Austability - Story of an Australian Security Company 6r1p3b

John and David interview David Khandan, Executive Director of Austability. In this episode we look at this Aussie security company's approach to a range of issues from counter-terrorism, radicalisation, cyber as well as women & child protection. Here is extra information on some of the names/ used in this episode for those who may not be familiar with them: Retired US Army Major Jim Gant, former Green Beret, also referred to as 'Lawrence of Afghanistan' for his Village Stability Operations (VSO) approach in which US Special Forces would embed themselves among Pashtun tribes in the hope of turning these tribes against the Taliban. ers of VSO (also called One Tribe at a Time) said this was the only tactic that worked in Afghanistan. Obama axed the program upon implementation of the US Status of Forces Agreement (signed by President Bush and actioned by President Obama) whereby the bulk of US forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Forensic linguistics, otherwise known as 'language and the law' seeks to understand how linguistic knowledge can be used to contextualise legal procedures. Human Terrain System (HTS) - an American concept for integrating academics in the social sciences, especially anthropologists, into military units in the field for a better understanding of local populations and their motivation for action. The program started in 2005 but fell out of favour in the Pentagon in 2014 because of ongoing complaints about 'academic integrity' of those embedded scholars who could not return to academic work after their work with the military had ended;