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Commander Darin Macdonald RAN

Commander Darin Macdonald RAN

Visiting Fellow
UNSW Canberra
School of Humanities & Social Sciences

Commander Darin Macdonald has Master of Military and Defence Studies (ANU), Bachelor of Arts in Military and Strategic Studies, First Class Honours (Royal Military College of Canada) and it currently studying for a Masters of Business at UNSW Canberra.

Areas of Interest

  • Re-development of professional education component of RAN’s Deep Specialist Principal Warfare Officer Course.
  • RAN involvement in the 2003 Iraq War.
  • Undertake a PhD into the manner in which Professional Military Education, and naval operational history in particular, is used to shape a narrative history by commonwealth navies, focussing particularly on Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. I intend to contrast these with the experiences of other navies, such as the USN as well as the German, Italian and Japanese navies, to understand how their experiences in 20th century global conflicts gave rise to various internal narratives and what impact those narratives have on the ability of those organisations to learn and prepare for future conflict.
    • Book Review – The British Way of War: Julian Corbett and the Battle for a National Strategy by Professor Andrew Lambert (Yale University Press, London, 2021). Published by Australian Naval Institute
    • “Professional Military Education and Sea-Blindness: Lessons from the Royal Canadian Navy” Australian Naval Review issue 1, June 2021
    • “Military Education, The Decline of Rational Debate and the Failure of Strategic Thinking in the Imperial Japanese Navy: 1920-1941” Paper awarded runner up in the 2019 Chief of Navy Essay Competition in the Australian Defence Division. Published separately by Australian Naval Institute and Seapower Centre – Australia.
    • Book Review – A Naval History of the Peloponnesian War: Ships, Men and Money in the War at Sea 431-404 BC by Marc G. DeSantis (Pen and Sword, Barnsley, 2019) published by Australian Naval Institute.
    • Article – “Sonar Blind: The Case for Sonobuoy Processors in Major Fleet Units”, Tactalks Issue 1 2012. Winner of the Chief of Navy Tactics Award for 2012.