Talk:List of wars involving Australia

Ambigious word Ally
The last column in this table is rather problematic. The victorious party is usually the Allies. But to which side the word ally refer to is unclear. Because in other columns the word ally is not used. (Same with communist victory and coalition defeat) The author must be more precise to show Australia's stand. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I know what you mean? Do you think it would help people more if I added in allies as well as opponents? 19 December 2011 Collingwood26 —Preceding undated comment added 23:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC).


 * I think the words victorious or defeated must refer to Australian side. So instead of Communist victory you can just state "defeated" and instead of coalition victory you can state "victorious". You can also use coloring for victory, defeat or indecisive. (see Webcolor) Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 02:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello Nedim Ardoğa. I've added a couple of wikilinks which might help clarify the results, although I couldn't find suitable links for a couple. What do you think of this approach? Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 04:26, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course links help to clarify. But my original objection was the inconsistency between 2nd and the 4th columns of the table . For example, in the second war, the result is alliance victory. Well which side was the alliance ? In other words, was Australia victorious or defeated ? Certainly after reading the linked articles one may draw conclusions. But the table must be more precise and even without using the links the reader should be able to perceive the conclusion. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes that makes sense. Given this the solution may be, as Collingwood26 suggested above, to include another column detail which side of the conflict Australia was on. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 22:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion(s) column
I think that this version of the article is rather simplistic, and misleading in parts. Few wars end with simple 'victories' or 'defeats', and claiming that the Iraq War was a 'victory' and Australia's role in the Vietnam War ended merely with a 'withdrawal' is rather dubious. The more detailed version of this column also isn't without its problems, but at least provides a lot more nuance. A third option might be to list the Australia-specific result of each war rather than the overall result of the war (eg, in Vietnam Australia succeeded in maintaining the South Vietnamese Government's control over most of Phước Tuy Province until the 1st Australian Task Force was withdrawn, and in the Gulf War Australian ships were successful in their various missions but contributed little to the final victory) - I suspect that this might be more helpful for readers, especially as Australia played a supporting role in most conflicts. Nick-D (talk) 04:23, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Nick-D, I agree, the majority of that user's edits are nothing but edit warring. And looking back at older revisions of the page, the results were not even bolded, and it seems inappropriate to add bolding to the results here. For example, list of wars involving the United Kingdom and Italy don't bold the results. The bolding and changing of the outcomes were by an IP back in April, continued by a new IP 4 days later.
 * Also, I agree that claiming the Iraq War as a victory is also disputed, and problematic considering Australia also withdrew in 2009. I think it needs to stick to the main article. Kirothereaper (talk) 06:03, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that the above remains relevant. In most of the wars listed here Australia's involvement was pretty minimal (for instance, Australian forces didn't fire a shot in anger in the 1991 Gulf War), and a simple "victory" implies that Australia played a vital role. Nick-D (talk) 00:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on List of wars involving Australia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/statistics/ww2.asp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:46, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on List of wars involving Australia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120730173252/http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/britishwwi.pdf to http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/britishwwi.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151104004037/http://www.cwgc.org/learning-and-resources/publications/annual-report.aspx to http://www.cwgc.org/learning-and-resources/publications/annual-report.aspx

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:35, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Iraq 2003-09
One of the enemies of the coalition effort in Iraq was the 'Islamic State', known at that time as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and then as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) - then ISIS, or ISIL, and now just IS apparently. How can this be called a victory when coalition countries are still fighting them? In fact, how can it be a victory when IS reached the height of their power after the coalition left? I've made the same point on the US, UK, and Italian War pages. TrendBronco (talk) 00:58, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Emu War
I must admit I had a good laugh when someone added it, but as it coes not fit the criteria for being considered a war, let's leave it out. --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 18:01, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

What about the armed conflict with indigenous Australians (a.k.a. the Australian Frontier Wars)?
Should the 'Australian Frontier Wars' perhaps be included in this list?

The armed conflict between the settlers and indigenous Australians lasted from first settlement to 1934:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_frontier_wars

Subtleshiftingravitas (talk) 10:52, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

The Emu War
Despite what Americans on Reddit will tell you, the Emu war is not a real war

byhemechi (talk) 12:15, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Rhodesian Bush War
Australian volunteers were involved in the Rhodesian Bush War from 1964-1979. It might be worth adding this into the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesian_Bush_War
 * The article's inclusion criteria are "wars involving the Commonwealth of Australia", not "wars involving Australians", so I think that's out of scope. The Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s are out of scope on similar grounds. An Australian Army unit was sent to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe as part of the international peacekeeping force at the end of the war, but I don't think it was involved in any fighting - from memory, it undertook truce-monitoring tasks and helped train the new Zimbabwean military. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Should Australian Military active combat peacekeeping operations be included
Should Australian Military active combat peacekeeping operations be included, such as Somalia – under Operation Solace (1992–95) since other like Operation Astute are included. Also should Australian UN intervention be counted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nightmares26 (talk • contribs) 13:01, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:38, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Flag of the Kurdish White Flags.jpg

Merger discussion
The List of conflicts in Australia appears to be the exact same list as this one, just with less detail and barely any citations. At the very least, it doesn't seem like there's enough of a difference between the two to justify them being separated. As this "list of wars" article has more detail, sources and work put into it, I suggest merging the "list of conflicts" article into this one. It should be trivial to do so. --Grnrchst (talk) 19:07, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Bduke (talk) 10:17, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I disagree, one is a list of wars australian has fought in compared to conflicts that occurred in Australia only. --The Man who Made most of this Page (talk) (talk) (talk) 19:50, 2 January 2023 (AEST)

Where is Emu War
It needs to be on here

136.33.235.64 (talk) 02:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Castle Hill rebellion?
Before I add it, I just wanted to see what y'all think of adding the Castle Hill convict rebellion. Seems like it fits the criteria (New South Wales government involvement in suppressing it) and was surprised to not find it here, but I wanted to check first before I do anything. JPBrissot (talk) 22:17, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022-present) should not be added
Australia is only providing money and equipment, it should not be included. 106.71.58.30 (talk) 11:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)