Counterinsurgency Iraq and Afghanistan

Dr. John A. Nagl, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army (Retired) will speak on "Learning to eat soup with a knife - counterinsurgency Iraq and Afghanistan", at the Australian National University in Canberra, 13 August 2013. He is the author of "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam" (University Of Chicago Press, 2005)

About the lecture:

In this lecture, celebrated counterinsurgency specialist John Nagl will discuss the lessons from the Iraq and Afghanistan war. As one of the chief authors of the US's Counterinsurgency field manual and celebrated scholar of counterinsurgency in history, John Nagl will offer insights into how counterinsurgency planning is developed, how, why and where it worked and did not work in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the implications for counterinsurgency operations in the future. With the rise of non-state threats to governments and increasing urbanisation of mankind, counterinsurgency conflicts are sure to remain a fundamental part of any militaries potential field of operations.
About the speaker
John A. Nagl is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army who is an influential expert in counterinsurgency. He is former president of the Center for a New American Security and incoming headmaster of The Haverford School. Nagl served in both the Gulf and Iraq wars. He has a PhD from Oxford university. His dissertation Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (drawing on a quote from T.E Lawrence) was later revised for publication and gained significant public and military debate. Nagl has worked as a Social Sciences Professor at Westpoint, and worked as a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defence. As part of a team overseen by General David Petreus, Nagl helped write the United States Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency field manuel. Nagl is a non-resident fellow with the Centre for a New American Security in DC, and has taught at Georgetown University, Kings College London and the US Naval Academy.

Green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan: causes and implications

Professor Clive Williams will speak on Green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan: causes and implications", at the The Australian National University in Canberra, 3 December 2012.

Green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan: causes and implications

3 December 2012

When: Tuesday 11 December, 6−7pm
Where: Haydon Allen Lecture Theatre, The Tank, Copland Courtyard, ANU

"Green-on-blue" attacks are attacks by members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) on usually unsuspecting members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), including Australians. Green-on-blue deaths have been increasing each year in Afghanistan over the past four years. During 2012 to the end of November, 16 percent of ISAF deaths in Afghanistan have been due to green-on-blue attacks, with 60 deaths, including three Australians. ISAF mentors and trainers could become more vulnerable to green-on-blue attacks towards the end of 2014 as handover demands increase. These “insider” attacks have had a serious impact on the trust relationship between the ISAF and ANSF, and are undermining the transition process.

Clive Williams is a former Military and Defence intelligence officer. Since leaving Defence in 2002, he has been a Visiting Fellow and Visiting Professor at the ANU and has run Masters courses at several other Australian universities. He has also worked overseas running Masters courses in Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan and the US, and has worked in 15 countries, including Afghanistan. His most recent visit to Afghanistan was in April 2012. He is a member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers and is an Associate of the International Academy of Investigative Psychology.

Click here to register.

Supported by the Australian Centre for Military and Security Law

General John Cantwell on Afghanistan War

Retired General John Cantwell will speak about  Australia’s military involvement in the Gulf and Afghanistan at the Australian National University in Canberra,  27 September 2012. This is to launch his book   "Exit wounds: one man’s war on terror" (with Greg Bearup). The event is free, but bookings are required.

Public Lecture

Exit wounds: one man’s war on terror by Major-General John Cantwell with Greg Bearup

Canberra Times / ANU Literary Event: Meet the Author Series 2012
Australia has been at war for the past twenty years and yet there has been no stand-out account from these conflicts. The Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts have constituted major Australian military involvements since the Vietnam War. In the case of Afghanistan, Australia has paid much in blood and treasure. This lecture elucidates Australia’s military involvements in the Gulf and Afghanistan from a practitioner’s perspective. Major-General John Cantwell’s book Exit Wounds is his searing story of the realities of Australia’s recent wars and the enduring scars they leave on our armed forces.
Major-General John Cantwell AO DSC retired from the Australian Army in early 2012 after a unique career spanning almost 40 years. Starting as a 17-year-old Private in 1973, he rose through the ranks in a career that included Commanding Officer of the Royal Military College at Duntroon, Commander of a brigade of around 3,000 troops, the Deputy Chief of the Army, and Head of the Force Structure Review as part of the 2009 Defence White Paper. He was also Interim Head (and later, Chief of Operations) of the Victoria Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, coordinating all Commonwealth, State and non-government efforts to recover from the deadly Black Saturday fires in 2009.
Major-General Cantwell served in three distinct wars: combat duty in Operation Desert Storm in 1991; as the Director of Strategic Operations in the US-led coalition headquarters in Baghdad in 2006; and as the Commander of all Australian forces in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East area of operations in 2010. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership in action in Afghanistan, has been made a Member of the Order of Australia and an Officer of the Order of Australia, and received the United States Legion of Merit.
Book sales and signings will follow the lecture. 

Presented by The Canberra Times and ANU Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies

Social Networking for the War on Terror

In "Exchange Rate" Tim Ripley (Jane's Defence Weekly, 27 January 2010), describes a broadband system used by coalition forces in Afghanistan. Surprisingly, while western military organisations have been using the Internet for more than a decade, this has largely been confined to particular arms of national forces, rarely linking outside the forces of one country and far from the battlefield. Tim describes the work of the NATO Communications and Information Systems Services Agency (NCSA), with its Mission Secret Network linking command centres in Afghanistan. The UK Joint Command and Control Support Programme (J2SP) was not ready so the built an interim "Project Over task". managed by the Defence Information Infrastructure Integrated Project Team (IPT). They still do not have the much heralded "Common Mission Secret Configurable Network", but have improved on previous stovepipe US systems (where each part of each service only communicated with its own headquarters). NATO have a set of applications for VOIP and Adobe Acrobat Connect. This includes NATO Joint Chat (J-Chat) for military chat rooms, Wiseweb and Joint Automated Deep Operations Coordination Systems (JADOCS). Wiseweb provides a web based interface to information. Despite all this it seems to me that NATO are a long way behind the state of the art in the implementation of web based systems, compared to commercial practice. In particular the use HTML 5, smart phone compatible formats and of e-book formats, shows considerable potential for the military. This would also allow access at lower echelons, where there are currently data rate limitations and limits due to display devices. The commander in the back of an armoured vehicle in the field will not have the big screen and broadband connection of the headquarters, but that doesn't mean they can't have the same data.