Raised in 1957 during Communist subversion in South-East Asia, the small and little-understood SAS quickly become the Ugly Duckling of the Australian Army. But SAS proved itself in 1965 in the deniable jungle war in Borneo during Indonesian Konfrontasi. In 1966 in Vietnam it ravaged the Viet Cong, losing no soldiers to enemy action. In 1971 the SAS returned to Australia, whose new home defence policy threatened the SAS with closure.

In 1970 the SAS developed the 'Green' (war-insertion) skills of free-falling, water operations, and vehicle-mounted operations. When terrorism became an international threat, the SAS raised Australia's first Counter-Terrorist (CT), or 'Black' force. In the long peace after Vietnam the SAS eagerly looked for work and diversified its skills by conducting many niche missions. But as its creative flair waned in the 1990s, it reinvented itself as a postmodern organisation.

The 'long peace' ended suddenly in 1999 with SAS sent as an anti-guerrilla force to East Timor. The SAS CT squadron seized the vessels Tampa, South Tomi and Pong Su at sea. After 9/11 SAS joined the Coalition in Afghanistan searching for Osama bin Laden. In Operation Anaconda in 2002 an SAS patrol turned defeat into victory. In 2003 SAS joined the invasion of Iraq to change the regime. From 2005 to 2014 Afghanistan was again destabilised and SAS and US Special Forces fought an asymmetric war, ravaging the Taliban command structure. In 2015, with the rise of the brutal ISIS caliphate, SAS faces a busy future.