Mick Ryan

2 weeks ago | lowyinstitute.org | Mick Ryan

This article probably won’t excite readers as much as stories about drone warfare, Ukrainian battlefields or Chinese naval task groups circumnavigating Australia. However, civil-military relations are more important than any of these subjects. Why is the theory and practice of civil–military relations crucial to liberal democracies like Australia? Unlike America and Britain, there has been little discussion of civil-military relations in Australia.

2 weeks ago | mickryan.substack.com | Mick Ryan

This week I have had the honour of visiting the United States Military Academy at West Point, and to speak with cadets and staff about the lessons of modern war, and what these insights mean for how they lead soldiers in the 21st century. I have also had the opportunity to discuss the employment of fiction to round out the development of military officers, and my book about a war over Taiwan, White Sun War. Today, I had the privilege to speak about a different topic however.

3 weeks ago | mickryan.substack.com | Mick Ryan

In the past 24 hours, the Russian president declared a unilateral Easter truce in Ukraine. I published some thoughts about this on social media and wanted to amplify them here. This declaration by Putin is the unserious and cynical act of an individual who for the past three years and two months since the full-scale invasion has maintained his maximalist goals to destroy Ukrainian sovereignty and culture.

3 weeks ago | rsn.org | Mick Ryan

ALSO SEE: Futura Doctrina (Mick Ryan Substack) Putin’s cynical ploy to curry favour with the U.S. administration and keep them negotiating while Russian forces continue to seize or destroy as much of Ukraine as possible. In the past 24 hours, the Russian president declared a unilateral Easter truce in Ukraine. I published some thoughts about this on social media and wanted to amplify them here.

3 weeks ago | mickryan.substack.com | Mick Ryan

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Big Five. This week, an examination of the Trump administration’s dawning understanding that negotiating peace in the largest and most brutal war in Europe since 1945 is not like negotiating the purchase of a Manhattan office tower. Also, that minerals deal, the North Korean support to Russia’s war effort, and the strategic competition in the Pacific. As always, I conclude with my top five war and national security reads from the week.