Royal Australian Air Force I Support the ADF Conferences attended:

          To visit Official  RAAF website. Click >      http://www.defence.gov.au/raaf/airpower/index.htm   

2000 RAAF - AIR POWER AND JOINT FORCES 

Aerospace Conference Canberra

1998 RAAF - TESTING THE LIMITS 

Canberra

1996 RAAF - NEW ERA SECURITY

THE RAAF IN THE NEXT TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

Canberra

My main interests in life are music, the military and politics but not always in that order. The Royal Australian Air Force conducts a bi-annual Air Power Conference in the capital city, Canberra and this is one of the highlights in my interest in things military.

This year the Air Power Conference has been renamed  RAAF Aerospace Conference, the theme will be civil-military relations and aerospace power.  The conference will explore the role of the military generally and aerospace forces in particular. Below left is a list of some of the speakers and on the right a list of some of the subjects to be covered.               

Ardersier my birth place, situated next to Fort George has been a hive of military activity since the mid seventeen hundreds and never more so than the period leading up to D-Day 1944. It was with much regret that due to a disability  I was unable to join the full time military. When my call up papers did arrive in 1946 apart from the three armed services I was also given the option of  joining the Palestine Police. Alas it was not to be.

My interest in all things military was not dampened by my failure to pass a medical and as fate would have it I have worked extensively as a musician on a large number of military bases, both UK and US. Since settling in Australia and winding back on musical work it gave me more time to pursue my interest in the military, past, present and future.

The military is often much neglected by politicians and I think that as taxpayers, more people should be interested in the people who are often called upon to defend the democracies in which we live. However politics will not be covered in these pages.

AIR POWER CONFERENCE 2000   - AIR POWER and JOINT FORCES

I attended the above mentioned two day conference (my 4^th) run by the Air Power Study Center in Canberra and attended by approx.1100 senior members of the Australian, Pacific Rim, UK and USA defense forces.    

The objectives of this particular conference were to discuss and analyze the challenges of Air Power and Joint Forces i.e. command, organization, cooperation, planning, threat prosecution, and so on.  

 Please click on the above thumbnails to view enlarged photographs.

As conferences go, the standard was superb and credit must go to the chief of the RAAF and his staff for their excellent choice of speakers and the extremely high standard of presentations on such varied subjects as The Big Picture: Globalization, Air Power and Asymmetric Threats, Manipulating the Media, Ethics and the Profession of Arms to name but a few.

Not all speakers are serving members of the armed forces, some are from Institutes of Strategic Studies, Think Tanks, Military Academies, The Media and Universities.

Although Australia is classed as being geographically remote from a large part of the globe, it is worth remembering the large part played by the Australian military in its many peace keeping roles, in addition to defending a country with possibly the world's largest coast line.

A wide range of countries are represented such as UK, US, Canada, and NATO in the northern hemisphere to those from the Pacific Rim - India, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and Singapore. Being an "ex pat" it is especially pleasing for me if the UK is  represented by the current C in C Strike Command or similar ranking officer.

Whilst we live in an extremely volatile world it is comforting to see so many senior military and associated personnel from countries with very diverse ideologies all under one roof  and holding intelligent discussions.

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