Abstract The following is the text of an address given by the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison, to the Royal Australian Navy’s Sea Power Conference in Sydney on 31 January 2012. Lieutenant General Morrison stated that the introduction into the Australian Defence Force of new amphibious capability is anything but routine. The Landing Helicopter Docks cannot be thought of as merely a transport capability. Rather they are an integral part of a combat system with unique, and unprecedented, …

Australian Army Journal (AAJ):  Warrant Officer Woods, thank you for taking the time to speak with us as part of the series of interviews we’re conducting with former senior officers and soldiers to learn from the past to inform the future as the Army transitions from operations in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. In order to understand the environment post Vietnam, what was the situation Army faced in the period after the withdrawal? Warrant Officer Woods:  I was a young soldier just after …

As the date of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan approaches, it is timely to identify organisational issues the Army faced post Vietnam, via a series of interviews with former senior officers and soldiers to be published in forthcoming editions of the Australian Army Journal. The intent of the interviews is to learn from the past to inform the future as the Army transitions from operations in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. The first of these interviews is with former Chief of …

Army After Afghanistan Speech to the Sydney Institute by the Chief of the Australian Army Lieutenant General David Morrison, February 2012 It is an honour to address the Sydney Institute. Over more than two decades Gerard and Anne have cemented the reputation of the Sydney Institute as the premier forum in this city for the serious discussion of public policy as well as the arts and culture. Theirs is a considerable achievement, and I am grateful for the opportunity to deliver my first address to an …

[ Editorial note : This speech has been edited for clarity.] [ZACH LAMBERT]: My name is Major Zach Lambert. I am here today to talk on mobilisation. I’ve done a fair amount of academic studies on this topic, most recently a Fulbright Fellowship in the United States where I looked into mobilisation in detail. I have a fairly significant operational background and previously I was in the divisional staff as a joint logistics planner. With me today, I have Major David Caligari. [DAVID CALIGARI]: Good …

The Indo-Pacific and Beyond Speech to the Chief of Army Symposium 2023, Perth Convention Centre, 30 August 2023 [Editorial note: This speech has been edited and condensed for clarity.] At the Shangri-La Dialogue last year, the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, and the United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, both spoke to the importance of guardrails—that is, simple practical structures to prevent a worst-case scenario. The bases for these guardrails are dialogue, communications, …

A Historical and Strategic Perspective Speech to the Chief of Army Symposium 2023, Perth Convention Centre, 30 August 2023 [Editorial note: This speech has been edited and condensed for clarity.] To help focus our topic today, let us first consider my favourite map. If you haven’t seen it before, it is the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) planning map centred on Darwin, but spun 45 degrees (Figure 1). It gives you a sense of Australia hanging off Asia, and what Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo, called …

Speech given at the Synergia Conclave, Bangalore, India, 18 November 2023 [Editorial note: This speech has been edited and condensed for clarity.] I am going to discuss the ways advanced computing might change warfare, and the ways it might not. My aim is to recommend where advanced computing applications are likely to get the biggest return on investment. In order to avoid the trap of prediction, I intend to look at the past—particularly the recent past—to give us some sense of how best to focus the …