Army’s Kill Chain and Targeting Automation for the Defence of Australia The fourth industrial revolution has heralded an era of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and robotics that represents vast potential benefits for the Australian Army. [1] One key area that these innovations could aid is the Army’s growing indirect fires and targeting responsibilities. This is evident in four key areas. Firstly, new AI and robotic technologies can bridge the Army’s indirect firepower gap above the formation …

Automated Detection of Pre-Incident Indicators in Australian Emergency Response and Defence Capabilities In a world where the landscape of threats and vulnerabilities is constantly evolving, it is paramount for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to recognise that seemingly innocuous events may harbor deeper implications. The fundamental importance of this realisation lies in the fact that these innocuous events, often dismissed as insignificant, can potentially serve as the first ripples in a larger, …

In part one , this Post examined the concept of littoral manoeuvre including its reference within the 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) , the definition of the relevant terms and the capability of platforms used in the littoral domain. The article proposed that littoral manoeuvre should be a concept that represents the holistic capability of littoral manoeuvre vessels transporting land capabilities. As such, littoral manoeuvre is the use of the littoral to achieve positional advantage to influence the …

Littoral Manoeuvre is a major focus for this year’s research by the Australian Army Research Centre , a topic of the 2023 Chief of Army’s History Conference, and a core theme for  the next volume of the Australian Army Journal. Given its importance, this Land Power Forum post provides some background research regarding the term. It argues that the term ‘littoral’ reflects the projection of land power from the sea to the land, which in turn allows land capabilities to influence the sea. The use of the term …

‘Army’s approach to accelerated preparedness’ The scale, scope, concurrency and intensity of conceived future conflicts will require land force mobilisation. The allocation of resources to, across and between operations will vary as the strategic context and direction changes, and for which Army will need to be prepared. When the Government released the Defence Strategic Review 2023 , it called for ‘tangible enhancement to our warfighting capability and to self-reliance in National Defence’ through …

Australian policymakers have long recognised that the resilience of Southeast Asia, as a region bordering the nation’s northern approaches, is fundamental to Australia’s national security. Australian Army Occasional Paper 17 examines how the Australian defence community, with its extensive array of networks in Southeast Asia, can best engage the region in the years ahead.     … Occasional Paper 17 released - Southeast Asia’s Security …

New capabilities enabled by quantum sensors This post continues a series on quantum technologies. The 2023 Defence Strategic Review has brought into sharp focus the Indo-Australian Archipelago. This chain of islands could be a difficult untrusted littoral environment that Army must learn to work around, where of prominence is the need to know structure inside, under and next to islands and coastlines. Such structures can’t be seen using existing detection techniques. Furthermore, the extended nature of the …

What can the benefits of Train, Advise and Assist missions be for members of Army and the ADF? Train, Advise and Assist (TAA) missions have been a major component of Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Army operations since the end of the Second World War. Defence undertakes these missions, as directed by government and its ministers, to aid, train and develop the forces of Australia’s partner nations. Although these partner forces are the focus of training, it is wrong to characterise these TAA missions as …

Army’s Role in Train, Advise and Assist Missions In June, the AARC launched its winter series ‘ Short Thoughts Competition ’ on Army’s role in train, advise and assist missions. The purpose was to encourage authors to think about whether such a capability could play a part in Army’s post-DSR future, and encourage them to think about the shape of proposed activities in the Indo-Pacific that could inform and shape the organisation’s future. The forthcoming Spring Short Thoughts Competition will be similarly …

The proliferation of information technologies, the rapid pace of military modernisation and the return to Great Power competition are challenging traditional notions of national security as it applies to Australia and its coalition partners.  The impact of information on modern warfighting is unhinging the asymmetries traditionally afforded to Australian and allied Special Operations Forces (SOF), calling for new ideas, concepts and capabilities. Taking a uniquely Australian perspective, in this AARC …