For coming up on two decades, the United States military has been engaged - if you want to call it by the medal they give everyone for it - a Global War on Terrorism.

As we have invested two decades, trillions of dollars, and thousands dead across the globe in response to the attacks of September, 2001 - our best friends have been with us.

They do this of their own free will, and share the good fortune and bad with us in our contact of the war.

Today’s Midrats is a wide ranging discussion on the history, theory, and application of American leadership with our guest, Gray Connolly.

Gray Connolly (Graham Alfred Frederick Connolly) is an Honors graduate in Arts and Law from the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales. He is a graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College and holds the Queen's Commission in the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Australian Navy [Naval Intelligence].

Gray has served on operational Naval Intelligence deployments at sea and ashore in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, East Timor, and the Middle East. Gray served as a Naval Intelligence officer in the Iraq War (two deployments) and in the Afghanistan War.

These days, Gray is a Barrister in Sir Edmund Barton Chambers in Sydney. He has advised and represented the State of New South Wales and the Australian Government, including in national security matters. Gray was before that a Judge’s Associate in both the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia. Gray lectures in Australian Constitutional Law.

Gray is a frequent panelist for ABC radio and television, and he has been published in various newspapers and journals.

Gray is married, has had basset hounds named Churchill, and is a life-long supporter of the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Richmond Football Club. He still plays football/soccer and is a plodding midfielder.