Firing Line: Correspondence

James Brown’s Firing Line fills a real gap in Australian public debate. He draws attention compellingly to the poor state of understanding of how and why Australia decides to use force to protect and advance its interests. Brown brings home to us the realities of international security, in a fitting sequel to his book Anzac’s Long Shadow, which identified the contradiction between many Australians’ obsession with a stylised military history and their relative indifference to today’s defence force. He warns that our nation has barely begun to think hard about the war-and-peace decisions that loom in the difficult decades ahead. War is not obsolete and, in an uncertain, complex and connected world, no island is an island. Australia cannot and should not be a bystander.