READING
Strategic thinking and policy making skills are strengthened in our view by wide reading into history, politics, fiction, indeed into any area of human activity. On this page the SAA team shares with you what we are reading in the hope that these short reviews will spark new ideas and expanded reading interests. Enjoy!
No Asian Century – instead, a century of multiple of Asias
The Australia in the Asian Century white paper zoomed across the Canberra policy radar with the appointment of Meghan Quinn as secretary of the Defence Department. Quinn was head of the secretariat that produced the 312-page Asian...
No Higher Priority – urgent actions on defence for Australia’s next government
This is unbelievable: FINALLY, the book you have all been waiting for 'No Higher Priority'. One title, 3 authors, 6 chapters, 36 recommendations. It's all here in a thriller-like adventure story that can cure the Australian...
‘Girt by Sea: Re-imagining Australia’s Security Policy’ & ‘Understanding Maritime Security’
Largely because of our lack of a maritime culture, insular attitudes and failure to see Australia as a maritime power, we’ve so far failed in our defence and foreign policies to fully comprehend the security significance of the...
The Musk Algorithm and the Sabotage Manual from WW2: which best explains your organisation?
“If you have never been punched in the nose, you have no idea how it affects the rest of your life” is how Elon Musk explains his childhood and introduces us to what drives him in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk’s career so...
Mobilisation and making things: how US industry won the war
Freedom’s Forge by Arthur Herman is unapologetic about how free enterprise, creativity and patriotic business figures turned a reluctant and consumer-focused American economy into ‘the arsenal of democracy’ that out innovated, out...
Alan C. Wood & Alan Sutton, Military Aviation of the First World War (Fonthill, revised edition, 2022).
This excellent study introduces the embryonic air capabilities of the major combatants in the first World War. Many will think of the war primarily as the grinding infantry and artillery campaigns of the Western Front, but air power...