Welcome to our highly anticipated 'War in the Sand Pit' conference series of videos. The conference was held in Brisbane on 12-13 May 2017, and was sponsored by Military History & Heritage Victoria, the Australian National University, and the Returned & Services League of Australia, Queensland Branch.

We hope you enjoy all the presentations which the speakers have generously agreed to share with us. The presentations represent the speakers personal views based on their own experiences, and the context relevant to them and their individual role at the time. This presentation on the United States perspective is delivered by Professor Dan Marston, US Special Adviser in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Professor Dan Marston of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Bell School, Australian National University is currently the Principal of the Military and Defence Studies Program at the Australian Command and Staff College. He previously held the Ike Skelton Distinguished Chair of the Art of the War at the US Army Command and General Staff College. He has been a Visiting Fellow with the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the changing character of war. He has been working with the USA United States Marine Corps, British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2006.