{"id":19041,"date":"2015-03-17T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T19:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=19041"},"modified":"2015-03-18T09:00:16","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T22:00:16","slug":"armour-army-and-australias-future-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/armour-army-and-australias-future-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Armour, Army and Australia\u2019s future strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Balance\"<\/a>When under fire from both sides of a debate it\u2019s comforting to imagine one occupies the sensible middle ground. Of course it probably just shows one hasn\u2019t made a coherent case. I\u2019m grateful, then, that thoughtful responses to my LAND 400<\/a> post, by armour enthusiasts, insiders, and sceptics alike, have cast such interesting light on the global-vs-regional imperatives at the heart of the next Defence white paper.<\/p>\n

Michael Clifford<\/a> and Ben James<\/a> are concerned that arguments against heavy combat vehicles mistake force-protection for force-projection. Relatively low-intensity Army operations in the Middle East already occur in complex threat environments; and even future peacekeepers might need to be deployed in lethal arenas. Mitchell Yates<\/a> on the other hand worries that an Army designed to be robust enough to confront any hypothetical future conflict won\u2019t be optimised for the kind of battles it\u2019ll actually have to fight. Even the US Army, built to smash near-peer competitors, has struggled to counter insurgents\u2019 asymmetric tactics.<\/p>\n

Being a radically middle-of-the-road sort of analyst, and conscious I bear no personal risk in a debate about safeguarding lives and limbs, I\u2019m sympathetic to both arguments. All those sent into harm\u2019s way on our behalf deserve the best OH&S protection. But over-investment of finite resources and attention in too-hardened a force would increase the risk of other forms of exposure. There\u2019s a balance to be struck, somewhat akin to selecting strong but lightweight body armour: modular designs might tailor individual loads to particular conditions but their effectiveness depends on baseline specifications<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a regional stability wonk, I value sufficient forces<\/a>, lift<\/a>, and cooperation with neighbours<\/a> to meet contingencies that, in the language of risk, are both likely and consequential\u2014or, in language of diggers, could be bloody difficult. We\u2019ll have to lead such tasks with crucial moral, but not much practical, support from others. Conducting, say, a service-protected evacuation of thousands of nationals in the face of civil violence where docks and runways were initially unavailable<\/a> wouldn\u2019t be any easier with the heaviest combat vehicles survivable against, say, the PLA or Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

And although \u2018no amount of street violence in Dili has the potential to ruin Australia\u2019s day<\/a>\u2019 as much as real trouble in the Middle East, expectations we\u2019ll help address the latter commensurate with our interests, values, and capabilities, leave much choice of how to contribute. True, only a third of recent ADF deployments have been in our near neighbourhood<\/a>, so the importance of proximity can be overstated, but responding to trouble close-to-home will be less discretionary than our missions to Namibia, Somalia or Western Sahara were. While we should be prepared to play a proportionate role in the Middle East for decades<\/a> to come, Army is doing its bit by training Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. A self-contained contribution, more like RAAF\u2019s air-package<\/a> there, might be advantageous but isn\u2019t strictly necessary.<\/p>\n

So although I\u2019d agree a balanced force remains appropriate to maximise our options in darker but still peacetime conditions, and welcome signs<\/a> the Government intends to honour its pledge to raise defence spending, I see more of a continuing need to prioritise around geography<\/a> than perhaps Michael and Ben do. The two additional battalions raised after regional and global crises in 2006 stretched the regular force cost $10 billion per decade<\/a>. And while a pair of LHDs may provide more capability<\/a> than a larger fleet of medium-sized vessels with a similar price tag, it isn\u2019t obvious<\/a> Defence knows how much amphibiosity<\/a>, strategic projection<\/a>, or sea transport<\/a> it wants the giant ships\u2014acquired in the afterglow of Timor\u2014to provide. Sure, we could again find ourselves conducting stabilisation operations alongside Southeast Asian neighbours, so ignoring peer-competitor capabilities and IEDs isn\u2019t an option. But I\u2019d forego some hardening of our next combat vehicles to preserve the extra battalions, if forced to choose. I\u2019d probably reverse the proportion of six standard battalions to just one initially forming the amphibious landing element<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

If such matters were solely about selecting discrete pieces of kit, Army\u2019s incentive to protect its people and capability would get the balance right. But since Army\u2019s Plan Beersheba<\/em> must be better integrated<\/a> with the other services\u2019 plans, and as \u2018the best predictor of future force structure is the current one<\/a>\u2019, overarching strategy counts too. And there, initial indications the Coalition was broadly satisfied<\/a> with the strategic essay at the front of the 2013 Defence White Paper faded quickly after it gained office. The government\u2019s inclinations, experience of hard power returning to East Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and spending plans all suggest the next edition could come down somewhere between the current \u2018Defence of Australia Plus<\/a>\u2019 posture and a more radical strategic shift toward a greater emphasis on preparing the ADF to operate in distant US-led coalitions<\/a> or \u2018Forward Defence Reloaded\u2019.<\/p>\n

But a new stance won\u2019t necessarily trigger an expansive phase for Army. An exchange<\/a> between globalists and regionalists (echoing debates between expeditionary and continental schools that predate Federation) showed the ADF might contribute more to international order in uncertain times. That\u2019s significant as independently attacking a nuclear great power\u2014whether \u2018up-threat\u2018 or as its forces entered our approaches\u2014would count on its willingness to display a more gentlemanly attitude<\/a> than it probably would following such seismic changes to world order. But just as US aircraft carriers bring more to war-prevention<\/a> and attack subs war-fighting, our services probably don\u2019t have equal deterrence value. Army\u2019s contributions to coalition operations in the Middle East, signal we\u2019re a capable country that\u2019s willing and able to pull our weight internationally. Yet in other important theatres outside our neighbourhood, Army may simply be too small to deliver the sort of combat power and strategic weight Navy\u2019s future submarines will, including as tangible evidence of Australia\u2019s willingness to bear substantial military risk within an alliance framework.<\/p>\n

A region-first-but-not-only stance might offer the best framework for advancing Australia\u2019s security interests and drawing on the particular strengths of each service.<\/p>\n

Karl Claxton<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is an analyst at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr user HomeSpotHQ<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When under fire from both sides of a debate it\u2019s comforting to imagine one occupies the sensible middle ground. Of course it probably just shows one hasn\u2019t made a coherent case. 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