This volume presents the papers from the fifth biennial Information Systems Foundations Workshop, held at The Australian National University in Canberra from 30 September to 1 October 2010. The focus of the workshop was, as for the others in the series, the foundations of information systems as an academic discipline.

Sir Arthur Tange was perhaps the most powerful Secretary of the Australian Defence Department and one of the most powerful of the great ‘mandarins’ who dominated the Commonwealth Public Service between the 1940s and the 1970s. His strong, and often decisive, influence on both administration and policy was exerted by virtue of his intellectual capacity, his administrative ability and the sheer force of his personality.

Remembering Hedley commemorates the life of Hedley Bull (1932–85), a pivotal figure in the fields of international relations and strategic studies. Its publication coincides with the official opening on 6 August 2008 of the Hedley Bull Centre at The Australian National University in Canberra.

Military force projection is the self-reliant capacity to strike from mainland ports, bases and airfields to protect Australia’s sovereignty as well as more distant national interests.

Force projection is not just a flex of military muscle in times of emergency or the act of dispatching forces. It is a cycle of force preparation, command, deployment, protection, employment, sustainment, rotation, redeployment and reconstitution. If the Australian Defence Force consistently gets this cycle wrong, then there is something wrong with Australia’s defence.

Australia’s strategic depiction of China has assumed increased importance as it attempts to harmonise economic interests (focusing on China) with security interests (primarily the United States). In this period of strategic transition, how Australia incorporates the rise of China into its existing security commitment under ANZUS has become a delicate issue.

This book identifies the critical factors that shaped and influenced New Zealand’s defence acquisition decision-making processes from the election of the Fourth Labour Government in 1984 and the subsequent ANZUS crisis, through to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the following ‘war on terror’. It explores and analyses decision-making processes in relation to the ANZAC frigates, the military sealift ship HMNZS Charles Upham, the F-16 strike aircraft, the P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft upgrade, and the LAV IIIs.

East Timor’s violent transition to independence, which began early in 1999, presented the Australian Government with a significant foreign policy crisis. This crisis was not sudden, totally unexpected or ultimately threatening to Australia’s survival. But the crisis consumed the attention of Australian leaders, saw significant national and international resources employed, and led to the largest operational deployment for the Australian Defence Force since the Vietnam War.

The texts collected in this volume take an anthropological approach to the variety of contemporary societal problems which confront the peoples of the contemporary South Pacific: religious revival, the sociology of relations between local groups, regions and nation-States, the problem of culture areas, the place of democracy in the transition of States founded on sacred chiefdoms, the role of ceremonial exchanges in a market economy, and so forth.

‘No nation can escape its geography’, warned Percy Spender, Australia’s Minister for External Affairs, in 1950. With the immediate turmoil of World War II over, communism and decolonisation had ended any possibility that Asia could continue to be ignored by Australia. In the early 1950s, Australia embarked on its most ambitious attempt to engage with Asia: the Colombo Plan. This book examines the public and private agendas behind Australia’s foreign aid diplomacy and reveals the strategic, political and cultural aims that drove the Colombo Plan.

The Hmong are among Australia’s newest immigrant populations. They came as refugees from Laos after the communist revolution of 1975 ended their life there as highland shifting cultivators. The Hmong originate from southern China where many still remain, and others live in Vietnam, Thailand and Burma. Hmong refugees are now also settled in the USA, Canada, France, Germany and French Guyana.