An Interview with Brigadier Mick Slater, Commander JTF 631
On 25 May 2006, the Australian Defence Force commenced a highly complex stabilisation operation in the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste in response to an urgent request from that nation’s government. An outbreak of violence had culminated in a breakdown in the security forces of Timor Leste. In the ensuing security vacuum, sectarian and criminal violence created a humanitarian emergency.
At very short notice an Australian Defence Force Joint Task Force (JTF 631) was deployed to Timor Leste. The task confronting the JTF was both dangerous and extremely complex. The performance of JTF 631 exemplified the significant improvements in ADF joint capability that have been achieved since the INTERFET mission in 1999, as well as providing an insight into the evolving nature of 21st century military interventions in complex urban environments. The Commander of JTF 631, Brigadier Mick Slater, agreed to share his perspectives with the Australian Army Journal.
Australian Army Journal (AAJ): You deployed with the initial entry force in September 1999; what are some of the similarities and differences between the two operations that you have noticed?
Brigadier Slater: Firstly, I want to emphasise that I believe that the situation that we faced in the first 5 days here this time was, in some significant ways, more complex and uncertain than the situation we faced in 1999. It needs to be remembered that we essentially conducted a permissive entry in 1999, and while there was a degree of uncertainty, the vital cooperation of TNI ensured that we were able to achieve a rapid build-up of forces without serious incident.
This time, there was no cohesive force on the ground that could guarantee security while we attempted to get a firm foot in place, and there was far more actual violence within Dili. In other words, we had to assume that our lodgement could be contested and our plan reflected that.
Secondly, the range of actors with arms of varying types—from military assault weapons through to melee weapons such as swords, machetes, and even darts fired from slingshots—was quite bewildering. It was a very demanding environment, and the complexity was increased because many of the instruments of the state had collapsed. We had few reliable, legitimate sources of information about the range of actors rampaging though Dili when we arrived.
AAJ: How did the JTF deal with that?
Brigadier Slater: We very quickly sought to dominate the environment through aggressive patrolling. Our operations were aimed at immediately expanding from our points of entry into the suburbs of Dili. This enabled us to reassure the population and establish psychological ascendancy over the gangs and criminal elements which had begun to operate with impunity. But even more importantly, we urgently began to raise our situational awareness through intelligence-led operations. We moved to establish a rapport with the local population, most of who were victims in this crisis. We moved rapidly to identify criminal gangs and violent ethnic groups with the support of the local population.
AAJ: What improvements have you noted in the ADF’s ability to conduct these types of operation since your service here as CO 2 RAR?
Brigadier Slater: I believe that we have made enormous strides in the areas of joint, multi-agency and coalition operations since 1999. While it would be a stretch to say that we have achieved seamless jointery, I believe that we have reaped the benefits of the high operational tempo of the past few years. Within 3 Brigade, from which the bulk of the land component is drawn, we have a lot of people with recent experience on operations, especially in the Solomon Islands and previously in East Timor. That experience has been invaluable. I think Army is becoming very adept at joint and multi-agency operations. We need more work on standardising tactics, techniques and procedures with the police, which we already knew from our Solomon Islands experience [Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI)]. But I hasten to add that has not impeded very effective collaboration with the Australian Federal Police here. They, like us, are starting to develop a real culture of deployability and operations in complex environments.
I also believe that we have created a genuine whole-of-government approach to our strategic level planning for operations such as these. This is reflected right though to the composition of my headquarters, where I have a former ambassador to Timor Leste attached to my staff. I think we need to expand our training at the operational level to include more cooperation from civilian organisations, especially non-government organisations. I had exposure to this during my year at the US Army War College, and it has assisted me greatly here.
In purely military terms, as every one knows, Army is very dependent on the RAN [Royal Australian Navy] and RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force]. We need them to get to the theatre, to sustain ourselves there, and to get ourselves home. I want to pay tribute to our sister services for their effort during Operation ASTUTE. They have provided terrific support. We worked the RAAF very hard during our build up of forces and they have delivered superbly. And I speak for every soldier in the JTF when I pay tribute to the RAN component, especially the crew of HMAS KANIMBLA. In the first couple of weeks they provided an indispensable support to us. Not only did they assist with fresh meals and hotel services for the troops, but they hooked-in and provided security elements for foot patrols at the SPOD [Sea Point of Disembarkation]. The troops really appreciated them. Again, having a major fleet unit alongside creates a significant effect in its own right. It is a very potent symbol of national resolve.
All of that leads me to conclude that we have largely solved the deployable logistics problem since 1999. Since INTERFET, we have poured resources into rectifying the problems we had in getting water, POL [petrol, oil and lubricants] and key war stores into theatre and sustaining ourselves away from our Australian bases. I think we have cracked it. We have put around 2500 people into this theatre, and sustained them superbly. It has gone very well. A very satisfying statistic is the negligible rate of non-battle casualties. That is a key indicator that the soldier on the ground at the business-end is well fed, has plenty of water and excellent preventative health support. We are a more robust and agile organisation as a result of the enhancements that the various iterations of the Defence Capability Plan have provided since the 2000 Defence White Paper. It is a very good story.
AAJ: How has the coalition arrangement worked?
Brigadier Slater: Again, we learnt from our experience in 1999. We have been very fortunate to have our Kiwi and Malaysian friends alongside us in Timor Leste. I would like to pay tribute to their national component commanders, Colonel Ishmet and Lieutenant Colonel Harker. They have been very collegial and our forces have become comfortable with one another through our exchange programmes and joint exercises. We have differences in style and mind-set, but at the operational level we have developed excellent relationships. I immediately deployed liaison officers to each of these contingents and they have ensured that we are all on the same page at all times. This coalition has been very harmonious. The only real issue was the Bledisloe Cup result.
The arrangements with the Portugese GNR—their gendarmerie—were more challenging. However, we have achieved very good coordination by embedding liaison officers with them. While they are not under operational control, this has not prevented a very good degree of synchronisation of effects. And they bring a different set of capabilities to this operation, which have been very valuable
AAJ: You emphasised the complexity of the operation. How do conditions here equate to the complex environment described in the Future Land Operating Concept (FLOC) Complex Warfighting?
Brigadier Slater: When the Chief of Army visited us in June he said words to the effect of “Well, when I talked about the complex environment this is what I meant. You are doing it!”
There are layers of complexity. We came into a society on the brink of civil war. Although the ethnic divisions were very emotive to the local population there was no visible distinction between them in our eyes. So we had very complex human terrain, with gangs, ethnic groups, mutinous soldiers and police alongside those who considered themselves loyal to the government. Overlaying all that, we had a potential humanitarian disaster with large numbers of people seeking refuge in temporary camps. And of course every incident had the footloose global media on hand to scrutinise our handling of it. While we did not have a lethal conventional enemy in that mix, there was a period when it was conceivable that we could face formed bodies of police or soldiers in complex urban terrain. So, it was pretty close to what the US Marine Corps would classify as the ‘Three Block War’.
We had to bring security and calm to the streets of Dili, ideally without applying lethal force. We managed to do that, and just as the concept envisages, we did it through the superb skills and qualities of our soldiers and junior leaders. Our people had to exercise a lot of mature judgement in a very demanding environment in the face of a lot of provocation. As we are seeing on all of our deployments, our troops embody the Aussie sense of a ‘fair go’. They deal compassionately with people who are doing it tough. I think that the rapport with the Timorese that we established over the past seven years really stood us in good stead this time.
At the strategic level, I have needed to maintain close liaison with senior minsters and the President of Timor Leste. I have been scrupulous in avoiding entanglement in local politics. The best case study of that is that we provided security for some very large street demonstrations by both major political groupings here. On the ground our troops behaved splendidly, while we negotiated firmly but fairly with their leaders. Both sides were very complimentary about the treatment that they received from us at a time when tensions ran pretty high. The sensitivity required to assist senior members of a foreign government on a day-to-day basis, while continuing to uphold Australia’s vital national interests, has been the most complex aspect of the job and every single serviceman and woman in the JTF has a responsibility in that regard.
AAJ: Have there been any war-stoppers, or problems, that you were not prepared for?
Brigadier Slater: There have been literally hundreds of unexpected events—incidents that you would not encounter in your wildest dreams. That is when we all fall back on training and adaptability. But the great thing about the ADF, and Army in particular is that we don’t have war-stoppers because of the adaptability and common sense of our people. They can generally improvise some sort of a solution. But seriously, we have been very well prepared for this contingency. The axis of advance for Army, particularly 3 Brigade, over the past decade has been to deploy rapidly to deal with these types of complex contingencies within our immediate neighbourhood. We are now equipped, trained and prepared for this.
One thing we need to look at is some form of personnel tracking arrangement. We could always have used more Tetun linguists. It was not a war-stopper but we had to husband a few individuals very carefully to achieve what we needed. As the Chief [of Army] has pointed out, we are going to need people with high levels of cultural and language skill to succeed in the complex environment. The British General Sir Rupert Smith has claimed that war—and military interventions of all types—will be conducted ‘amongst the people’. If that is so, then we need to able to communicate very effectively with the local population. The fundamental decency of our people gets us there, but we need more linguists. They are a force multiplier and they are invaluable in helping us to avoid recourse to force.
We have a reservoir of people with Tetun skills and experience in East Timor, but the personnel system cannot identify them in a hurry when we are deploying. That needs attention. I will obviously conduct a detailed ‘Lessons Learned’ exercise upon our return to Australia, and we have already had a Theatre Evaluation Team up here dissecting all of this. But that is one deficiency that I think we could have avoided.
