Its intersection with ‘Defence Assistance to the Civil Community’ and ‘Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief’
AUTHOR: Beau Hodge
Introduction
Armies have historically served multiple roles—warfighting alongside diplomacy, infrastructure development, and peacekeeping. This situation is enduring. Liberal democracies routinely employ military forces for tasks beyond combat, particularly in peacetime when society is less focussed on the need to preserve warfighting capability.[1] In his writing on the topic, James Burke applies the concept of jurisdiction to the military and includes it as a pillar of the Army profession. In doing so, he offers a clarifying lens for force design and resource prioritisation.[2] While purists may argue that armies should focus exclusively on preparing for and fighting wars, history and contemporary practice reveals a persistent tension between the militaries’ readiness for warfighting and governments’ other demands on it shaped by societal expectations—Clausewitz’s trinity of government, military, and people in action.[3]
This Land Power Forum post advances three claims consistent with current Defence policy guidance. First, the Army must champion its core purpose, as articulated in the National Defence Strategy 2024, by prioritising investment and readiness to achieve a credible warfighting capability.[4] Second, while the Army should support government and community in Defence assistance to the civil community (DACC) and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations, it must clearly articulate the impact on military preparedness of tasks that fall outside its jurisdiction. Third, civilian leaders and policy officers must recognise the opportunity costs of DACC and HADR commitments to avoid hollowing-out Army’s readiness.[5]
Conceptual Foundation
Burke’s framing of jurisdiction defines the unique role of the Army: the lawful, disciplined application of violence to achieve national objectives. This is not merely a function but an organisational purpose shaping doctrine, training, equipment, and culture toward fighting and winning the nation’s wars.[6] Such clarity parallels Samuel Huntington’s argument that professional militaries must cultivate expertise in managing violence, with this expertise held separate to civilian agencies.[7] Morris Janowitz subsequently acknowledged that democratic militaries inevitably assume social roles in peacetime, but warned that efforts to broaden responsibilities must be properly managed to preserve the military’s core professional identity.[8] Clausewitz’s trinity describes the enduring friction among political, military, and social spheres—a tension that is diagnostic rather than prescriptive.[9] Consistent institutional discipline is needed to uphold the military’s core jurisdiction.
Two implications follow. First, warfighting primacy is essential for military professionalism in a strategic environment marked by coercion and potential major-power conflict.[10] Second, role expansion is legitimate when politically directed and socially necessary, but it must be clearly bounded.[11]
Strategic Context
The National Defence Strategy 2024 identifies a deteriorating strategic environment characterised by intensifying great-power competition and heightened coercion in Australia’s near region. It directs a rearrangement of force posture and investment towards capabilities that address the nation’s most significant strategic risks—shifting from a broad contingency-driven approach to one that prioritises preparedness for high-end conflict.[12] This direction builds directly on the Defence Strategic Review 2023 which warned that deterrent credibility is undermined by the erosion of readiness and the dispersion of military force.[13] In this context, readiness is not a virtue but a policy requirement grounded in deterrence and warfighting competence. Achieving this policy imperative demands disciplined investment choices—capabilities and training that enhance lethality and survivability—and an organisational culture that elevates collective combat proficiency as the central metric of professional excellence.[14] Resource constraints, amplified by inflationary pressures and opportunity costs, underscore the need to ensure every public dollar spent on the military measurably contributes to its fighting power and survivability.[15]
DACC & HADR: Legitimacy, Boundaries, and Trade-Offs
DACC and HADR are legitimate and morally compelling functions of government, both regionally and within our own disaster-prone continent. DACC is focussed on support to the civilian community within Australia while HADR focusses on support to other nations in the region. The Army’s capacity—logistics, engineering, communications, and manpower—makes it attractive to government when it is needs to deliver crisis response options to the Australian people or to its regional partners.[16] Australian practice reflects this reality, with repeated deployments of ADF elements in response to bushfires, floods, and public health emergencies.[17][18] However, if the Army’s jurisdiction is wholly bounded by warfighting, then DACC and HADR constitute out-of-jurisdiction support, justified by ministerial direction and social need rather than organisational purpose. Making this distinction provides a conceptual framework that supports rigorous debate about thresholds, scale, and opportunity costs. It makes capacity trade-offs more visible to decision-makers.[19]
Army’s participation in DACC tasks are framed by policy frameworks such as Defence Assistance to the Civil Community (DACC) which codify the circumstances under which the ADF responds to domestic civil emergencies. This framework makes clear that responsibility for resolving issues ultimately vests with the lead civilian agencies and that the ADF should seek cost recovery where appropriate.[20] HADR is undertaken through the Australian Government Crises Management Framework (AGCMF) whereby the ADF has a supporting role in delivering international assistance. It is the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that has primacy for leading and funding any international HADR response.[21] Recognising DACC and HADR as being ‘out-of-jurisdiction’ does not delegitimise such tasks; rather, it disciplines their execution by demanding transparent impact assessments on readiness, training, and sustainment.[22] It also promotes the provision of modular capabilities—liaison officers, tailored engineer detachments, scalable logistics—instead of the wholesale deployment of combat units during critical training periods.[23]
Opportunity Cost
Out-of-jurisdiction tasks always incur opportunity costs. Every resource—time, personnel, equipment, funds—allocated to DACC or HADR represents a foregone allocation to preparedness. These costs manifest across multiple dimensions: training, sustainment (maintenance debt), personnel fatigue and retention challenges, and budget diversion.[24] Reviews of DACC activities conducted by the Australian National Audit Office highlight challenges in cost attribution, readiness reporting, and sustainment recovery following prolonged domestic operations.[25]
Measuring the impact of out-of-jurisdiction tasks requires systematic reporting. Readiness metrics should capture missed training events, equipment availability trends, sustainment lag indicators, and personnel tempo data. Budgetary systems should record direct and indirect costs, enabling government to weigh short-term DACC and HADR benefits against long-term deterrence and warfighting capacity.[26] The readiness metrics should be owned by the individual Services. The information should be aggregated by the Australian Defence Force Headquarters to inform the Chief of Defence Force, the Federal Government as well as State/Territory counterparts. This approach aligns with contemporary civil-military scholarship advocating that military trade-offs should be transparent and subject to democratic oversight.[27]
Principles for Decision-Making
To reconcile jurisdiction with societal expectations, this post proposes three principles:
- Primacy of warfighting: Decisions on force design, training cycles, and budget allocations must prioritise fighting power and survivability under high-end conflict conditions.[28]
- Evidence-based trade-offs: Institutionalise the generation of readiness impact assessments for HADR and other non-core tasks, and report routinely to government to inform ministerial decisions.[29]
- Budgetary Integrity and Cost Recovery: Track direct and indirect costs and negotiate reimbursement arrangements that protect against the erosion of training and sustainment.[30]
These principles translate intent into institutional discipline, safeguarding military jurisdiction while maintaining responsiveness to government direction.
Conclusion
Bounding its jurisdiction with reference to its core warfighting function assists Army maintain readiness levels by clarifying the nature of its professional domain. It is consistent with the recognition that it will always remain responsive to democratic direction.[31] It also counters the peacetime bias toward Army’s visible domestic utility, a perception that obscures the slow, cumulative work of preparing for war.[32] The provision of transparent advice to government—that articulates the impacts of out-of-jurisdiction military commitments—enhances accountability and public understanding. Janowitz’s insight—that militaries in democracies will always bear social tasks—remains salient; professionalism lies in managing such tasks without diluting the core purpose of a military.[33]
While Army will always have multiple roles in support of Australia’s democratic society, it must not allow clarity around its core jurisdiction to be blurred. The Australian Army’s organisational purpose is the disciplined application of violence to defend the nation; readiness, lethality, and resilience are therefore obligations under government mandate. Supporting DACC and HADR tasks fulfils a legitimate public service, yet these tasks carry opportunity costs that must be measured, reported, and mitigated. A principled framework—anchored in warfighting primacy, evidence-based trade-offs, and budgetary integrity—enables the Army to serve Australians in crisis while safeguarding the nation’s ultimate insurance policy.
Endnotes
[1] Feaver, Peter D., Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 3–7.
[2] Burke, James., “Expertise, Jurisdiction, and the Legitimacy of the Military Profession,” in The Future of the Army Profession, ed. Don M. Snider and Gayle L. Watkins (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 48–53.
[3] Clausewitz, Carl von., On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 89–92.
[4] Australian Government., National Defence Strategy 2024 (Canberra: Department of Defence, 2024), 1–15.
[5] Janowitz, Morris., The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press, 1960), 418–434.
[6] Burke, “Expertise, Jurisdiction,” 48–53.
[7] Huntington, Samuel P., The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 7–18.
[8] Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 7–25.
[9] Clausewitz, On War, 89–101.
[10] Hew Strachan., The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 37–44.
[11] Feaver, Armed Servants, 55–60.
[12] Australian Government, National Defence Strategy 2024, 16–35.
[13] Commonwealth of Australia., Defence Strategic Review 2023 (Canberra: Department of Defence, 2023), 7–23.
[14] Australian Government, National Defence Strategy 2024, 36–52.
[15] Australian Parliamentary Library., “Australia’s Defence Spending after the 2024 National Defence Strategy,” FlagPost, 2024.
[16] Department of Defence., Defence Assistance to the Civil Community (DACC) Manual (Canberra: Defence, current edition), sections 1–2.
[17] Department of Defence., Operation BUSHFIRE ASSIST 2019–2020 (Canberra: Defence, 2020), 3–8.
[18] White, Samuel, Spontaneous Volunteers: The applied History of Domestic Operations (Canberra: Australian Army Research Centre, 2024), 1-26.
[19] Burke, “Expertise, Jurisdiction,” 50–52.
[20] Department of Defence, Defence Assistance to the Civil Community (DACC) Manual, sections 3–4.
[21] Australian Government, Australian Government Crises Management Framework, (Canberra: Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2025), 12.
[22] Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)., Defence Assistance to the Civil Community, Auditor-General Report No. 6 (2023–24), 30–35.
[23] ANAO, Defence Assistance to the Civil Community, 36–41.
[24] Harrison, Todd., “Rethinking Readiness,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), 2014, 5–20.
[25] Australian National Audit Office, Defence Assistance to the Civil Community, 20–29.
[26] Michael S. Goldberg et al., Measuring Military Readiness and Sustainability, RAND Report R-3842 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007), 10–30, 40–60.
[27] Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants, 101–117.
[28] Australian Government, National Defence Strategy 2024, 53–65.
[29] Harrison, “Rethinking Readiness,” 21–28.
[30] Department of Defence, DACC Manual, cost-recovery annex.
[31] Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 80–85.
[32] Feaver, Armed Servants, 173–179.
[33] Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 440–456.
