Bob Breen, BA (UNSW), MSC (Florida State University), MA (Monash), PhD (ANU)
Research Fellow, Official History of Australian Peacekeeping and Post-Cold War Operations Project, School of International, Political & Strategic Studies
Email: bob.breen@anu.edu.au
Biographical statement
In 2007 he visited Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a review of Australian military force projection. In 2008 he published Struggling for Self Reliance: Four case studies of Australian Regional Force Projection in the late 1980s and the 1990s. In the same year he also co-authored a monograph for the Land Warfare Studies Centre, The world looking over their shoulders: Australian Strategic Corporals on Operations in Somalia and East Timor. Recently, he has published two studies for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on meeting security challenges in the South Pacific and strengthening civil-military collaboration for responding to overseas emergencies.
Currently, he is writing a volume of the official history of Australian peacekeeping in the South Pacific 1980-2005 and completing a manuscript on battalion group operations in East Timor in 2000.
Research interests
Historical analysis of contemporary Australian military operations with particular emphasis on governmental response to regional and international crises that require intervention, short notice military and police force projection, 'whole-of-Government' responses to regional and international crises, peacekeeping, civil affairs, nation building, capacity building, operational concepts, command and control, logistics and intelligence.
Key publications
- 1988, First to Fight - Australian Diggers, New Zealand Kiwis and American Paratroopers in Vietnam in 1965-66, Sydney: Allen and Unwin
- 1998, A Little Bit of Hope: Australian Force - Somalia, Sydney: Allen and Unwin
- 2001, Mission Accomplished - East Timor: Australian Defence Force participation in International Force East Timor, Sydney: Allen and Unwin
- 2001, Giving Peace a Chance - Operation Lagoon, Bougainville 1994: A Case Study of Military Action and Diplomacy, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence no. 412, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Canberra: Australian National University
- 2008, Struggling for Self Reliance: Four case studies of Australian Regional Force Projection in the late 1980s and the 1990s, Canberra: ANU e-Press, Australian National University
- 2008, The world looking over their shoulders: Australian strategic corporals on operations in Somalia and East Timor, Canberra: Land Warfare Studies Centre
Career highlights
The adventures of conducting field research in Somalia (1993), in Rwanda (1994-5), Mozambique and the Middle East in 1996, PNG (Bougainville) in 1997-98, East Timor in 1999-2001 and Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007. Analysing ten years of research on peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations, and producing a PhD thesis and book. Contributing to the 2009 Defence White Paper as well as the work of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Asia-Pacific Civil Military Centre of Excellence while on a sabbatical.
