Since becoming Chief of Army in the middle of 2002, I have been guided by a core question: ‘How will the Australian Army operate in a post-Cold War world of failing states and non-state actors?’. At the beginning of the 21st century, there can be little doubt that the Australian Army faces an environment in which the forces of globalisation and fragmentation are simultaneously challenging many of our traditional ideas about the character of military power.
We are faced with multiple challenges across a complex spectrum of operations. This spectrum requires the Army to be able to meet operations in defence of Australia’s interests that may be far-flung while at the same time being able to provide a direct geographical defence of Australia should the latter be required. The expansion of the Army’s role beyond the direct defence of Australian geography has been the biggest change confronting the land force over the past five years. It is a change that has led to a spirited debate within the Australian Defence Force (ADF) about the basic principles that govern force structure. Should the ADF be structured primarily for defending interests that may be far-flung, or should it remain structured, as it has since the 1980s, for the direct defence of the Australian continent?
Where does the Army stand in this debate? My background and professional training as a soldier have given me a preference for presenting ‘my bottom line up front’. I do not believe that the defence of interests and the defence of geography present us with an ‘either-or’ choice. We need an ‘and-and’ response to what we might call the dialectic between Australia’s interests and Australia’s geography. We need to be able to defend Australia directly and also provide the government of the day with a series of options for use in the security of our region, or to secure our global interests. Put simply, in a borderless world in which many security challenges transcend nation-states, we cannot afford to close off any conflict scenario. While our primary responsibility is to provide for the defence of Australia, it is an indisputable reality that over the last decade we have been involved in a wide variety of operations, either in our regional neighbourhood or in other parts of the globe.
I believe that the Army, as a vital component of the ADF, should be capable of providing the Government with the flexibility and adaptability in order to be capable of operating away from our home bases in a wide variety of military tasks. Some defence critics have asserted that those in the ADF that have questioned the viability of a layered continental defence posture in new strategic conditions are, by implication, champions of expeditionary warfare. In particular, there is a suggestion that the Army aspires to create a force structure based around a capacity for high-intensity warfare in dispersed theatres around the world. This is wrong. Let it be understood without any ambiguity: it is not the Australian Army’s ambition to create a force structure that emphasises the acquisition of heavily armoured forces designed for operations in the Middle East or the Korean peninsula. Indeed, the 2000 Defence White Paper, Defending Australia, categorically states that the Army had decided against the development of powerful armoured forces suitable for contributions to coalition operations in high-intensity conflict. Our Army will develop the combat weight needed to achieve its missions as a medium-weight defence force, no more and no less.
It is important to realise that, as a medium-weight force, the Army operates within the context of an ADF force structure that is fundamentally joint in character and enjoys the support of both the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). For this reason, the Army is a strong proponent of the acquisition of the air warfare destroyer, airborne early warning aircraft (AWACs), and new combined fighter-and-strike capabilities—all of which are designed to enhance Australia’s overall military effectiveness. Our military history clearly demonstrates the frequency with which we have conducted joint operations. These operations include the landings at Gallipoli in 1915, the 1945 OBOE series of amphibious landings during the Second World War, the Korean War in the 1950s and the commitment to operations in Vietnam in the 1960s. More recently, in the 1999 mission to East Timor, Australian land forces depended on vital support from the sea and air. The lesson is clear: the Army cannot work alone.
In the future, the ADF will need to be able to deploy and sustain itself as a joint force wherever it is directed to operate by the Government. The land force component of such an ADF is required to be highly versatile and adaptable. The Army must be capable of operations in the defence of Australia and in protecting our security interests in the Asia-Pacific region, as was demonstrated in East Timor. Land forces may also be required to serve our wider global interests—something we were accomplishing in Somalia in the early 1990s—and which, at present, we are undertaking in the current war against international terrorism and on the ground in Iraq.
What has been the impact of the 2000 Defence White Paper on the Army? The White Paper provided new guidance to the effect that the Army’s previous focus on low-level contingencies on Australian territory needed revision. The role of the Army was broadened in order to enable it to deal with a wider range of security contingencies, including a capacity for undertaking expeditionary warfare. In political terms, the phrase expeditionary warfare conjures up images of the Vietnam War and social division. Alongside the myth of the Army aspiring to be a heavily armoured force, the allegation is sometimes made that the term expeditionary warfare is merely code for the doctrine of Forward Defence. Such an allegation is more than false; it is an unfortunate simplification of military reality. In a professional military context, an expeditionary capability simply describes the range of characteristics that enable armed forces to deploy and sustain themselves away from home bases. Given the extraordinary size of our country, the Army could be described as engaging in expeditionary operations were it to deploy elements by air and sea to the Pilbara in Western Australia or to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.
Those that have attempted to portray the recent debate about the future direction of strategic policy as a simple clash between advocates that favour defending continental Australia and advocates of embarking on military adventures all over the globe, are being disingenuous. They are reducing complex strategic issues to mere slogans devoid of intellectual analysis. The White Paper authorised the development of an expeditionary or offshore capability within the Army in the following way:
The development of our land forces needs to reflect a new balance between the demands of operations on Australian territory and the demands of deployments offshore, especially in our immediate neighbourhood.
In laying down this guidance, the White Paper vindicated the visionary work of one of my predecessors, Lieutenant General Frank Hickling. As Chief of Army in 1998, Lieutenant General Hickling laid the foundations for Army and, indeed, the ADF to enhance Australia’s strategic mobility and to improve our capacity to engage in littoral operations. Lieutenant General Hickling’s foresight was timely. Within a year of his decision, the Army undertook its most significant overseas deployment since Vietnam in the form of Operation Stabilise in East Timor.
Yet, in some ways, the mission to East Timor can also be seen as the climax to a decade of offshore operations ranging from Somalia and Cambodia to Rwanda and Bougainville. Such operations were often regarded as marginal in defence planning, but it is now clear that they represented another strand of strategic thinking. In the 1994 Defence White Paper there was a statement that the Army would develop its force structure for the defence of Australia with no exception other than at the margins. At that time I was involved in providing the Army’s input to the White Paper. I immediately asked the question, ‘How big is a margin?’. Nearly a decade later, I find myself still asking that question and I suggest that the answer is, ‘bigger’.
In my opinion, despite the views of the proponents of the Defence of Australia ‘concentric circles’ theology surrounding continental defence, such deployments were never conducted at the margins of strategic policy. The offshore operations of the 1990s were, in fact, a profound challenge to the continental defence orthodoxy of most Australian strategic planners. How could the strategic reality of operational commitments in support of interests be reconciled with a rigid strategic doctrine that upheld defence of geography? Ultimately, strategic planners developed a logic that forces structured for the defence of continental Australia could be peeled away to perform offshore tasks as a matter of routine.
The reality was starkly different. The experience of offshore operations seriously undermined the assumption that a land force structured primarily for continental defence could easily accomplish complex offshore operations. In truth, over a period of two decades, the Defence of Australia construct seriously eroded core land force capabilities and turned the Army into little more than a strategic goal-keeper. The theory of continental defence was simple: once the Navy and Air Force had won what might be called ‘the second battle of the Bismarck Sea’, the Army would mop up the defeated remnants of an invasion force that would scramble ashore in the Kimberleys. Lieutenant General Hickling rightly dismissed this approach to strategy as representing little more than a blue-water Maginot Line theory.
During the 1980s and for much of the 1990s, the strategic guidance given to the Army ultimately diminished land force capabilities. We gradually lost strategic agility; our units became hollow; and our ability to operate away from Australian support bases declined to a dangerous degree. Moreover, our capacity to generate, sustain and rotate forces in the field diminished alarmingly. When the ADF went to East Timor in 1999, it was only the tremendous efforts of our personnel in the field and in the rear that concealed these deficiencies in the Army’s capabilities.
During the East Timor deployment, the Army realised the critical need for increased readiness, enhanced mobilisation capabilities, better strategic lift, improved logistics and engineering capability. We also discovered the requirement for possessing reliable long-range communications and the ability to operate at strategic distance. East Timor provided us with a long list of deficiencies, many of which were later addressed by the 2000 White Paper. In the Army, the White Paper’s central purpose is to provide answers to the pressing questions: ‘What do you need to do East Timor again, but better?’ and ‘What capabilities does the land force require to ensure that it can operate away from its home bases in Townsville, Darwin, Richmond, Sydney and Perth?’.
The 2000 Defence White Paper acknowledged that the Army had a significant role to play in Australia’s maritime strategy three years after that strategy was first enunciated in 1997. The crisis in East Timor served as a timely reminder that the maritime approaches to Australia are not composed merely of an ‘sea-air gap’, but in fact comprise a complex archipelago in which air, sea and land intersect creating a classic littoral environment. As an infantryman, I prefer to view the so-called ‘sea-air gap’ as a bridge with land at both ends. If the ADF is to be effective as a maritime force, it must be able to conduct littoral operations in all three environments: air, sea and land.
A littoral environment dictates the use of deployable, agile, balanced and joint forces. This is the reality that the 2000 Defence White Paper accepted when it stated that the Army must be capable of offshore operations in the region. We were directed to provide a capability to sustain a brigade deployed on operations for extended periods and, at the same time, to maintain at least a battalion group available for deployment elsewhere. In this manner, the Defence White Paper broke with fifteen years of strategic orthodoxy and committed land forces to expeditionary operations.
In order to operate effectively in the littoral, the Army must be part of a joint force. Land forces require the support of the RAN and the RAAF for strategic lift, air defence, communications, logistics and supporting fires. In this respect, the deployment to East Timor was a triumph for joint capabilities. The RAAF’s C130s and the RAN’s ships in Dili Harbour were as essential to the success of the mission as our infantrymen were in the field.
In the Mad Max world of complexity and ambiguity that makes up the current globalised strategic environment, Australia cannot afford ‘either-or’ solutions to security issues. I agree with the Minister for Defence, Senator Hill’s questioning of the geographic determinism implicit in the ‘concentric circles’ approach to threat analysis. he Army does not view the three categories in our strategic guidance—Defence of Australia, Contributions to the Security of the Immediate Neighbourhood and Support of Wider Interests—as autonomous strategic problems, arbitrarily defined by geography. On the contrary, they are closely interrelated because the ability to operate onshore and offshore is defence of Australia. In a world of borderless security, Australia cannot seek safety behind an Antipodean Maginot Line narrowly defined by a sea-air gap. That comfortable world of the 1980s has disappeared, and we must prepare to meet the realities of the new and unpredictable global security environment.
Let me return to the rhetorical question that was posed at the beginning of this article: ‘How will the Australian Army operate in this post-Cold War world of failing states and nonstate actors?’. It is clear that land forces, designed solely to deny the sea-air gap to a conventional adversary, simply lack the versatility to carry out the diverse security functions that are likely to exist in the future. The Army is fortunate in that it can build on some sound foundations of reform laid down between 1998 and 2002 by my predecessors as Chiefs of Army, Lieutenant Generals Frank Hickling and Peter Cosgrove. Under their leadership, the Army began the complex transformation from being a land force structured purely for continental defence, towards becoming a more agile and versatile land force capable of sustained offshore operations.
Central to our transformation from a continental to an offshore force is our adoption of the concept of littoral manoeuvre, known as Manoeuvre Operations in the Littoral Environment (MOLE). This concept envisages that our land forces will be capable of achieving strategic reach through entry from the air and sea. The MOLE concept also embodies the notion of decisive action, followed by a transition to peacekeeping or support operations. We believe that land forces structured for littoral manoeuvre will possess the ingredients for military success across any likely spectrum of future conflict, ranging from terrorism to conventional warfare. Forces configured for littoral manoeuvre will be capable of warfighting, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. Excellence at littoral manoeuvre entails a baseline commitment to warfighting. Our troops in East Timor adapted well to peace enforcement duties largely because they were thoroughly prepared for warfighting operations. In the profession of arms, one can trade downwards, but one can never trade upwards.
A land force based on littoral manoeuvre offers a wider range of military options to the Government. The MOLE concept allows the Army to address the physical defence of Australia, the defence of our immediate neighbourhood and support for our wider interests as fluid elements of a single strategic problem. The term arc of instability, which has been applied to the region to our north, aptly describes the geopolitical volatility we may face in the future. here is a growing consensus in defence circles that Australia cannot be secure in an insecure region or an insecure world. The tragic terrorist attack in Bali on 12 October 2002 reinforces that consensus.
In the future, we will not be able to choose the character of the wars that we fight. here is a distinct likelihood that we will see more hybrid wars and merging modes of conflict. The US Marine Corps’s concept of the ‘three-block war’ is a useful means of describing merging modes of conflict. In such a war, troops may be simultaneously engaged in a pitched battle while, only several city blocks away, their comrades might be pursuing peace operations and distributing humanitarian aid.
In the 21st century, the existence of a highly fluid strategic environment makes it too risky to try to plan for specific outcomes. Instead, the Army now seeks to make assessments of broad trends and scenarios in war and conflict. Our focus on trend analysis is one reason that we are not leaping to immediate conclusions about the style of operations seen in Afghanistan. Indeed, operations in Afghanistan during 2001-02 yield many lessons, and not all of them are fashionable. In the first place, the campaign in Afghanistan reinforces the reality that close combat remains an enduring component of warfare. While some success was achieved against the Taliban through small special forces teams ‘cuing’ air and space-based assets to deliver precision strike, most coalition casualties occurred in traditional close combat. The Western media ignored this unglamorous facet of the conflict, largely because ground operations were mainly conducted by proxy tribal forces belonging to the Northern Alliance. The Australian Army believes that close combat will remain a decisive element in any conflict in which the ADF might credibly engage out to the year 2020.
Second, a less spectacular lesson from the Afghanistan campaign was the necessity for land forces to possess organic indirect fires. In other words, and despite a popular fascination with precision attack, we must realise that mortars and artillery pieces are not yet museum pieces. General Eric Shinseki, the US Army Chief of Staff, has stated publicly that failure to suppress Taliban and al-Qaida mortar fire in Afghanistan cost unnecessary loss of American life. Despite their sophistication, air platforms and missile systems will not always be available due to weather, competing demands and problems of serviceability.
Accordingly, we need to be cautious in arguing that one particular aspect of combat in Afghanistan should provide the template for our future capabilities. Versatility is especially relevant if we accept that the ADF should be primarily focused on being capable of operating in our own diverse region.
Analysis of the Australian and South-East Asian littoral region suggests that we should exercise caution in seeking to replicate the ‘Afghan model’ of special forces, precision strike and local proxies. Our region, from Christmas Island to Fiji, features an archipelagic area of complex terrain, heavy jungle vegetation and some densely populated urban areas. In combination, all of these factors will almost certainly prove prohibitive to the performance of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) in South-East Asian conditions.
None of the above factors should be interpreted in a manner that suggests that the Army is in any sense luddite in its thinking. On the contrary, we support the ADF’s quest to introduce transformational technologies. We should, however, realise that there are limitations to the use of technology and clear financial limits to Australia’s acquisition of high-technology capabilities.
The ADF should therefore be discriminating in its high-technology choices. For example, streamlined command and control at the tactical and operational levels should be a priority in the application of technology. At the tactical level, there is little doubt that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a significant force multiplier. These vehicles enhance both joint situational awareness and strike capabilities. In the future, the ADF could achieve considerable operational synergy from a combination of UAVs, armed reconnaissance helicopters, and airborne early-warning and control aircraft. In broad terms, if we incorporate the characteristics of rapid deployment, adaptability, flexibility, lethal fires and acute situational awareness, we will have developed the kind of joint force that can decisively contribute to success in the range of operations that we are likely to face.
The post-Cold War era has not ushered in a golden age of peace and stability. The Army of the new era of 21st-century globalised security must be capable of meeting a set of diverse conflict scenarios at very short notice across a wide spectrum of operations. It is my belief that the Australian Army is capable of making the transition towards becoming a wide-spectrum force. Our ability to deploy and sustain ourselves away from our bases, coupled with proficiency in warfighting, will allow us to conduct operations from low to high—from domestic counter-terrorism through peacekeeping to conventional warfighting in coalition conditions.
For the foreseeable future, the capability to perform littoral manoeuvre with combined arms groups must be our focus. Such a capability will shape the Army’s capacity to deploy rapidly, fight decisively and make a transition to stability operations in order to win the peace. Such a capability will place the land force at the cutting edge of doctrinal and operational performance among Western armies. In order to respond to the challenges of an unpredictable future, the Army requires strategic agility, a degree of high-precision lethality, pervasive situational awareness, and highly networked sensors and shooters.
Finally, there is the key question of the Army’s size. Current strategic guidance requires that the Army field six fully manned infantry battalion groups and maintain these at a level of high readiness. Some defence analysts have suggested the addition of extra battalions to our combat and combat support forces. Given the high tempo of operations over the past four years, such sentiments are understandable. It is important, however, to avoid seeking increases to our forces based on simple reflex action. Not only must we be aware of current operational pressures, but we must recognise the requirements of emerging operations. Careful consideration should be given to developing forces that are capable—in terms of readiness, training, skills and equipment—of dealing with the demands of the new strategic environment. We can readily understand some of these new tasks, such as the provision of additional Special Forces. However, do we yet comprehend what requirements might be placed on the Army with the expectation that we will provide forces for domestic security?
These considerations apply particularly to our Special Forces. Over the past four years we have asked much of them and they have been on operations almost continuously since 1999. Moreover, since the attacks of 11 September in the United States, we have raised a second Tactical Assault Group from within 4 RAR (Commando) and a new Incident Response Regiment. As Chief of Army, I am more concerned about the robustness and sustainability of our current forces than I am with a knee-jerk increase to the number of battalions. We need to carefully examine the requirements for sustainment of the present range of combat and support capabilities. There is also the requirement to produce more manpower for the full range of the Army’s new capabilities provided through the White Paper. We must, moreover, deal with considerable pressures on our core enabling elements such as Training Command. For all of these reasons, it is perhaps more important for the Army to make the current force fully capable than it is of raising additional battalions.
In conclusion, the global geopolitical situation is extremely fluid, and we seem to be hurtling into a future whose contours are difficult to discern. Despite our uncertainties, we cannot afford to stand still under rapidly changing conditions. he Army has to make considered judgments about the character of future conflict and try to ensure that its doctrine and force structure are capable of coping with change. The opening years of the new century have proved extremely challenging for the Australian Army. We are operating at a high operational tempo in order to meet demands imposed by the War on Terror, East Timor and other commitments around the globe. In addition, we face the unprecedented challenge of managing modernisation, adapting to changing strategic circumstances, and introducing new capabilities while simultaneously engaging in operations. The combination of these circumstances ensures that every day we live the reality of our motto of ‘Serving the Nation’.