Books on soldiering can be written from the trenches or the general’s chateau.

The foxhole/barracks category is about the lives and fights of individual soldiers, while the general’s genre sweeps across battles and strategy and the fate of nations.

The former Australian diplomat David Tough has written a fine account of 212 Fijians—200 men and 12 women—who enlisted together in Fiji in November 1961 to serve in the British Army.

Tough tracks the individual careers of the ‘212’, as they became known in Fiji. Then, near the conclusion of his training-to-trenches narrative, he veers to the big picture, writing about Fiji’s first military coups, in 1987, and the involvement of some of the ex-soldiers as either supporters or opponents of the coups.

As an Australian diplomat in Suva from 1989 to 1992—‘the most interesting three years of my working life’—Tough was on the spot as Fiji dealt with the consequences of the 1987 coups. Fiji, then and now, confronts the reality that the military is a powerful organisation that claims a unique right to oversee Fiji’s politics.

In his early weeks in Suva, Tough met the first of many of the 212, quickly realising ‘they were a remarkable group and in 1961 a talented cross section of colonial Fiji’s youth. Almost all of the 212 served the full period of their initial enlistment and about a third of the men extended their service for up to 22 years or more before returning to Fiji, remaining in the UK, or settling elsewhere.’

Tough decided to do a composite biography: 212 soldiers for the Queen: Fijians in the British Army 1961–1997. This mosaic of many individuals stretches from Fiji to Britain, covering service on the fringes of a fading empire—in Borneo during the confrontation with Indonesia, in Northern Ireland, and in the Falkland Islands.

In 1961, the British Army was struggling to get volunteers in the UK after the abolition of national service. Recruiting teams were sent to three colonies: Jamaica, the Seychelles and Fiji.

British racial attitudes bumped into Fiji’s racial problems. The governor of Fiji told the recruiters to get a balance of ‘60% Fijian, 30% Indian and 10% part European’. The racial mix of the 200 men conformed to that formula.

Back in Britain, the thinking was that no unit should ever have more than 2% ‘coloured’ soldiers.

The director of the Women’s Royal Army Corps, Brigadier Dame Jean Rivett-Drake, made a failed attempt to prevent Fijian women from being recruited. She called for more information about the ‘position and status’ of women in the colonies, ‘and in particular their customs with regard to marriage’. The brigadier worried that Fijians would be ‘jet black and woolly-haired’ and would ‘present considerably more problems to us than the coffee coloured Seychellois’.

Three of the 12 women were discharged to marry or return to Fiji within a year of arriving in England, but the remainder served the full six years of their enlistment.

Tough reports that when the recruits reached England, they were bothered as much by cold and the class system as by racism. The winter of 1962–63 was the coldest in a century—the weather was ‘extreme culture shock’. He writes that few of the Fijians ‘recall racist attitudes within the army itself during their service’; barracks banter was that if rations ran short, Fijians could exploit their cannibal heritage and munch on a mate.

The Fijians represented the army at almost every sport possible, although as one journalist noted, ‘they did less well at qualifying for good conduct medals’.

Many of the soldiers returned to Fiji in the mid-1980s. Tough writes that several of the men were ‘ardent supporters’ of the 1987 coups mounted by Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, while others ‘were equally strong objectors. The divide remains.’

One of the returnees, Sam Pillay, entered parliament at the 1987 election, representing an Indian communal seat in the new coalition government. Pillay was sitting in parliament when Rabuka entered the chamber ‘accompanied by balaclava-clad soldiers brandishing automatic weapons. [Pillay] briefly considered trying to disarm the soldier standing close behind him but quickly realised the foolishness of such thoughts.’

Fiji as ‘coup-coup land’ was born.

The longest serving of the 212, Joe Tuwai, who retired from the British Army in 1997, decried Fiji’s ‘coup mentality’. Tuwai said the model Rabuka established for a Fijian soldier is that ‘one does what one feels is right’ because a coup will be forgiven by a decree waiving charges of mutiny or treason.

Tough puts the mosaic together by structuring the book in two halves: the first nine chapters tell the story of the 212 from 1961 until the 1987 coups, while the next 10 trace individual careers serving as gunners, sappers, signallers or infantry; in the Special Air Service, transport or ordinance skilled trades; or in armour (‘a third class ride in a tank is better than a first class walk in the infantry’).

Individual warrior stories abound. Seven of the Fijians served with the elite SAS, and most of them won medals for bravery or distinguished service. The MBE citation for Fred Marafono, who served 21 years in the SAS, referred to his ‘legendary’ status as a visual tracker and his contribution to anti-terrorist techniques and jungle warfare.

After he left the special forces, Marafono had a second career as a mercenary, so that ‘three months short of Fred’s 69th birthday, an SAS officer involved in rescue operations in Sierra Leone was surprised and delighted when he boarded a Sierra Leone gunship to be greeted by Fred as the door gunner’.

While some of 212 followed the warrior life, others found religion and left the army to become ministers.

Such are the many colours in a mosaic made up of individual soldiers.

Theresa May has provided a clear basis for the UK government’s conclusion that former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia. As Prime Minister May has said, Russia has provided no credible explanation in response, but instead has treated the use of a Russian-developed chemical weapon in Europe with disdain.

This is obviously an event that the UK government needs to respond to seriously and proportionately. But it’s bigger than just a UK–Russia dispute, and bigger than an attempted murder investigation. It’s a test of whether it’s becoming acceptable to use one of the most horrific types of weapons—chemical weapons—that humanity has ever produced without there being international consequences for those who use those weapons.

Just over 20 years ago, the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force. It’s hard to get the international community to agree on anything, but 192 states signed and ratified the convention because of the simple, horrific and indiscriminate suffering that chemical weapons inflict on human beings. The signatories agreed that such weapons were too horrific to use.

As the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says, chemical weapons—think poison arrows, boiling tar and arsenic smoke—have been used as tools of war for thousands of years. The scale of death, destruction and long-term human misery that chemical weapons inflicted during World War I was so graphic, however, that few countries wanted to be the first to use such weapons again. By the end of World War I, chemical weapons had caused some 90,000 deaths and more than one million casualties. The wounded suffered the effects for the rest of their lives.

That’s why enforcement of the Chemical Weapons Convention is so important to all states. The convention had its genesis because of chemical weapons used in war. We’re now seeing chemical weapons used during peace.

Russia is a signatory to the convention. It declared in September 2017 that it had completed the destruction of its 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons. It didn’t declare Novichok, which we now know that it possessed—despite states being obliged to declare all chemical weapons programs and holdings. The US expressed doubt that Russia had actually complied with its obligations under the convention. This looks to be correct.

Russia is the inventor of the Novichok chemical weapon, as confirmed by one of the program scientists, Vil Mirzanyanov. Sergei Skripal, the target of the Salisbury attack, is a former Russian intelligence agent who worked for the UK. So, as Prime Minister May has said, it seems Russia is the only party with the particular capability used to attack Mr Skripal. And Russia had the only motive for doing so.

The Russian foreign ministry’s denials are implausible. But implausible denials have the Alice in Wonderland effect of protecting Russia from accountability. This is an example of Vladimir Putin’s hybrid warfare, or probably what’s better described as ‘hybrid politics’. He’s willing to use Russian power in transparent ways and trust that responses will be ineffective or require long processes that he can frustrate.

So, what’s to be done?

The initial Russian response to the UK’s request for an explanation has been to deny any knowledge or involvement, and to request more details. Russian spokespeople have also started to provide ‘alternative facts’ about the attack, even speculating that it could have been conducted by UK authorities to discredit Russia.

The predictable result is that the UK is expelling a number of Russians. The Russians will reciprocate. Time will then pass and relations will be resumed. Prime Minister May has also foreshadowed freezing Russian state assets in the UK and passing legislation to allow more UK sanctions on human rights grounds. She has noted the importance of cooperation with partners, singling out France, Germany and the United States. All of that is to the good.

Formal steps can be taken by the UK to request assistance from the OPCW to investigate Russia. The OPCW can conduct ‘challenge inspections’ of Russian facilities it suspects of holding or making the chemical weapon. Russia’s 2017 declaration of compliance with the convention can be challenged based on the new information from the Salisbury attack.

Russia has said it will cooperate with investigations, but insists that the UK provide it with all of the evidence that it has.

Russia will probably continue to declare its willingness to comply while disputing any evidence and obstructing any actual investigation. It has done the same in the investigation into the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17. That shouldn’t stop the UK from using all the investigatory and verification measures in the Chemical Weapons Convention to pursue Russian behaviour. The UK should do so with the vocal support of other convention signatories.

While frustrating and lengthy, these steps are the essential, formal steps needed to reinforce the international prohibition on the use of chemical weapons.

The actions most likely to matter to decision-makers in the Kremlin are those that affect their quality of life as individuals. So, Russia can also be the subject of multilateral and unilateral sanctions.

Given Mr Putin’s tight control over the state security agencies and his strong dislike of betrayal of the Russian homeland, it seems unlikely that a decision to use Novichok abroad would be a decision made anywhere in Russia except in the Kremlin.

Russian elites have benefitted from holding assets abroad. These include real estate in London, New York and Paris. They have bank accounts and stock holdings in UK banks and other Western institutions. Luxury yachts are among the kinds of assets that matter to elites who are part of Kremlin policymaking—notably members of Russia’s National Security Council and close advisers to President Putin.

Preventing Russian leadership figures from enjoying the benefits of assets held overseas will matter in a way that stern reprimands and reciprocal expulsions of diplomats and spies won’t. Sanctions can prevent the same people from travelling.

So, it’s not enough to leave action to the UK government when what’s at stake is the normalisation of the use of chemical weapons. Every government that’s a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, including Australia, has a role in promoting and taking action. Australia has additional interests as a close partner of the UK.

Let’s see our government take the steps necessary–including cooperation with our partners on sanctions–to help prevent chemical weapon attacks from becoming business as usual.

On 22 March 2017 a disturbing terror attack occurred around the UK Parliament in London. It was a day the country had been anticipating for some time. More than 13 separate plots against the UK had been foiled since 2013, but it was only a matter of time before something got through. It constituted only the third successful jihadist attack on the UK homeland in over 20 years since the birth of al-Qaeda and its associates. The total death toll in the United Kingdom, even including this attack, remains under 65. Political leaders and the security services were quick to try to keep this latest incident in perspective within the mind of the public.

During 2016, the UK lived in a Europe that was increasingly troubled by attacks, and by threats, from jihadist terror groups. Of the 43 states that the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office listed as running the highest risk of terrorist activity, the European group consisted of France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and the UK. Successful jihadist attacks across France, Belgium and Germany in 2015 and 2016 seemed to herald a new wave of terrorism in Europe driven largely by the wars in Syria and Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State (IS).

Nevertheless, the UK didn’t suffer any direct attacks from jihadist terrorists in 2016 and didn’t raise its national threat level, which remained at ‘severe’, where it has stood for the past two years. This reflects both the strengths and the vulnerabilities of the UK’s position as a prime target of international terrorism. On the one hand, the fact that no successful jihadist attacks occurred indicates the evident success, good fortune, or both, of the security services in the UK. Leaving aside the March 2017 attack, only two jihadist attacks have been successful in the UK  between 2001 and 2016: the July 2005 attacks on the London underground and a bus; and the murder of soldier Lee Rigby outside his London barracks in 2013.

Those two cases have to be set against at least 50 credible and advanced plots in the past 15 years, in addition to several times that number of incidents that may be classed as ‘disruptions’ of ongoing terrorist plots. The mercifully low casualty toll however does not reflect the other side of the story—the increasing potential for jihadist terror attacks on the UK in the current climate. The pattern of terrorism has been changing since 2015 with fewer attacks but growing lethality within Western states, particularly in Europe. Within the UK’s security services there is an acute awareness of a potential wave of terrorism building against the country, although the wave has yet to break against the UK in successful attacks

The UK CT authorities have a strong tradition of operational planning and coordination going well back before 9/11 with a generation of experience in Northern Ireland on which to draw. The UK security services ramped up their CT efforts again after the London attacks of 2005, and have since successfully disrupted ten bombing attempts. The intelligence services and GCHQ have also been retasked over the past 15 years to make terrorist groups a major target of their activities and the police are also undertaking more CT activity than ever before.

The fact is that there is evidence from intercepted IS files and the testimony from those in custody that the UK may have achieved some degree of ‘deterrence by denial’ in the thinking of terrorist leaders. At least in relative terms, the UK is a more difficult target for a terrorist group than most other European states, and intercommunity relations, certainly in France and Belgium, are more conducive to a terror-friendly environment than in the UK.

UK authorities now confront the future with a sense of vigilant resolve, as was revealed in responses to the March 2017 attack on Parliament. The greatest uncertainty ahead in 2017-18 is the practical effect of the Brexit vote on allied cooperation in CT. On the face of it, CT cooperation between European security services and police forces should be the easiest element of the Brexit tapestry to replicate once the UK leaves the EU. It is clearly in the interests of all the agencies across Europe that this should be the case, and the nature of the terrorist challenge makes it imperative. There have been many statements to confirm this fact. The UK has some 5,500 people working on digital access to intelligence—more than twice the number in France and five times the number in Germany.

The UK’s allies have a lot to lose if intelligence cooperation is harmed by the Brexit negotiations, but new arrangements will nevertheless have to be worked out for the UK’s relations with Europol and its access and contributions to common databases. The Shengen System III arrangements, to which the UK will want access, need to include information exchange arrangements and the facility to exchange operational data such as DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration details. Political statements aside, association agreements will have to be concluded but are as yet uncertain. More than that, as Europol further develops, a UK voice in its evolution, the way it handles its data access and its common protocols, will either not be heard or else will be inserted at a later stage in policy development.

As the anticipated terrorist wave breaks against Western societies throughout the world, the UK is relatively well placed to cope, and there’s a high degree of public acceptance in Britain that terrorists will be successful from time to time. But anything that makes the UK’s coordination with other partners more difficult than it otherwise need be, such as the sheer distraction of the Brexit negotiations, and still more any distancing of the UK from Europol, can’t be other than a further challenge for the security services and the police.

Are modern-day frigates really cruisers, or is it just that the present-day needs of a frigate require the 6,000-plus tonnage of an old-fashioned cruiser? Alastair Cooper exchanged a polite broadside with ASPI’s Andrew Davies on the topic in April, arguing that form follows function: regardless of tonnage, frigates aren’t designed to ‘take a command [of a force of ships] in a least one warfare discipline‘. Frigates will stay frigates, no matter how big they get.

This isn’t an arcane topic, especially as the topmasts of Australia’s own SEA 5000 frigate appear over the procurement horizon. That’s because the pace of evolution in naval capability is accelerating, with unmanned vehicles, modularity, new systems architectures, and adaptable weapons creating a highly fluid relationship between a naval vessel type and the tasks it can theoretically perform.

To see how naval architects are navigating these uncertain waters, it’s worth surveying some of the design principles behind the UK’s Type 26 Global Combat Ship (GSC). This isn’t just because it’s one of the three contenders for SEA 5000, but also because it’s the last to leave the drawing board—or at least the 3-D CAD studio.

Two aspects of the Type 26 stand out immediately. First, it has a large, multi-purpose mission bay forward of the aircraft hangar; at approximately 385m³, it’s the equivalent volume of ten 20-foot shipping containers. Secondly, the vessels have a ‘shared infrastructure’ approach to combat systems. Both these design features are definite breaks in the path of frigate evolution. They also support Davies’ thesis that frigates are evolving into cruisers ‘in form as well as function’—albeit in a curious way.

The mission bay allows the frigate to assume far more advanced roles than those to which a traditional escort could aspire. For example, Cooper correctly points out that a traditional frigate couldn’t properly perform the command function required by a large task force. But a palletised command and control centre lifted on board results in a vessel that can command highly complex, multi-vessel or amphibious operations.

Similarly with unmanned vehicles (UVs). Type 26 designers envisage that unmanned submarine, surface and air vehicle systems will operate from the mission bay, with a deck-mounted crane to launch and retrieve 12-tonne vehicles from the sea. Since the bay includes network interfaces, self-contained UV systems can be plugged straight into the ships power and command networks. Designers envisage aircraft being launched from the mission bay’s side-door openings.

The point here isn’t detail of the Type 26 design, but the fact that frigate designers are deliberately creating vessels that can supplement their primary role with advanced, fleet-managing capabilities in a way never envisaged before. As long as the capability can be modularised, flown into position and placed on a quay, the vessel can take on the independent, specialised or fleet-leading roles—in short, the roles historically associated with cruisers.

The second Type 26 feature of note is its systems architecture. It’s often said that cars are becoming computers on wheels, and warships aren’t exactly wallowing in their wake. Until now, most naval systems have been discreet physical entities. From a sensor on the mast, to a display in the operations room, a naval system used its own dedicated hardware, software and wiring.

The Type 26 designers have shifted to a shared infrastructure model, so servers, networks and consoles are independent of specific naval systems. Data from new sensors can be incorporated into the operations room with little of the physical and technical disruption required by the back-fitting of consoles, networks and hardware. In practical terms, it means freedom and flexibility in how tactical information is disseminated and worked with by the crew.

It’s probably because the Type 26 has morphed into an ‘adaptive cruiser’ role that the Royal Navy has—after a decade of agonising—split its frigate purchase between eight Type 26s, and an indefinite number of smaller general purpose frigates (GPFFs). On that count alone, the Type 26 deserves a nomenclatural promotion, especially when you review the impressive radar, missile and gunnery specs of GPFF contenders.

The ability for major fleet units to quickly adapt to different roles creates fascinating opportunities. It also poses challenges, as Australian Defence planners ponder the construction of up to 20 new offshore combatant vessels (OCVs) of up to 2,000 tonnes each. A rigid, form-follows-function philosophy in naval design will lead to a fleet of vessels that are hopelessly ill-equipped to adapt, and can’t adopt innovative modes of combat.

Technologically, we live in exciting times. If, instead of working backwards from function to hull form, Defence can work forward from hull form to potential capabilities, then the way is clear for rich and original thought in Australia’s naval program.