Reflections on the Australian experience: How wars end

Drawing on the Australian experience, involvement in wars has tended to involve carefully calibrated, niche contributions as part of a coalition on operations of choice usually far from its shores. When it comes to operations closer to home, though, Australia has tended to more holistically manage the politics, strategy and operational planning involved. This has involved joint (army, navy and air force) collaboration along with inter-departmental (aid, foreign policy, policing), interagency (international non-government and civil society organisations) and international (coalition partnerships with like-minded states) cooperation and coordination. In addition, the second decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed a surge in great power contestation, looming environmental catastrophe and a spectrum of governance challenges, coupled with the fourth industrial revolution. As a consequence, the extent to which military solutions are relevant and necessary is now open to question, particularly when governmental bodies and other agencies and organisations have more prominent roles to play in addressing the continuum between cooperation and conflict.