Crafting a Vision for the Future Australian Army
The fall of Singapore opens the Battle for Australia … what the Battle of Britain required, the Battle for Australia demands.
Prime Minister John Curtin, 1942[1]
Introduction
By late 1941, Australia had deployed more than 22,000 soldiers across its northern approaches in preparation for a possible Japanese advance on the mainland. By February 1942, Singapore, Malaya and The Dutch East Indies were all under Emperor Hirohito’s control. New Guinea and the Solomon Islands would soon follow. Only one outfit, the 2/2nd Independent Company stationed in Portuguese East Timor, remained behind enemy lines.[2]
Back in Australia, military planners agonised over the nation’s defence. With the failure of the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command and the ‘Singapore Strategy’ (which essentially placed the defence of the country into the hands of the Royal Navy), Prime Minister John Curtin, who had only been in the role since the previous October, now found himself in confrontation with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill over the issue of the 7th Australian Division.[3] Churchill wanted them deployed to Burma to bolster the Commonwealth forces in and around the eastern flank of India. Curtin was adamant that the troops were to be brought home for the defence of Australia itself. The bombings of Darwin in February 1942 followed the Japanese invasion of Rabaul earlier in January, which now provided it with a significant air and naval base upon which to launch operations south towards continental Australia. Curtin ultimately prevailed—Churchill was furious.
1942 would prove a seminal year for Australia in World War II. Two days after Darwin was bombed and 70 days after Singapore fell, civilian and military leadership alike had realised that the nation’s capacity to defend itself was primarily restricted to the populated industrial centres of the south-east corner of the continent.[4] A Japanese amphibious assault on Darwin, Broome, Wyndham or Derby (all subjected to bombing raids throughout February) was assessed as ‘probable’, and it seemed that there was not much of a military force capable or ready to oppose it.[5]
Fast-forward to 2025 and, just like in February 1942, the continental defence of Australia remains critical to Australia’s military strategy. Defence policy updates in 2023 and 2024 compare Australia’s current strategic circumstances to those of the late 1930s.[6] Whether Australia finds itself in 2025 in a ‘pre-war’ moment or not, the return of great power competition between current and emerging hegemonic nations worldwide, but perhaps most acutely in east and north Asia, has again exposed Australia’s security and defence vulnerabilities. Commentators agree that this coming decade is a crucial moment for Australia regarding how best to prepare for a future that sees a heightened risk of strategic miscalculation and conflict.[7]
The issue of northern continental defence across an area so vast is as much a challenge today as it was to Australia’s war planners in 1942. What was essentially defined in the early 1940s as ‘ABDA’s elbow room’ (which included northern Australia and the South-East Asian archipelago) is now acknowledged in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review as ‘an area facing its most significant strategic circumstances since the Second World War’.[8] The question of how best to provide for the nation’s security requires a review of Australian military history, especially in the South-West Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. This paper will examine one aspect of how Australia planned to defend itself in the early 1940s. The 2/1st ‘Northern Australia Observer Unit’ mission represents parallels in geography, force design, innovation and technology to the geographic, conceptual and operational problems the Australian Army now faces in 2025. Drawing upon these lessons and insights, a proposed future scenario circa 2029 describes how the Army might respond to its strategic circumstances.
1942 and the ‘Real’ Threat of Invasion
The seizure of Rabaul by the advancing Japanese on 23 January 1942 was primarily designed to fortress and defend their large air and naval base on the island of Truk, as well as to begin advance force operations to capture Lae and Salamaua (seized in May), with Port Moresby a subsequent future objective.[9]
In making his operational assessment in the aftermath of the loss of Rabaul, the commander of the ABDA forces, General Sir Archibald Wavell, concluded that he needed most of continental north-western Australia to act as a buffer and provide more strategic depth, particularly after the loss of Singapore on 15 February.[10] Australian Army Chief of the General Staff General Vernon Sturdee’s Future Employment of the A.I.F.: General Sturdee’s Paper of 15th February 1942 (written around the same time) prioritised the ‘holding of the (Australian) continental area from which we (sic) can eventually launch an offensive in the Pacific when American aid can be fully developed’.[11] The area in question spread from Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria west to Onslow in Western Australia.[12] Everything south of the newly defined ‘ABDA elbow room’, according to both plans, was to be undefended.
In early 1942, a classified report to the Australian Chiefs of Staff was damning in its assessment of Australia’s military force readiness. The country’s armed services had undergone years of neglect; no meaningful civil defence concept or coastal or air defence plan of any national consequence existed.[13] Three Australian divisions were serving in the Middle East, the bulk of 8th Division had been lost in Singapore, and the seven divisions of the Citizen Military Forces were undertrained and underequipped.[14] The one saving grace was that in November 1941 the US had requested, and Australia had agreed, to begin staging American forces in and around Australia to rebalance their force posture as a result of increasing concern over Japanese military intention, later confirmed with Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and rapid advances into South-East Asia after 7 December 1941.[15]
In realising that Australian forces had little to contribute to northern defence in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of ABDA and the defeat in Singapore, the Deputy Chief of General Staff, Major General Sir Sydney Rowell, turned his mind to the issue of intelligence gathering, surveillance operations, security operations and counter-espionage across the remote, accessible and vulnerable northern approaches to continental Australia.[16] Rowell’s thinking also led him to conclude that, should the mainland be attacked, Australian forces should essentially not oppose but rather collapse south and focus efforts on securing the populated centres between Melbourne and Brisbane. However, accepting an enemy occupation required a presence of stay-behind elements capable of reporting on enemy movements and conducting harassing and sabotage operations inside the Japanese rear area.[17]
Enter EH Stanner
The task of devising a plan for stay-behind forces in northern Australia fell to a relatively unknown adviser to Francis Forde, the Minister for the Army. Dr Edward ‘Bill’ H Stanner, an anthropologist by training, had served Forde as a politico-military adviser after being rejected from service in the Army at the outbreak of the war in 1939.[18] Stanner’s research into Aboriginal communities around the Daly River and across northern Australia made him well qualified to lead the strategy discussion.[19] It was in Stanner that Forde put his faith to develop the stay-behind mission. Stanner had also recently led a strategic task force to remediate acute supply shortages across the Army and had also been warned to lead an operation to recover sensitive military equipment from Singapore (the activity was abandoned after the Allied surrender). On Forde’s recommendation, General Rowell tasked Stanner to widen his reporting and conduct a military appreciation on how best to defend the north with the limited resources available.[20] A planning activity was soon organised and attended by representatives of the three armed services, the US defence attaché and the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
The military appreciation subsequently undertaken by Stanner in 1942 described the need for a new unit, a Northern Australia Observer Unit (NAOU). Stanner proposed a force that would coordinate all surveillance across northern Australia and provide critical information and advice necessary for the War Cabinet to plan for the defence of the continent in the event of a Japanese invasion. The likely tasks of the NAOU were agreed as: (1) surveillance of the coastal and inland zones of the named area of operations; (2) seagoing surveillance of rivers, coast, and any waterway that gave access to the inland; (3) aerial observation of seaward, coastal and certain inland areas; (4) establishment of a unit headquarters capable of coordinating inter-agency activities; (5) transmission of intelligence to support war planning; (6) counter-espionage and counter-propaganda among Aboriginal tribes and security control of all non-military European, Aboriginal and Asian populations in the area; and (7) establishment and maintenance of ‘security zones’ around operational centres, to include airfields and port facilities.[21]
Stanner emphasised the need for organic ‘mobility’ in the NAOU. He chose horses rather than wheeled vehicles based on his own experiences in the area during the 1930s; long-range communications, light weapons and light logistics were also judged as critical elements of capability. Personnel would be required to patrol for months, with little to no support, relying on their bushcraft and local Aboriginal guides to assist them in navigation and local area knowledge.[22]
Stanner drew inspiration for the NAOU from an unlikely source: the South African Boer Commando from almost 50 years earlier.[23] During anthropological research in Kenya during the 1930s, Stanner had heard first-hand the stories of the Boers and their ability to survive in bush conditions in South Africa that were not unlike those of northern Australia. He had also studied closely the German Army’s operations in East Africa in the First World War, where more than 160,000 British troops had been effectively contained by fewer than 14,000 Germans who, with their knowledge of local weather and terrain, had proven the ability of small, highly mobile troops and what they could do against larger, fixed forces. ‘Time, space, physical movement, and supply’ were the philosophical foundations of the NAOU’s mission, roles and tasks.[24]
Stanner’s appointment as the commanding officer was seen as radical by many other military officers—he had never held a military command before. His previous experience was a brief stint in a military signals unit in the 1930s.[25] In 1942, however, he was universally acknowledged as a genuine military intellectual in addition to being an already established anthropologist, a sought-after newspaper editor and a trusted political adviser. His written military appreciations were admired by many and are even today acknowledged as ‘classics’ in terms of quality and prose.[26] Any perceived lack of experience militarily was no apparent concern for Land Headquarters (LHQ) (previously Army Headquarters until April 1942); Stanner was therefore appointed to his first unit command.[27] Operational command and control of the NAOU was soon an ongoing tension across the LHQ staff—should it be responsible to the local military district commander or, given the strategic nature of its role and task, should it be directly accountable to the LHQ itself? Command arrangements based on territorial boundaries were how the rest of the home defence force was structured. Given, however, the unique nature of its mission and the role it was expected to play in the event of a Japanese land invasion, it was decided that the NAOU would be directly commanded by the LHQ. Stanner would notably also be force assigned as ‘responsible’ to the local field commander, the General Officer Commanding ‘NT Force’, who commanded the area of operations where the NAOU would deploy and operate.[28]
Throughout May to October 1942, LHQ and local commanders debated the likely role of the NAOU (who had by this time given themselves the nickname ‘the Nackeroos’ owing to the clunkiness of ‘the NAOU’ as a collective noun).[29] Using the tasks derived from Stanner’s earlier appreciation, LHQ settled on the primary role of surveillance, reconnaissance and reporting. In the event of a Japanese land invasion, the Nackeroos would transition to a guerrilla force with a focus on ‘independent warfare’, to include sabotage, harassment and offensive action.[30] This mirrored the independent companies operating throughout Portuguese Timor. Notwithstanding their guerilla role in the event of invasion, their mission was primarily intelligence collection and surveillance rather than a fighting role, especially given their force structure, logistics and weapons (unlike most infantry units, which were purpose-designed for close combat). The Nackeroos were to be headquartered in the central Australian township of Katherine, with an Administration Company and a Training and Reinforcement Company, with their three ‘Field’ companies located in Roper Bar (Northern Territory, east of Katherine, on the coastline opposite Groote Eylandt), Ivanhoe (Western Australia, west of Katherine, beyond Wyndham and out to Bonaparte Gulf) and Gregory Downs (Queensland, south-east of Katherine, stretching along the width of the Gulf of Carpentaria as far east as Normanton).[31]
Raising the 2/1st NAOU
From May to July 1942, the NAOU was a top priority for the Australian Army.[32] The call for volunteers was answered overwhelmingly: hundreds of men signed up, many from recently disbanded light horse regiments and many looking to escape the monotony of Army camp life. The NAOU equipment tables were unlike any other in the Army, consisting of more than 1,500 horses, 41 vehicles, 15 bicycles and six motorcycles. In addition to standard Army-issue rifles and machine guns, the Nackeroos would also carry smaller calibre.22 rifles and 12-gauge shotguns, essential for hunting and foraging.[33] The unit’s personnel establishment was also unique—it totalled approximately 550 men, including farrier sergeants, saddlers and a bootmaker.[34] It resembled a light horse regiment of the First World War rather than a reconnaissance unit of the Second. Force concentration, training and operational preparation before deployment would occur in Katherine.
The NAOU was also authorised to integrate 15 guides from the Northern Territory Police and local Aboriginal trackers, who would prove vital to the unit’s survival across the coming months; rather than merely living ‘off’ the land, with their Indigenous guides the NAOU sought to live ‘with’ the land instead. The integration of military and civilian agencies into an ‘inter-agency force’ was both new and novel for the Army in 1942.
Operations of the 2/1st NAOU
The commencement of surveillance and reconnaissance patrols of the Nackeroos from their arrival into Katherine on 10 August 1942 finally gave shape to Stanner’s strategy; it put the ‘eyes and ears’ of the Australian Army firmly in those areas where the LHQ had assessed a Japanese land invasion as most likely to occur.[35] It also could not have come soon enough: four weeks earlier, the Army’s Western Command (later re-badged as III Corps) had entirely withdrawn from the Wyndham area, leaving it undefended.[36] Reporting of enemy survey vessels inside the lower Gulf region and the recovery of several radio communication sets reinforced the assessment that enemy forces were active in the area.[37]
Between August 1942 and late 1943, the NAOU likely conducted somewhere between 100 and 250 patrols (based on partial war diary tallies and unit reports).[38] These patrols typically lasted anywhere from a few days to several weeks, with small patrol detachments (often four to 10 men) covering large tracts of territory on foot, on horseback, or using light vehicles. NAOU patrols were strafed by Japanese aircraft conducting counter-air and reconnaissance missions.[39] War diary entries show multiple instances of the NAOU reporting unidentified aircraft, possible submarine periscopes off the coast, and suspicious boat landings.[40] While many turned out to be false alarms or friendly vessels, these reports kept Australia’s northern command on constant alert and contributed to overall threat awareness. The patrols provided critical early-warning coverage and on-the-ground reconnaissance, helping shape Allied decision-making in northern Australia. They also served as an experimental force, refining techniques for sustained operations in harsh, remote environments. NAOU patrols also trialled various means of long-range patrolling, as well as advanced communication technologies (using wireless telegraphy in harsh conditions across vast distances) and logistics (employing packhorses and scavenged vehicles). These future tactics laid the groundwork for the Army’s doctrine and concepts, particularly in northern Australia and South-East Asia.[41] Over the course of its operations, LHQ highly valued NAOU reporting. Surveillance and reconnaissance forces remained in high demand throughout 1942 and 1943, even as the threat of land invasion decreased.
By late 1943, LHQ began to see other priorities, namely operations in New Guinea, and consequently began to reduce the scale and capability of the NAOU. By 1944, the Nackeroos had been re-roled into a coastwatcher unit, no longer conducting the type of long-range surveillance patrols that the unit had been originally designed for. Eventually Stanner himself was posted out of the Nackeroos and back to a research role in Army Headquarters.[42] As the war turned increasingly in the Allies’ favour, the NAOU would become less and less prominent; it would be disbanded and removed from the Army order of battle in 1945.[43] No unit capable of the same type of regional surveillance operations would appear again in the Army’s establishment until the raising of the North West Mobile Force in 1981.[44]
Learning from the Past to Shape the Future: 2025–2030
The NAOU demonstrated the Army’s ability to force project its capabilities across Australia’s approaches (including into its vast northern interior) as well as to contribute to strategic intelligence collection through the conduct of long-range surveillance and reconnaissance patrols. Today the Australian Army’s presence in northern Australia continues this practice through its Regional Force Surveillance Units (RFSUs): NORFORCE (North-West Mobile Force); the 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment; and the Pilbara Regiment.
The NAOU’s significance stretches beyond the remit of present-day RFSUs, however. Its history highlights key lessons on structuring adaptable forces for various operational needs, the methods of raising, training and sustaining them, and the importance of both innovation and risk management in concept development and force design. Crucially, it also reinforces the value of inter-agency coordination, intelligence and surveillance in protecting Australia’s northern approaches. Today these insights are essential for the Army, especially given the multi-agency approach and complex challenges faced by military forces in providing for Australia’s security against myriad known threats and adversaries.
By 2025, security concerns reminiscent of those that arose on the eve of the Second World War have again prompted the Australian Government to address how best to safeguard the nation amid growing uncertainty. In April 2024 the government released its inaugural National Defence Strategy, which included this strategic assessment:
Entrenched and increasing strategic competition between the United States (US) and China is a primary feature of our security environment. It is accompanied by an unprecedented conventional and non-conventional military build-up in our region, taking place without strategic reassurance or transparency. Various other security risks, including climate change, grey-zone activities, and technological advancements, compound the challenges to regional stability and prosperity arising from this competition.[45]
The National Defence Strategy sets as its objective a need to build a future Australian Defence Force (ADF) more focused on deploying military forces inside its strategic ‘inner arc’, including the immediate region to the nation’s north, and providing enduring access to the maritime commons. This objective also comes with the ongoing need to be prepared to contribute to a major conventional war in East and North Asia among great powers.[46]
This capability assessment coincides with what many experts see as a forthcoming military revolution. Rapid advances in applied military and ‘dual use’ technology, including robotic and autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and human and machine technology teaming, is featuring significantly in national military arsenals that commentators such as TX Hammes, a former United States Marine and military commentator, describe as ‘game changers’.[47] Significant also are the advent of long-range missiles and the use of space and cyber as military warfighting domains, all of which change the equation regarding the deployment and use of military forces. For instance, armies would until recently calculate the ‘close, deep and rear’ battlespace in the tens to hundreds of kilometres; battles were fought over distances where land forces were able to manoeuvre troops, observe the enemy, and fire artillery and rockets at targets they could see. With the advent of hypersonic and other long-range missile systems, armies now essentially co-equal navies and air forces in their ability to fire missiles, deploy intelligence and reconnaissance assets, and command and control disparate forces over thousands of kilometres.[48] Recent conflicts in Ukraine, regional crises in the Middle East, and the military arms build-up throughout the Asia-Pacific all attest to the importance of these technologies and their critical role in a nation’s concept of military power.
The combination of a changing security environment and a revolution in military affairs will require the Australian Army and the broader ADF to reappraise their strategy and concepts, often best described as ‘how to fight’. While the National Defence Strategy outlines significant changes to the strategic environment as well as the planned technology uplift of the future ADF, it is important also to acknowledge what does not change in Australia’s defence posture: the vastness of the continental interior; the epic scale and distance between the Indian and the Pacific oceans, which define Australia’s geography; the South-East Asian archipelago stretching from the Torres Strait north to the South China Sea; and the challenge for a middle power, with a modest population and resource base, to provide for its self-reliant self-defence.
While military history tends to look only to the past, future force design and the development of modern military strategies and concepts must, by necessity, focus on the future. When combined, history and force design can provide a very effective foundation for understanding how to best prepare for security challenges that lie ahead. In the case of the NAOU, the urgency and innovation deployed by the Army to raise a new and specialised unit (noting that it still took six months, despite being in a state of war) offer distinct insights and lessons which strategists and operational planners today can learn from, be inspired by, and apply in their thinking. To that end, what follows is a proposed future operational concept for the Australian Army, enabled by the decisions and investments of the 2024 National Defence Strategy and informed by the wartime experiences of EH Stanner and the NAOU. This scenario is forecasted for the year 2029, when many, but not all, of the planned future ADF capability investments have begun to arrive in service. It also assumes that the international operating environment continues to deteriorate, and that Australia is increasingly concerned about how it will safeguard its future and protect itself from any future threat adversary or declared enemy.
A Scenario-Based Concept of Employment, 2029–30: A Strategy in Advance
The year is 2029. The ADF is force-structured following the policies and directions of the Australian Government’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review and 2024 National Defence Strategy, focusing on ‘deterrence by denial’ as a military objective.[49] This approach largely follows Australia’s tradition of strategic thought, defined by its Asian geography, its Western identity, its status as an island continent and the importance it places on allies for security beyond the limit of what it can provide.[50] With investments in long-range space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, cyber effects, and littoral force projection now coming online, military commanders see options to deploy operational concepts throughout Australia’s inner arc should the strategic environment warrant the employment of military power to prevent coercion from a hostile power or rogue state.
However, 2029 is a challenging year. Much of the planned investment in maritime and strike capability for the future ADF is still some years away. At this time, Australia does not have access to any Virginia-class submarines, which are not due for delivery until the early 2030s under the 2021 AUKUS Pillar I program.[51] Sustainment, maintenance and fleet rotation of its aging Collins-class submarines places significant pressure on the ADF’s deterrence capabilities. Much like the military crisis of 1942, the rapidly changing security environment suddenly exposed the lack of immediately available high-readiness military forces to defend Australia against any hostile state with hostile intent. In 2029, political and military leaders are once again at risk of being unable to deter any potential aggressor if confronted at a time when the ADF has not yet fully completed its re-capitalisation as a result of the policy-driven reforms of the early and mid-2020s. In short, 2029 is the year when Australia is reminded again that it does not always get to choose when conflict and war come; in this case, it arrives before much of the force is ready. There is no AUKUS submarine fleet, only partially upgraded destroyers, no anti-submarine frigates, no additional general-purpose frigates, too few amphibious ships and only a few littoral vessels as well as a small number of minor warships, all committed to constabulary duties across Australia’s northern approaches.[52]
It is not all doom and gloom, however. The 2024 National Defence Strategy did make some provision for accelerated delivery of a few advanced weapons and platforms, specifically in the land-based surface and maritime strike capabilities of the Australian Army, as well as continuing to deliver the ‘objective force’ structures derived from its 2019 Force Structure Plan. By 2029, the Army has upgraded and re-capitalised its close combat capabilities with new investments in combat reconnaissance vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, main battle tanks, armoured bridging and breaching capabilities, self-propelled artillery, combat aviation and deployable logistics. Perhaps most significantly, however, has been the uplift of the Army’s contribution to joint strike—the essence of any military deterrence strategy. The delivery of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HiMARS), complete with its sophisticated ‘missile mix’ and surface, maritime and air defence guided weapons now enables it to threaten maritime choke points, target ships on the high seas, provide close and general air defence, and essentially threaten enemy forces at the operational level of war. When combined with the newly arrived littoral combat fleet, as well as an upgraded and enhanced security relationship with allies and partners throughout the region, the Army both conceptually and mechanically can now project forces across Australia’s northern approaches, operating alongside the Navy and Air Force, as well as deterring potential enemy force elements at ranges and distances now in the hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres.
The Army also paid close attention to the lessons and insights of the 2022 Russo-Ukraine War and other regional conflicts. Throughout the 2020s, it invested heavily in emerging technology, including its robotics and autonomous systems programs, distributed digital command and control systems, and theatre logistics capabilities. Crucially, the Army also refined and developed its operating concepts by identifying more as a ‘marine force’, capable of being an amphibious-enabled expeditionary force closely aligned to the United States Marine Forces—Pacific.[53] Army also concentrated heavily on developing its long-range strike, force projection, and theatre logistical capabilities, ultimately meaning that it was capable of deploying into South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific either as an element of a joint force or, if necessary, as a standalone land force, using its watercraft and intra-theatre aviation assets to do so.
Deterrence by Denial, 2029: Anti-Access through Persistent Presence[54]
The story of the NAOU demonstrates how quickly the Australian Army can raise and train specialised units under the pressure of imminent threat despite limited resources and time. This aligns with the demands of the modern ADF, whereby geography and strategic necessity drive an emphasis on northern and archipelagic operations, especially in a resource-constrained environment, as the Army was in 1942. Technology, in the form of robotics, artificial intelligence and long-range missiles, also now enables the Army to contribute significantly to the maritime and air domains, just as radios and aerial surveillance did for the NAOU and other Army units in the Second World War. Much like the NAOU’s innovative response in 1942, the Army in the late 2020s once again finds itself in a race against time to field and integrate cutting-edge technologies while refining new operational concepts. Unlike the NAOU, however, this time its operational concept for northern defence is no longer confined to ‘ABDA’s elbow room’—thanks to modern military technology, the Army is now as capable as air and maritime forces to project itself well into Australia’s northern approaches, thousands of kilometres beyond its continental shores.
By 2029 the Australian Army has reconfigured itself into small, lethal, low-signature, mobile and survivable force elements designed to operate throughout South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific as the leading edge of an ADF deterrence strategy focused on establishing and maintaining an anti-access, area denial capability as a foundational operational concept. Critical is the need for the Army to contribute to this deterrence through persistent presence throughout the area of operations, with the primary aim to be able to deploy into South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific, prepare and defend key areas (including maritime choke points), build deterrence capacity by partnering with local forces and, where necessary, conduct offensive operations against any hostile power seeking to interdict Australia’s key maritime trade routes or attack the Australian continent directly.
The Australian Army’s enduring function throughout the pre-conflict phase is to support the joint force to ‘win’ the intelligence, reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance and surveillance battle at every point (much like the NAOU before). Land forces, both in 1942 and in 2029, do this by gaining and maintaining contact with regional partners and allies, establishing a joint fires and command and control network with the ability to develop and ‘lay on’ targets discreetly, and conduct preparation in anticipation of any sudden or rapid escalation triggering conflict. The central purpose of the persistent presence phase is to assist the joint force commander in identifying and countering any enemy preliminary actions that threaten to undermine Australia’s security in the region and commence any preparation necessary in anticipation of likely future conflict.
As it was for the NAOU in 1942, establishing targeting and surveillance networks in the early phases of persistent presence is crucial for the Army on behalf of the joint force. Completing ‘kill webs’ that can rapidly identify and select potential future targets within and across intelligence and joint fire networks is essential to building the common operating picture necessary to enable future joint strikes. Army, as a networked, integrated component of the future ADF joint fires network, will be critical in this regard, especially in the early phases of a deterrence strategy when other joint assets, including clearly identifiable and overt maritime and air platforms, may not be able to penetrate adversary systems without significant risk or compromise.
Through these early persistent presence deployments and actions, the Australian Army becomes an operational problem for any potential adversary even before the commencement of hostilities—an army capable of threatening maritime forces before any conflict across the Indo-Pacific region is a problem for any enemy naval task group and must be dealt with if operations are to occur without being threatened from coastal and littoral access points. Army, in its persistent presence, is now capable of overwatching critical maritime choke points and effectively deters any potential adversary by denying them freedom of manoeuvre. For deterrence to succeed, however, it must be legitimate—it must shape the thinking of a potential adversary to a point where ‘the costs outweigh the benefit’. Land-based maritime strike capabilities are critical in this instance. Persistent presence also draws on the history of the NAOU, honouring the operational concept of EH Stanner as it focuses on military operations in the enemy’s rear area before hostilities and pre-positions advance force elements in key terrain areas in anticipation of conflict.
Deterrence by Denial, 2029: Area Denial through Offensive Strike
Suppose the persistent presence phase of a 2029 military strategy fails to deter an adversary. In that case, vertical escalation by the ADF into an ‘area denial’ phase becomes the sequel to the operational concept. In this scenario, the Australian Army’s persistent presence force pivots into military operations, where locatable and tracked adversary platforms and assets are instantly declared as actionable targets on strike lists. Supporting ADF forces would deploy rapidly by sea, air and land from across the region, set the operational theatre, and leverage the existing land-supported joint force’s sensors, strike, and manoeuvre assets to commence decisive military operations. ‘Kill webs’ activate, and targets are serviced by a joint fires network capable of employing air, maritime, space, cyber and surface fires to neutralise enemy combatants within declared operational areas. This phase is designed to be sudden, violent and decisive. It also anticipates the likelihood of hostile action from an enemy at any point, meaning that the Army must also be capable of rapidly scaling from its current force structure into a mobilised one.
When deployed forward with land-based maritime strike capabilities, Army force elements, protected by their close combat system, can perform sea denial through organic sensors and weapon systems as part of an ADF joint fires network, integrated with naval, air and other joint all-domain capabilities. In 2029 the Army also possesses sufficient organic littoral manoeuvre and offensive capability to hold tactical positions of advantage and manoeuvre force elements independent of the Navy and Air Force. Army, including special forces, can also seize and secure contested ports and airfields and control critical maritime sea lines of communication. Army also enables concurrent joint operations, including amphibious lodgements to support other theatre objectives.[55]
This phase is the culminating point of this 2029 operational concept.
Of note in this phase is the emergence of two new distinct tasks for Army force elements. Maritime reconnaissance by land forces throughout Australia’s strategic arc is now a mission-critical task for the Australian Army. Army’s ‘leading edge’ forces responsible for this maritime reconnaissance mission will likely consist of robotic and autonomous air, land, maritime and space systems. These systems will have the range and endurance to perform an ADF first-echelon ‘advance guard’ on behalf of the joint force (much like the NAOU in 1942). When integrated into existing joint command and control (including the Joint All-Domain Command and Control system as part of the ADF’s future Advanced Battle Management System), Army maritime reconnaissance forces will be capable of effectively operating across vast tracts of land, air and sea, consistent with the range and distances typical of the Indo-Pacific region.
The second emergent task for the Army in 2029 is to provide the forward edge to the ADF’s defence in depth. Whereas the 1987 White Paper pointed to an air- and maritime-centric force necessary to control the ‘sea-air’ gap, by 2029 this is no longer appropriate given the evolving threats against naval and air platforms across the Indo-Pacific region.[56] Due to rapid advances in space-based surveillance, the maritime commons no longer provide a sanctuary for ships or aircraft to avoid detection—therefore, the ‘large, expensive and few’ are, by necessity, replaced by the ‘small, cheap and many’, including not only hardened, mobile and protected Army force elements but also significant numbers of drones and remotely operated surveillance systems. When combined, the land force’s ability to hold a hostile power’s critical assets at risk and deny them sanctuary across both phases of the ADF’s future operating concept further highlights the utility of this force. From 2029, the Army’s ability to generate sea denial through long-range detection and maritime strike capabilities throughout South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific becomes fundamental to Australia’s future deterrence strategy, relying upon combinations of geography, technology and tactics. In this regard, its two new tasks, ‘maritime reconnaissance’ and ‘defence in depth’, become critical across both the persistent presence and offensive strike phases of the ADF’s future deterrence strategy.
Lessons from History
The NAOU legacy is not simply a footnote in history; it is a study of how Australia can secure its remote northern expanses under resource constraints and in rapidly shifting threat environments. By examining how the NAOU integrated with other agencies and local communities, empowered non-traditional leaders and specialists, innovated using both low-tech and high-tech solutions and improvisation, enhanced surveillance and early-warning capability, and laid the groundwork for modern RFSUs’ enduring mission, the Australian Army of 2029 can harness these insights to strengthen its capacity for flexible, agile defence solutions for northern Australia. In doing so, the NAOU experience becomes a timeless example of how to blend people, technology and local knowledge into a force capable of detecting, deterring and responding to evolving security challenges—just as it did eight decades ago.
Both history and future force design converge in shaping Australia’s defence posture. The NAOU’s legacy—urgency, innovation, adaptability and the importance of intelligence-driven operations—remains relevant. By learning from the NAOU’s experiences, today’s Army can better adapt to an uncertain strategic environment in a rapidly changing Indo-Pacific theatre.
Conclusion
The Army of 2029 vastly differs from the Army at any time in its previous history. Much as the Australian Army experienced between 1942 and 1945, the Army has reassessed its core operating concepts and capabilities and adjusted itself to meet an urgent operational need. In that same vein, the Army will continue to draw upon the lessons of the NAOU, with its focus on preparing for military operations inside a contested (or even possibly occupied) area, as well as its emphasis on intelligence gathering, surveillance, disparate command and control, distributed logistics, joint operations, and offensive action. The history of the Nackeroos provides a novel insight into how the Army manages crisis and change in war.
The decisions and investments of the 2024 National Defence Strategy aim to give the ADF a ‘home field’ advantage; just like EH Stanner’s operational appreciation of 1942, the National Defence Strategy seeks to describe the need for new force elements and capabilities. What would significantly improve the quality of professional discourse regarding military capability and high-level strategy would be a greater, more intense appreciation of Australia’s military history, the nature and character of the region in which it operates, and an intelligent, open discussion on some of the operational concepts that describe how the Army will best operate to defend Australia over the coming decades. A straightforward, compelling narrative describing how future military forces might be used could significantly benefit future strategies and improve the quality of the ‘future of war’ debate in Australia. It would also give greater logic and purpose to the substantial uplift in investment expected over the coming decades as Australia grapples with protecting itself in an uncertain and changing world.
Endnotes
[1] Richard Walker and Helen Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys: Australia’s Secret Bush Commandos (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986), p. 1; The Melbourne Argus, 17 February 1942, p. 1.
[2] US troops were still fighting in the Philippines, but not as pre-war formed units.
[3] John McCarthy, Australia, and Imperial Defence 1918–1939: A Study in Air and Sea Power (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1976), pp. 7–8.
[4] Walker and Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys, p. 2. For more, see Gavin Long, To Benghazi, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 1 (Army), Volume I (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1952).
[5] David Horner, High Command: Australia and the Allied Strategy 1939–1945 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1982), pp. 164–166.
[6] Australian Government, National Defence Strategy (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), p. 5.
[7] Sarah Basford-Canales, ‘Andrew Hastie Urges Military Power Boost to Secure Indo-Pacific’, The Canberra Times, 13 July 2022, p. 3.
[8] Formed in January 1942, the multinational American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command was a short-lived Allied coalition to resist Japanese expansion in South-East Asia, coordinating military forces until its collapse in March 1942. See Amoury Vane, North Australia Observer Unit (Loftus: Australian Military History Publications, 2000), p. 1; Commonwealth of Australia, National Defence: 2023 Defence Strategic Review (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2023), p. 6.
[9] Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 1 (Army), Volume IV (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1957), pp. 4–11.
[10] Alan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment: Australia and the World since 1942 (Melbourne: La Trobe University Press, 2021), p. 19.
[11] ‘Future Employment of A.I.F.: General Sturdee’s Paper of 15th February 1942’, in Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust, at: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/RCDIG1070592/document/5519875.PDF.
[12] Peter Dennis et al., The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 288.
[13] Albert Palazzo, ‘The Overlooked Mission: Australia and Home Defence’, in Peter Dean (ed.), Australia 1942: In the Shadows of War (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 58.
[14] Two-thirds of the 8th Australian Division were lost in Singapore; remaining force elements were divided up in the ‘bird’ forces spread throughout South-East Asia.
[15] Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People, 1939–1941, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 4 (Civil), Volume I (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1952), p. 11.
[16] Vane, North Australia Observer Unit, p. 3.
[17] Horner, High Command, p. 46.
[18] ‘William Edward (Bill) Stanner (1905–1981)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, at: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stanner-william-edward-bill-15541 (accessed 28 October, 2024).
[19] William Edward Hanley Stanner had a varied career beyond military service. Stanner was a renowned anthropologist who advised on policy in Australia, the South Pacific and Africa, as well as being instrumental in the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal affairs. Stanner, alongside Nugget Coombs and Barrie Dexter, formed the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and gave one of the most significant Boyer Lectures in Australian history, in 1968. Stanner was also the person who encouraged Gough Whitlam to pour soil into Vincent Lingiari’s hands—the subject of one of the most iconic Australian photos of the 20th century.
[20] Alan Ryan, ‘Defending the North: The Northern Australia Observer Unit in Australian Strategic History’,
in Peter J Dean (ed.), The Bush and the Outback in Australian Defence Strategy (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2010), pp. 41–57.
[21] Northern Australia Observer Unit War Diary, 1942–1945, AWM52 1/13/7.
[22] Dr EH Stanner, letter to Dr Amoury Vane, 4 March 1977.
[23] Norman Bartlett, ‘Guarding the “Back Door”: The Northern Australia Observer Unit, 1942–45’, Wartime 14 (2001): 24–29.
[24] Walker and Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys, p. 6.
[25] Northern Australia Observer Unit War Diary, 1942–1945, AWM52 1/13/7.
[26] Melinda Hinkson and Jeremy Beckett (eds), An Appreciation of Difference: W.E.H. Stanner and Aboriginal Australia (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008), p. 56.
[27] ‘Land Headquarters South West Pacific Area (SWPA)’, Virtual War Memorial Australia, at: https://vwma.org.au/explore/units/1280 (accessed 10 April 2024).
[28] Northern Australia Observer Unit War Diary, 1942–1945, AWM52 1/13/7.
[29] Walker and Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys, p. 10.
[30] Vane, North Australia Observer Unit, p. 14.
[31] Northern Australia Observer Unit War Diary, 1942–1945, AWM52 1/13/7.
[32] Clive Baker, ‘Watching the Frontier: The Northern Australia Observer Unit During World War II’,
Journal of the Australian War Memorial 25 (1994): 33–46.
[33] John Cribbin, The Nackeroos: The Story of the Northern Australia Observer Unit, 1942–1945 (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1987), p. 12.
[34] Walker and Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys, p. 8.
[35] Ibid., p. 19.
[36] Ibid., p. 19.
[37] Cribbin, The Nackeroos, p. 12.
[38] Northern Australia Observer Unit War Diary, 1942–1945, AWM52 1/13/7.
[39] Walker and Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys, pp. 59–62.
[40] Northern Australia Observer Unit War Diary, 1942–1945, AWM52 1/13/7.
[41] Gavin Long, The Japanese Thrust (Volume IV) and South-West Pacific Area—First Year: Kokoda to Wau (Volume V), Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 1 (Army) (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1961–63).
[42] Walker and Walker, Curtin’s Cowboys, p. 178.
[43] ‘Australia under Attack: The Nackeroos’, Australian War Memorial (website), at: https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/underattack/mobilise/nackeroos (accessed 11 April 2024).
[44] Jaya Pastor-Elsegood, ‘The Two-Way Benefits of the Regional Force Surveillance Group: Building National Resilience from the Ground Up’, National Institute of Strategic Resilience (website), at: https://www.nisr.org.au/article/the-two-way-benefits-of-the-regional-force-surveillance-group-building-national-resilience-from-the-ground-up (accessed 11 April 2024).
[45] National Defence Strategy, p. 6.
[46] Ibid., p. 7.
[47] TX Hammes, email correspondence with author, 10 July 2023.
[48] Michael E O’Hanlon, The Future of Land Warfare (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), p. 92.
[49] National Defence Strategy; Defence Strategic Review.
[50] Paul Dibb, The Conceptual Basis of Australia’s Defence Policy and Force Structure Development, Working Paper No. 118 (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1986), p. 5.
[51] National Defence Strategy, p. 65.
[52] Australian Government, Integrated Investment Program (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), pp. 31–41.
[53] Mick Ryan, ‘The Future of the Australian Army’s Amphibious Capability’, Joint Force Quarterly 85 (2017): 57–64.
[54] This proposed concept does not represent the breadth of contingencies, roles or likely missions of the future ADF; it instead seeks to demonstrate the aggregation of national power circa 2029 based on current government policy. Australia must also manage its other core security interests, which include access to the maritime commons, undersea infrastructure, defence alliances etc. It will most likely also maintain force elements capable of sub-Antarctic operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, domestic counterterrorism and other related civil assistance tasks as future strategic circumstances dictate.
[55] This phase of the Army’s 2029 strategy represents the total capacity of its planned capabilities. It goes to the heart of many of the investments announced over various policies and strategies from 2019 to 2024. In addition to its newly formed maritime surveillance and maritime strike role, Army, as the land force element of the 2029 joint force, must also enable other warfighting domain operations, including long-range strike and air and ballistic missile defence; air combat and strategic lift operations; commanding and controlling air and maritime space via a joint, all-domain command and control system; and offensive strike (including tactical to strategic kill chains, full-spectrum targeting, alliance integration, and theatre missile defence); as well as integrated and resilient reconnaissance and surveillance systems, long-range maritime strike, naval task group operations, limited undersea surveillance and long-range ‘deep’ strike (specific to special forces and Tomahawk land attack missiles).
[56] Australian Government, The Defence of Australia, White Paper (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1987), pp. 2–24.
