On Tuesday morning, bugles will sound around the nation in the crisp dawn air.
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But 100 years on from World War I, the “War to end all wars”, conflict is still rife around the globe.
In the week leading up to Anzac Day talk of nuclear war dominated the headlines; days before that, talk was of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria.
University of Tasmania head of politics and international relations Matt Killingsworth said history has played a “massive” role in shaping today’s global conflicts.
“You can’t start to begin to understand what the world looks like now and where the hotspots are without understanding the history of it,” he said.
“So understanding the history of North Korea and its relationship with China, understanding the Korean War, understanding the issue of spheres of influence, for example, that we see with Syria and Russia at the moment.
“What we’re witnessing currently in the Middle East is a long result of the de-colonisation of the area post-World War I and post-World War II.”
Launceston Returned and Service League sub-branch president Graeme Barnett served in the Middle East, and although the origins of the conflict there may lie in decades gone past, the way wars are fought has changed immeasurably.
“In World War I there was the front line and just over the road was their front line, so you’d do skirmishes and that kind of stuff,” he said.
“World War II was similar but it was more mechanised because you had tanks that could go over and you can’t put a bullet in a tank, but you can put a bullet in a man.
“Today you don’t know who is on your side and who’s not because they all look the same. The enemy or the insurgents or the guerilla fighters do not wear uniforms ...[so] you are constantly on the alert, it's a 24/7 theatre of war these days and that is a lot harder mentally.”
Dr Killingsworth believes nuclear bombs have been a “game changer” in war, and will make it unlikely another global war will erupt.
“What we see currently for example in Syria is the way that modern warfare is going to look; it is going to look like confusing, competing groups who are fighting and targeting civilians, who are using various forms or means of fighting wars such as chemical weapons, such as the use of barrel bombs, the targeting of civilians, the hiring of child soldiers.”
Dr Killingsworth said the reasons behind wars are complex, but they should always be a last resort.
“War should never be a means to an end – war should always be a last resort … it should always be that last tool that you have in the toolkit to solve the problem,” he said.
Mr Barnett believes wars “don't solve anything”.
“We’re still doing wars and yet World War I was meant to be the War that ended all wars, but it didn't, and World War II - that didn't end all wars either,” he said.
“Sure we haven’t had any World Wars since, but gee we’ve had some ripper bloody shoot-em-ups, haven’t we?
“If politicians actually had to go away and fight we wouldn’t have any more wars because the vast majority … of politicians wouldn't know what it’s like to be in uniform, what it’s like to go to bed with a rifle.”
Mr Barnett doesn’t agree with the idea that to find peace, you must go to war.
“I don’t think it plays much of a role at all to be perfectly honest, it just sorts out that one joker can build bigger ships, bigger planes, bigger bombs and bigger tanks,” he said.
Despite being clear he would never advocate for war, Mr Killingsworth said there is a degree of inevitability to it.
“War has been the one constant in human history and despite numerous efforts to stop it, such as the creation of the post 1945 order, the United Nations ... that world order is now decaying, the United Nations clearly doesn't do the job it was designed to do,” he said.
“Those old methods of avoiding conflict are clearly not working at the moment.”
Former Governor, the late Peter Underwood stirred controversy in 2014 when in his Anzac Day address he encouraged people to avoid glorifying war, but to understand it for what it is.
His wife Frances Underwood said he believed to truly honor the dead it was required to understand why wars happened.
“I know that there are wars that have to happen, I think those who went to war were resolute about peace and they wanted to find peace and I think we have to go to war when we are fighting a genuinely necessary and unavoidable act of self protection, but the trouble is we don't have the truth about that,” she said.
While the changing tides of war may be global, Tasmania has not been insulated.
“Tasmania always punched above its weight in terms of the amount of people it provided to the Defence Force and I think it still does,” Army Museum of Tasmania manager Chris Talbot said.
Mr Barnett agrees.
“Per head of population Tasmania has got the greatest contribution to Army, Navy, Air Force. [Australia has] 100 VCs [Victoria Crosses] since the Boer War and Tasmania's got 13 of them … we definitely aren’t 13 per cent of Australia's population.”