Associate ProfessorBob Breen

Professor Bob Breen OAM has been conducting research on post-Second World War Australian regional and international military operations for over 30 years. From 1993 until 2002, he conducted field research for the Land Commander-Australia in Somalia, Rwanda, Mozambique and the Middle East on separate occasions and visited Australian peace support operations in Melanesia and East Timor (now Timor Leste) on many occasions. His operational military career ended in 2007 with research for the Chief of Joint Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007.

From 2006, after qualifying for a PhD, until 2012, he was Senior Research Fellow, Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations Project, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Coral Bell School of Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University. He published Volume V on Australian peace support operations in the Pacific Islands in 2016 published in March 2019. He is currently Director, Defence Professional PhD Program at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University.

His major publications include:

The Good Neighbour: Australian peace support operations in the Pacific Islands 1980-2006, Vol. 5, Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK., 1-540

Struggling for Self Reliance: Four Case Studies of Australian Regional Force Projection in the late 1980s and the 1990s, ANU E Press, Canberra, A.C.T., 1-231

Mission Accomplished East Timor: Australian Defence Force participation in the International Forces East Timor (INTERFET), Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1-226

A Little Bit of Hope: Australian Force Somalia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1-499