AN ARMY OF INFLUENCE: Eighty Years of Regional Engagement.

• Author: McGibbon, Ian

AN ARMY OF INFLUENCE Eighty Years of Regional Engagement

Editors: Craig Stockings and Peter Dennis

Published by: Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2021, 400pp, $75.95.

Over the last 30 years the Australian Army has displayed a commendable commitment to education. Not the least of its efforts has been the chief of army's history conference, which since 1994 has brought together academics and practitioners in productive discussions of aspects of Australian military history, all with a view to enhancing the army's ability to deal with the challenges ahead through consideration of the lessons of the past. Annual till 2013, the conferences are now held on a biennial basis.

The publication of the proceedings of these deliberations, long the work of the Australian Defence Force Academy's Professor Peter Dennis and the late Professor Jeffrey Grey, has further enhanced their value. In this book under review, which brings together papers presented at the 2019 conference, Dennis's editorial role continues, this time in conjunction with official historian Craig Stockings.

The 2019 conference focused on the Australian Army's Asia-Pacific regional role. There is one chapter on Australia's 1950 deployment to Korea in North-east Asia, but the main focus is on South-east Asia and the South-west Pacific. This broad region has swung back into focus in recent years as Australia's more extended operational effort --in Afghanistan and Iraq--has contracted. For nearly two decades, as John Blaxland points out, there was 'little energy left to focus on fostering relations with Australia's South-East Asian neighbours to its near north'. Regional developments, especially recent Chinese activities (though China's recent Solomons foray falls outside the time period of book), make this a timely study. As this book amply demonstrates, the new interest has a solid basis upon which to build in the army's experience since the Second World War.

The contributors to this volume range from practitioners like retired Brigadier Ken Brownrigg to senior academics like Blaxland. Some provide general presentations, others case studies that are informed, in most cases, by personal experience on the ground in the countries in question. The result is a useful summary of Australia's military engagement with the various countries of the region. Inevitably perhaps, there is considerable focus on Indonesia, with which Australia has had a somewhat bumpy relationship, including a period...