In September last year the impressive military intellectual David Kilcullen gave the prestigious annual ‘University Lecture’ to the assembled cohort of cadets, midshipmen, officers, academic staff and senior leadership of the Australian Defence Force Academy and its partner institution, the University of New South Wales. I was especially struck by Kilcullen’s argument, to the young officer trainees, that their future responsibilities would be important because war and conflict had been perennial features of human society since ancient times, and would persist despite efforts to create a more peaceful world. Was this, I wondered, the only way to impress upon the future leadership of the ADF the seriousness of their calling?

‘We tell ourselves stories,’ wrote Joan Didion in The White Album (1979), ‘in order to live.’ Kilcullen’s story is a common one told by realists and just warriors, often as a prelude to thoughtful discussions of the morality and rationale of war. Yet it risks blinding us to the fact that war is a complex human construct that – even when it appears most necessary – is a product of choices by leaderships, combatants, citizens and media, choices that affect how wars are fought, by whom, for how long, and with what cost in terms of lives, security, treasure and failure.