The Lessons of 2006: Army Operations in East Timor and Solomon Islands
Abstract
At its highest operational tempo since the Vietnam War, the Australian Army in 2006 was deployed widely for a range of tasks. Two of these, East Timor and Solomon Islands, were short-notice deployments to provide security and stability for regional neighbours. The lessons of these missions, explored in this article, relate to the nature of the contemporary conflict environment, operating with international and interagency partners, the role of the media, and the skills that Army soldiers require to prevail in fluid and uncertain situations.
‘There have been literally hundreds of unexpected events—incidents that you would not encounter in your wildest dreams. That is when you fall back on training and adaptability.’
- Brigadier Mick Slater, East Timor (2006)
Introduction
In April of 2006, Army was committed to the provision of a battlegroup and training team in Iraq, a Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan, a regional combat team in Solomon Islands, support to domestic operations, and peacekeepers in the Middle East, East Timor and Sudan. To support these elements there were a number of staff officers on Joint Task Force Headquarters and embedded in multinational coalition headquarters. By June, Army had deployed a battlegroup to Solomon Islands and a Task Force to East Timor. These commitments meant that of a ready combat force of approximately 10000, Army had over 3500 personnel committed with a further 3500 preparing to sustain operations. In August 2006, the Government announced the raising of a further two battlegroups to meet domestic and international commitments such as those in East Timor and the Solomons. So what did the Army learn from these deployments?
In both East Timor and Solomon Islands, Army confirmed that the conflict environment is complex, diverse, lethal and diffused—regardless of the level of intensity. In that type of environment, even though the context of each crisis differed, the use of military force sought to manage and influence people’s actions and perceptions. This view acknowledges that conflict now contains many non-state actors with selfish goals, many seeking to undermine the state. For example, the burning and looting of Chinatown in Solomon Islands in 2006 was a deliberate and targeted activity by people (using disgruntled youths) who sought to undermine the change of government and, by default, create a shift of power. The actors may have changed but it is a clash of wills that remains central to understanding a fight that is now amongst people rather than between nation states.1 This observation fits well with Army’s Complex Warfighting and Adaptive Warfighting concepts.
Putting quality individuals and small teams into operations in close proximity to any adversary and the population at large is critical to supporting whole-of-government initiatives for resolving a conflict. Therefore, the quality of soldiers that are placed ‘amongst the people’, and the management of their actions as part of those initiatives, is the key determinant of success. A large number of poorly prepared soldiers diminish the commander’s ability to control the population. Moreover, the environment requires soldiers and junior leaders to be in personal contact with the population. Both these facts are important if the commander is to ensure that his or her operational actions will support the strategic-level objectives.
Interagency operations in complex environments, amongst the people and in the glare of public attention, are the reality for Army’s officers and soldiers—this article reflects upon that reality.
Solomon Islands
In July 2003, Australia led the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), in support of the restoration of law and order in that country. The response was a regional initiative to a formal request by the Solomon Islands Government to assist in re-establishing the conditions in which a functional (and respected) police force could operate effectively and by which enduring governance mechanisms could be developed. A military component of 1800 personnel drawn from across the region (Australia, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea) was deployed to assist the Participating Police Force (PPF) in the restoration of law and order. This force was reduced in July 2004 to a steady state of approximately 100 personnel in-country to provide a security guarantee.
In mid-April 2006, a general election resulted in a change of government that was not well received in Honiara. The announcement on 18 April that Mr Synder Rini was to become Prime Minister prompted rioting and looting in Chinatown. Seven PPF officers were injured; the next day the Australian Government deployed the Ready Company Group to demonstrate resolve and a desire for calm to be restored. This action was in response to a letter from Mr Rini to the Australian Prime Minister that sought military support to assist the police in stabilising the situation, and a general reassurance to the Solomon Islands population. The force was expanded to a regional Australian-led battlegroup in late April and quickly established a strong visual presence, setting the conditions for the police to re-establish law and order. The force was drawn down to approximately 150 personnel in June 2006 and will remain at that level into the foreseeable future.
East Timor
In 1998, as part of his reform process, the Indonesian President B.J. Habibie proposed a vote on special autonomy for East Timor, to be conducted 11 June 1999 and monitored by the United Nations. The result was received badly by those who believed that East Timor should remain part of Indonesia, and widespread militia violence broke out within days. On 13 September 1999, after significant international pressure, Habibie allowed an Australian-led international peacekeeping force (INTERFET) to stabilise the situation in preparation for a handover to the United Nations in February 2000. The United Nations presence created a secure environment that allowed democratic elections to occur on 30 August 2001. The Fretilin Party, led by Mari Alkatiri, was announced the winner and the United Nations began the process of transitioning authority to his Government with a view to be out of East Timor in June 2006.
The instability in 2006 in East Timor was a direct result of longstanding ethnic tensions, discontent with the police and military, and the failings of the Alkatiri Government to deliver on expectations. Tensions escalated in February 2006 when elements of the military staged a peaceful protest in front of President Gusmao’s Dili office. The Chief of Defence, Brigadier Taur Matan Ruak, dismissed 600 striking soldiers who dispersed peacefully to their home towns. During a televised address the President condemned the military leadership’s handling of the situation. On 28 April approximately 400 demonstrators, including ex-soldiers, conducted a protest in Dili that quickly turned violent. When the police could not deal with the situation the military was deployed and up to fifteen demonstrators were killed. After the violence there was another split within the military, with Lieutenant Commander Reinado leading a group of dissident police and soldiers who called for an inquiry into the actions of the Alkatiri Government. On 24 May, it is believed that this dissident group fired on police being escorted by United Nations personnel, killing ten, after Alkatiri was re-elected as Primet Minister at the Fretlin Congress (17-20 May). This action resulted in a letter from the President to the Australian Prime Minister requesting the deployment of a stabilisation force to restore law and order in the country.
The Australian intelligence community had warned of a deteriorating situation in April 2006 and, as a result, Army prepared to conduct evacuation operations of Australian nationals and to deploy a battlegroup to stabilise the situation. This action included the pre-positioning of force elements in Darwin and Townsville, demonstrating that Australia was ready to commit if the situation deteriorated further. Coalition partners (New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal) indicated willingness to support an Australian-led stabilisation operation, and a Joint Task Force headquarters was established in Townsville.
On 26 May the Combined Joint Task Force was deployed to conduct evacuation operations, to stabilise the situation in Dili and to allow the United Nations to mediate a solution. The deployment involved approximately 3000 Defence personnel of whom 2000 were Army. The drawdown of forces to a steady state of approximately 900 personnel, including a Task Force headquarters and a battlegroup, commenced in August 2006. This force is likely to remain at these levels until a review to be conducted following the 2007 elections, but it is expected that a military presence to guarantee security will remain for a significant time.
What Did Army Learn?
These 2006 deployments are still being analysed to appreciate any changes at the tactical and operational levels since the last time Army deployed into the two theatres. Therefore the following observations represent the author’s first impressions of what occurred with those deployments.
The Conflict Environment
The environment in which soldiers found themselves operating was highly complex. For Brigadier Slater, Commander Joint Task Force 631 in East Timor:
[t]here 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 a 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. 2
This set of observations has a significant effect on commanders’ decisions and soldiers’ actions. First, soldiers operated in urban areas and villages that were adjacent to the sea as well as close vegetation in mountainous regions. Such terrain consists of areas that are open and act as manoeuvre corridors and engagement areas, whilst others are more restricted. These inhibit movement, deny observation and limit the effectiveness of sensors. The result is that soldiers can be drawn easily into close combat without warning. For example, during the initial days of the deployment into East Timor, there were running battles between youths and coalition forces in the confined streets of Dili. The issue for Army is how soldiers operate in these confined spaces and still react appropriately in a timely fashion to emerging circumstances.
Second, the soldiers found themselves in situations in which they confronted many different groups, such as rioters, demonstrators and youth gangs, as well as disgruntled police and military (East Timor) and organised criminals (Solomon Islands). In both operations there was a large proportion of people that, due to a lack of security, took the opportunity to loot and destroy infrastructure, with some activity being coordinated by a number of key personalities that wished to take advantage of the situation. These many different groups were not threats in the traditional sense but applying military force against them was problematic for legal, moral and technical reasons. Such groups continued to adapt, countering the tactics used to gain positional and/ or temporal advantage and exploiting the key differences in the ‘defeat threshold’.3 Therefore soldiers had to ‘exercise mature judgement in a very demanding environment in the face of a lot of provocation’.4
The traditional view is that these types of stabilisation operations require limited force protection measures (i.e., combat body armour, ballistic goggles, etc.) because they are low intensity. In East Timor the soldiers faced youths with slingshots, darts and machetes, as well as mutinous soldiers and police with weapons. Solomon Islands did not present as direct a threat; however, there were high-powered weapons cached in the community5 and rocks were often thrown at military vehicles travelling through Honiara. This set of observations would imply that if soldiers are operating amongst the people there is a need for increased personal protection.
Coalition Operations
The development of a coalition of interested parties, particularly those from the region, is critical for establishing legitimacy and sharing the load. The coalition partners in both operations provided substantial manoeuvre forces—by their standards—but the key enablers (health services, helicopters, etc.) were provided by the Australian Army. The issue for Army is that in most cases Australia will have to initially provide key enablers before a long-term contracted solution can be sought. This observation will require more work to be done in building redundancy into Army’s current force structure.
With any coalition there remain differences between what the troop contributing nations (TCN) perceive the mission to be, levels of acceptable risk, and attitudes towards the local population that a commander needs to consider in achieving the mission. Bearing these points in mind, there were a number of situations in Solomon Islands that highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of each TCN. For example the ease with which personnel from Pacific Island nations are able to establish a good rapport with the local population was noticeable. In particular, the ability to speak and understand Pidgin greatly assisted patrols conducted by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force to gather good, relevant and timely intelligence. The downside, of course, is the varying degrees of doctrine and operational experience, the understanding of levels of acceptable force and in the standards of training. Different standards of training were less a problem in East Timor; the Australian, Malaysian, New Zealander and Portuguese forces had worked previously in the same environment between 1999 and 2003, and had operational experience and relevant doctrine for stabilisation operations. However, Brigadier Mick Slater has acknowledged that there were issues over what constituted acceptable risk, as well as ‘differences in style and mindset’.6
The conduct of in-theatre task-specific training packages to counter such differences and to build a collective capability is an option once the situation has stabilised, but there is little that can be done in the initial stages of the deployment. There is a need for Australia to sponsor a regional initiative to develop doctrine and standardisation of training across South Pacific countries that supports a rapid deployment of a coalition force anywhere in the region. This idea could be expanded to create a virtual standing force among interested countries to deal with incidents of regional instability.
Interagency Operations
The underlying theme behind the planning and conduct of interagency operations is that the military provides the secure environment in which other agencies can develop the mechanisms required to allow a country to govern itself. Interagency operations, like all operations, require agencies to have a single and mutually agreed purpose. Whilst Army is becoming more adept at such operations—based on previous experience in East Timor and Solomon Islands—there are a number of issues that still require attention.
First, a number of the operations conducted in support of the PPF in Solomon Islands and of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in East Timor demonstrated that there is still a difference in the planning methodology and descriptive language that each agency employs. Army has a proactive planning culture that seeks to view an operation as part of a wider campaign plan in order to manage multiple tasks. The police possess a more reactive outlook to a situation that tends to translate into compartmentalised task-specific planning. This difference is exacerbated by differing threat assessment methodologies that result in the lack of a common operating picture between agencies. In Solomon Islands, significant work has been done since the initial RAMSI deployment and ‘whilst there were some obvious cultural, command and control, administrative and procedural differences, at no time did these prevent a sound working relationship’.7 This observation is an important step towards developing interagency doctrine and conducting training activities that build on this good working relationship between the AFP and Army. The recent establishment of an Interagency Working Group is a good start to focus limited resources on developing protocols, common planning and threat assessment methodologies, and cultural appreciation of each other.
Second, a critical factor to the success of operations in Solomon Islands and East Timor was the fact that police and soldiers were able to work together at the tactical level. In the Solomons, the use of combined patrols on the streets of Honiara and ‘presence patrols’ aimed at RAMSI supporters in the countryside—in order to deny any adversary freedom of movement—created a secure environment. These ‘presence patrols’ based at PPF Provincial Outposts also sought to make contact with outlying communities to pass on information and build situational awareness to counter the rumour mill. This action was a deliberate attempt to disrupt criminal activity by restricting access to supplies and secure hideouts and counter the intimidation tactics used to control the local population. To complement these patrols, the deployment of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) would have greatly assisted situational awareness on village layouts (including routes to and from), and to provide a visual deterrence that indicates ‘we can see you’; highly effective in a country where the majority of people live in outlying villages and are very much in awe of technology. The deployment of tier-one UAVs to East Timor has enhanced the situational awareness of the Task Force Commander.
Third, the importance of ensuring that police are involved in the majority of arrest operations cannot be understated. During the initial stages of the East Timor operation the Joint Task Force established a detainee centre that processed individuals before handing them over to the local authorities. Once international police arrived the military handed over the policing function to the United Nations to indicate to the population that the rule of law had returned to East Timor. In Solomon Islands, the author’s 2004 guidance to soldiers supporting police stationed outside Honiara was that each police patrol was to have two soldiers (with radio), as a minimum, to provide protection and communications back to the outpost. If the patrol was likely to encounter a Person of Interest (POI) who had access to a weapon then a four-person fire team with a medic and communications was the minimum requirement. This guidance was a deliberate attempt to avoid the chance of soldiers being independently involved in the arrest of any POI, and ensured that the police were attributed with the success of the operation. Moreover these actions assisted in reassuring the local population that normalcy had returned to Solomon Islands.
Media
In both operations there was significant international and domestic interest that generated considerable media attention. The actions of commanders and soldiers were heavily scrutinised, with each journalist trying to develop an edge on the competition. One now-famous incident involved Brigadier Mick Slater and the Nine Network’s stage management of an interview for the Today Show. In some cases the media used images of the looters and gangs to continue to portray instability as a way to build a story. The consensus is that the management of the media during the East Timor and Solomon Islands deployments was a success. Australian soldiers are routinely trained to meet the media challenge and were aware of the political and military imperatives of their actions. The management of journalists and guidance to soldiers was carefully coordinated by media liaison teams to ensure the messages were simple, reassuring and clear to the target audiences.
For the author, the most effective way for soldiers to deal with the media is to assume they are a non-military friend or ‘family member’. This assumption ensures that all ranks are consistent in their dealing with the media and do not stray into areas that might prove difficult or embarrassing. The three rules that should underlie soldiers’ interaction with the media are:
- comment only on those activities personally conducted;
- do not lie or bluff (say ‘I do not know’); and
- do not offer a personal opinion.
Command and Control
The deployments confirmed two key tenets of Army’s Adaptive Campaigning concept. First, the notion that to react quickly there exists a need for an ‘on-scene commander’ who controls a situation, regardless of rank, until their superior has sufficient situational awareness. In the traditional sense the functions of command and control tended to go together, with the superior controlling the situation from afar. Now the superior assumes control of the situation when a tactical pause allows or through a process of ‘battle handover’ with the commander on-scene. The key is for the superior to be able to defer decision-making to their subordinates with her or his actions supporting their decisions.
The deployments indicated that Army has come a long way in creating informed situational awareness and placing trust in the on-scene commander, but more work can be done to improve the ability to conduct coordinated interdependent actions across operations. When rioters and youth gangs shift their activities faster than soldiers can react there is a genuine need to get inside the cycle of violence to regain control of the situation. This observation was evident in the early stages of the East Timor deployment when the fluidity of activities required key decisions to be made at the lowest level.
Second, Army must continue to develop small, autonomous teams that can generate the key effects of manoeuvre, firepower, situational awareness and command and control. These small teams need to be able to disperse to cover a large area. They also need to be networked, able to concentrate at a time and place to control populations and manage perceptions. The commander must be able to extend his or her footprint and create the illusion that she or he is everywhere without requiring extensive ‘boots on the ground’. This tactic requires the commander to also have a lightly equipped mobile element to reinforce the patrolling forces (or sensors). In East Timor the tactic was to have small teams spread across Dili with two mobile forces (air- and APC-mounted) of sub-unit size to react to the shifting rioters and local gang activity. Those patrols eventually included members of the United Nations police force. The goal is to use the small teams to dislocate an adversary and then dispatch a larger force to deal with them.
Soldiers' Skills
A number of observations have been made by commanders in both operations on what is essential for soldiers. First, soldiers must be proficient in their weapon and communication skills, patrolling techniques, and expert at unarmed combat. These proficiencies allow soldiers to have graduated options, from lethal force to negotiation skills, in order to respond to an incident. Importantly, the ability to dominate an area to disrupt the actions of adversaries and to maintain control through aggressive patrolling has not changed.
Second, Army has come a long way over the past few years but more work can be done in developing soldiers’ thinking and decision-making skills. Army must continue to work at placing soldiers in a variety of scenarios to support their decision-making skills at home and in-theatre. Underlying this development is a sense of being able to apply precise, discriminating and tailored solutions to a situation. The understanding of the application of lethal force was good in both operations, but developing other techniques (and non-lethal weapons) to subdue an adversary will increase the number of options available to soldiers.
Third, there is a need to have soldiers culturally adept at working as part of an interagency force. These skills include the ability to negotiate, understand and appreciate the organisational culture, and to be prepared to ‘take a back seat’ to support the other agencies’ actions. These interpersonal skills are a key enabler for the conduct of interagency operations.
Fourth, Army needs to develop more soldiers with the linguistic and cultural skills to allow them to operate in the likely regional conflict areas. For Brigadier Slater in East Timor, ‘the decency of our people gets us there, but we need more linguists. They are a force multiplier and ... invaluable in helping us to avoid recourse to force.’8 Since the need to develop these skills has been previously identified, now it may pay to consider the employment of a language instructor on operations to teach soldiers the language in-theatre (after hours). On completion of a tour of duty the soldier could have that qualification (and financial incentive) placed on her or his record of service.
Fifth, soldiers need to be able to deal with the challenges that emerge during a deployment with a view to maximising their own resources without recourse to large or sophisticated support systems. There is a tendency to build force structures that cater for all contingences rather than rationalise, prioritise and encourage reachback. This action must occur if Army is to be able to deal with the operational tempo in the foreseeable future.
Sixth, the deployments indicate that soldiers require a fair degree of physical, mental and moral robustness to deal with situations. For the author, the more mentally and physically robust the soldiers are, the better they will be in achieving their tactical objectives. This point is not to say that Army is doing little in this area but rather that there is a requirement to have more conditioning during training if soldiers are to operate in these environments.
Conclusion
Since 1999 the Australian Army has been involved in a number of significant operations, from the liberation of Iraq, fighting the War on Terror, to the permissive intervention operations aimed at stabilising deteriorating domestic situations in East Timor and Solomon Islands. In these last two, Army has discovered that the battlespace in which soldiers operate is complex, diverse, lethal and diffused, regardless of the perceived level of intensity. Success in this conflict environment requires Army to be able to orchestrate the required effects as part of whole-of-government responses. In reality, Army will continue to be the foundation for these responses as it is the only government agency that is capable of projecting power offshore and initially supporting other government agencies in-theatre. This action requires Army to become more adaptable and agile in performing, and transitioning between, a wide range of tasks that are not related to the traditional view of warfighting.
A scan of the daily newspapers highlights security issues in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu that indicate there is a reasonable chance that another whole-of-government response is possible. If that is the case, then Army will be expected to provide soldiers to ensure security and logistic support to the mission. The level of Army’s commitment, of course, will depend on what effect is required on the ground and how far other agencies have developed their own support capabilities. A good guess is that, at a minimum, Army would be required to provide logistic support due to the simple fact that the Australian Defence Force can project power offshore and support operations overseas. In addition, it is highly likely that Army will need to provide a Quick Reaction Force in-theatre (or on reduced notice in Australia) to guarantee a secure environment that allows other agencies to achieve their goals in support of the Government’s objectives.
Therefore, it is essential that work continues in developing interagency doctrine for command and control, intelligence assessment, conduct of operations and logistical support. Selling the Joint Military Appreciation Process as a basis for developing a methodology for interagency planning is a good start point. The goal must be to get all agencies ‘singing from the same sheet of music’. This action will need to be supported by considerable work to review how to develop an interagency campaign plan supported by a communications strategy that seeks to shape the information environment, and the development of in-theatre training packages to build familiarity and confidence in each other. Furthermore, there is a need to explore the feasibility of a regional initiative to develop doctrine and standardise training across Pacific Island nations to support the rapid deployment of a regional military force to help failing neighbours.
Within Army, the focus must be on developing the thinking and decision-making of soldiers and junior leaders. These soldiers must be physically and mentally robust, and culturally adept at working ‘amongst the people’ and with other agencies. The leaders need to have the skills that allow them to act within their superiors’ guidelines as the on-scene commander to achieve networked effects. The soldiers must be part of autonomous teams that have improved individual force protection measures, mobility, access to firepower and enhanced situational awareness. This modular design of force structure needs to be expanded to incorporate other agencies and coalition partners with which Army is likely to work, and should form the basis for the development of tactics, techniques and procedures.
The recent deployments to East Timor and Solomon Islands were successful for Army due to sound planning, ongoing positive support to other agencies, and a desire to create the secure environment for the people to go about day-to-day business free from the threat of violence. The two operations pushed many people to the limits of their expertise and there was a need to make soldiers constantly aware of the broader aspects and political sensitivities of the mission. Yet soldiers continue to develop because of their operational experience and demonstrate adaptability at all levels. Moreover, they maintained the image of a capable, disciplined and professional force that was sensitive to the culture of the local people and a model for military support to similar future missions. Those missions will see soldiers performing what some perceive as non-conventional ‘warrior’ tasks, but with thinking leaders and soldiers that remain adaptable, team-orientated, and who never give up. As in the past, Army will stand ready to contribute.
Endnotes
1 General Sir Rupert Smith raised the notion of a paradigm shift to a ‘war amongst the people’ in his recent publication The Utility of Force. R. Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, Allen Lane, London, 2005.
2 Slater, M, ‘Point Blank, Australian Army Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, Winter 2006, pp. 12-13.
3 The ‘defeat threshold’ is the level and degree of damage required to a force in order to defeat it. Army tends to have a low strategic ‘defeat threshold’ due to the fact that operations are vulnerable to changes in public opinion, political will and (perceived or actual) casualty aversion. However, Army’s tactical ‘defeat threshold’ is high as it is hard to defeat Australian land forces when conducting operational actions. Conversely, many potential adversaries have low tactical ‘defeat thresholds’ (i.e.: they are easily beaten in close combat) but because they are often small, non-state, semi-autonomous groups, they are relatively invulnerable to changes in political will, community support or public opinion and therefore they have a higher strategic ‘defeat threshold’. For more see Army’s CASAC endorsed Complex Warfighting and Adaptive Warfighting concepts.
4 Slater, M, ‘Point Blank’, p. 13.
5 A member of the PPF (Constable Matt Dunning) was shot and killed in December 2004 by one of the many weapons cached outside Honiara.
6 Slater, M, ‘Point Blank’, p. 12.
7 Gallaway, A, Operation Phoenix Post Operation Report, 24 July 2006, p. 14-15.
8 Slater, M, ‘Point Blank’, p. 14.
