Bob Breen’s experience in first-hand research on international and regional peace support missions began in Somalia in 1993 as an historian and operations analyst and continued in Rwanda, the Middle East, Mozambique, Bougainville and East Timor periodically until 2002 when he began a PhD program at The Australian National University, graduating in 2006. He resumed work as an analyst in late 2007, when he conducted research for the Australian Defence Force Chief of Joint Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. After publishing a book and two monographs in the early 1990s on Australian military experiences in the Vietnam War and the Korean War, his subsequent publications have related to Australia’s military participation in peace missions in Somalia, Bougainville and East Timor. As an army reserve colonel during the period 1997–2002, he was also responsible for designing, developing and participating in the delivery of preparatory training programs for Australian government officials, civilian peace monitors, Australian Defence Force contingents, Australian United Nations Military Observers and politicians about to serve on or visit peacekeeping operations or UN electoral missions. Currently, he is writing the official history of Australian peacekeeping in the South Pacific during the period 1980–2005 and preparing manuscripts for publication on Australia’s military force projection, battalion group operations in East Timor in 2000 and an historical analysis of the experiences of Australian junior combat leaders and small teams on contemporary peace enforcement operations.

Bob Breen is a research fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University in Canberra. The research for this book was conducted before he took up this position as an author of an official history. His views in this book are his own and do not represent the views of the Department of Defence.