You’ll hear the usual cliches about war this Remembrance Day – why does Australia refuse to learn the true lessons of history? | Paul Daley

Our national identity is becoming increasingly militarised. Today I’m thinking of a mother’s words – not the veneration of war dished out by politicians Countless are the times politicians have spoken for the Australian military personnel whose names appear on the roll of honour at the Australian War Memorial because they were killed in service. Remembrance Day, like Anzac Day on 25 April, is an opportunity for our political leaders to reaffirm, with bipartisan assurance, words to the effect that none of the 103,000 people named on that roll died in vain.

The sad fact is the vast majority of them died in the imperial wars of others – most notably Britain and the United States – and Australia’s current decision-makers, those who get to send young men and women to their deaths, have learned too little from the experience. Australia is astonishingly big on martial history for such a young nation whose technical foundation story (in our case federation at 1901) was not – like so many