AsPr Garth Pratten, SFHEA

Associate Professor Garth Pratten is Deputy Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. An historian by training, he has had a varied career having worked for the Australian Army’s Training Command and the Australian War Memorial, and taught at Deakin University and in the War Studies Department at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Garth was a member of the research staff for the Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts and an author for the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations.

Garth’s interest in the conduct of military operations has led him to conduct field work in France, Belgium, Libya, Brunei, Indonesia, Malayasia, Singapore, Turkey and Cyprus. In 2010, while working for the British Ministry of Defence, he deployed to Afghanistan as part of the team compiling the war diary for ISAF’s Regional Command South.

In April 2006, Garth was awarded the Australian Army’s CEW Bean prize for his PhD thesis, the book of which - Australian Battalion Commanders in the Second World War - was runner up for the Templer Medal in 2010.

Career highlights

Consultant Historian Australian Army Doctrine Centre (1995-1997); Historian, Australian War Memorial (1997-2000, 2003-2007); Senior Lecturer in War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (2007-2010).

Associate Professor Pratten's research interests include the conduct of ground operations in the Second World War, with an emphasis on the Australian experience, British and Commonwealth counter-insurgency operations, the employment of reserve forces, peace support operations in the 1990s,  unit level command, and identity, motivation and cohesion in military forces.

Allied strategic logistic integration in the Asia-Pacific during the Second World War

Australian and United States operations at the Papua beachheads

The Viet Cong infrastructure in Phuoc Tuy province

Combat efficiency in the 18th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force

Operationalising the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the ADF

Australian, Briutish and United States naval gunfire support

Australian military advisers in Papua New Guinea

Experiences of Australian peacekeepers in the Solomon Islands, Bougaiville and East Timor

Australian battalion commanders in the First World War

Australian special forces in Afghanistan

Indonesian capability acquisition