advised or mentored, to determine what mattered to them and to obtain an alternative perspective. Interview subjects ranged in rank from sergeant to four-star US general, to garner both tactical and command perspectives.

On 20 March 1939 the Burns Philp ship MV Macdhui docked at Port Moresby in the Australian territory of Papua. On board was the 13th Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery. Commanded by Major Kenneth Chalmers, the battery had been raised from permanent gunners in Sydney and had the task of installing and operating two 6-inch coast guns at Paga Point, Port Moresby. Less than four months earlier, on 6 December 1938, the Minister for Defence, Geoffrey Street, as part of a series of measures to strengthen Australian defences after the Munich crisis, had announced funding for the development of Port Moresby as ‘a base for mobile naval and air forces’.

Australia seems to be moving into a period of greater uncertainty and instability. The future now seems less clear than it once was; the events of the catastrophic bushfires in 2019–20 and the return of a global pandemic, in the form of COVID-19, in 2020 serve to remind us that the world in which we live remains subject to challenge and change. For the Asia-Pacific region, this is especially so, given the geopolitical, technological and economic restructuring that is currently underway. As former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted in 2020, understanding the ‘interconnectedness’ between politics, economics and technology is critical in anticipating change and disruption in the twenty-first century. That said, these challenges are not without historical precedents. History shows that Australia has faced pandemics, natural disasters, financial disruption and a number of ‘large’ and ‘small’ wars before.

A whirlwind of events at home and abroad forced Menzies’ hand, and he agreed to the deployment of Australian ground troops to Korea. So, in Washington, he took the opportunity to address Congress, both to justify and to talk up the Australian response.

In 1961, the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2RAR), was placed under the command of the 1st Malaya Infantry Brigade and tasked with combined security operations in northern Malaya, later called Malaysia. An important occasion, this was the first time Australian soldiers had been commanded by their Malaysian partners. While significant, this was not surprising. Australian infantry battalions had spent the previous six years supporting the United Kingdom–led response to the Malayan Emergency. Alongside Malayan, British and several Commonwealth nations, the Australians undertook extensive jungle patrols, ambushes, convoy protection and food security operations as part of the United Kingdom–led counterinsurgency to defeat communist terrorists. Commitment, respect and partnership were defining features of Australian military engagement during this period and remain so through to this day.

There exists an October 1945 photograph taken at Duntroon in Canberra of five members of the Army’s Second World War Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs (DORCA) enjoying a laugh (see Figure 4.1). It was taken at the corner of Wilton and Harrison roads, near the back of the chapel, and one can see the start of the heritage houses down Harrison Road. DORCA was a remarkable organisation, a (uniformed) policy advice bureau (of about 100 staff in 1945) led by Colonel Alfred (Alf) Conlon and working for General Sir Thomas Blamey. The photograph is an important indication of the talent in that organisation of specialists in uniform: lawyers, anthropologists, doctors, Papua New Guinea (PNG) patrol officers and writers. The photograph was taken by Lieutenant John D. Legge, the foundation professor of history at Monash University from 1960 and later the dean of its Faculty of Arts and appointed an officer of the Order of Australia.

On 23 May 2017, known Islamic terrorist Isnilon Hapilon was reported to be in western Mindanao to meet with Omar and Abdullah Maute, leaders of the Islamic State–affiliated Maute group. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police operation to arrest them set in motion a chain of events that thrust the previously little known Philippine city of Marawi into the global spotlight. This raid rapidly escalated into an urban battle that lasted for five months, involving more than 6500 Philippine military personnel. The fighting resulted in the devastation of a major city and the deaths of over 900 insurgents, at the cost of 168 AFP and security services personnel killed and over 1400 wounded.

If I ever had the idea that as a defence attaché I would spend my time attending parades and playing golf during the day and going to cocktail parties at night, it didn’t last for very long.

‘Buy some shoes that you can run in.’ That was the first piece of advice I received from the guy I was taking over from in Jakarta towards the end of 1998. Having been Australia’s Army Attaché at the Australian Embassy for the previous two years, and now as a veteran of the Jakarta riots, he knew what he was talking about.

Cambodia is a small country in South-East Asia between Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.1 It won independence from France in 1954 and was governed by a popular autocratic monarch, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, until his overthrow in a military coup, in 1970. General Lon Nol established the Khmer Republic and took Cambodia into the Vietnam War as an ally of the United States. Sihanouk, from exile in Beijing, placed his support behind an obscure peasant revolutionary movement in the countryside, his popularity drawing many Cambodians to the Khmer Rouge. They also rebelled against Lon Nol’s government in Phnom Penh because of the extensive bombing by the United States of rural areas across Cambodia.