{"id":19236,"date":"2015-03-24T14:42:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T03:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=19236"},"modified":"2015-03-25T08:35:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T21:35:28","slug":"the-future-army-the-debate-rolls-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-future-army-the-debate-rolls-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The future Army \u2013 the debate rolls on"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n Karl Claxton has done an admirable job sustaining<\/a> logical and informed debate on the future of the Australian Army on The Strategist<\/em>. His most recent piece, Armour, Army and Australia\u2019s future strategy<\/a> corrals a number of different views on the Army and examines them together, which is probably what the debate needs. This discussion is important for the Army and the nation; Army has reached the end of a decade and a half of continuous operations in the Middle East and it\u2019s crucial that the future of the service be discussed thoroughly, if only to stave off a repeat of the 1970s and 80s for the service.<\/p>\n Karl framed my earlier argument<\/a> perfectly when he said I was worried that \u2018an 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\u2019. I know others, Michael Clifford among them, disagree with that analysis<\/a>\u2014that\u2019s just part of healthy debate. But I don\u2019t count myself as one of the \u2018armour sceptics\u2019 that Karl alludes to. I like Ben James<\/a>\u2019<\/span> (the armour insider) argument that LAND 400 is about force protection, not, as Geoffrey Barker argued<\/a>, a vanity project being pushed by aggressive Army officers eager to have a \u2018heavy expeditionary army\u2019. But then again, as Michael Clifford said, armour and Army is \u2018one of the most uniformed policy and capability debates\u2019 currently raging.<\/p>\n Briefly on the topic of armour, Australian soldiers deserve the best in force protection measures and I happen to agree with Michael on the limitations of \u2018light\u2019 forces. The Australian Army which went into East Timor in 1999 was a hollow shell of light infantry which completed its mission because, in the words of Peter Cosgrove, \u2018we were lucky<\/a>\u2019. But the Army of 2015 is a much more powerful instrument of policy, with newer and more lethal weapons, a modular, multi-role structure and\u2014crucially\u2014recent combat experience. The current Army has successively become what Michael called a \u2018balanced\u2019 force.<\/p>\n Yet I still don\u2019t think force structure is central to the debate or Army\u2019s future. Important, yes, because the Army hadn\u2019t restructured its higher formations since Vietnam<\/a>, but not central. The Army\u2019s role as an instrument of Australian strategic policy is of greater concern, as is the development (or refinement) of Army\u2019s doctrine. Michael argued this debate should be \u2018about designing an Army force structure and skill set which offers government the best and broadest set of policy options\u2019. I think that\u2019s backwards\u2014Army derives its force structure and its doctrine from its role as an instrument of national strategy as determined by successive governments. As Peter Layton said<\/a>, \u2018with a good strategy, Australia will get more out of its force structure\u2019.<\/p>\n Strategically, Australia is a middle power with a global view. Our recent military commitments reflect this by being modest but proportionate, and are the result of the pursuit of individual national interests and wider geo-strategic concerns. For the Army\u2014and the ADF as a whole\u2014this has meant being a junior partner in US led-coalitions in the Middle East. I think that is the lens through which we should examine Army\u2019s future role because the future Army is likely to be operating in a coalition environment. Army has, and will continue to make, relatively small but strategically important military contributions to larger international coalitions.<\/p>\n At a tactical level, Army\u2019s progress in force modernisation and restructuring has not brought about an equivalent transformation in doctrine. Plan Beersheba provides for some development of amphibious capability but is vague on the topic of amphibious doctrine<\/a> \u2013 Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison said of amphibious that the Army will \u2018learn as we go\u2019. It\u2019s also worth noting that while much focus has been on higher level\/operational reorganisation, Army\u2019s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were conducted at battlegroup and below levels. Army\u2019s on track with updating its higher level structures but actual operations take place at a much lower level, where there\u2019s still room for improvement.<\/p>\n On that track, while debate has been centred on LAND 400, Beersheba and the like, some other important issues may have slipped the net. Deane-Peter Baker asked back in December \u2018can we please talk about the rifles<\/a>\u2019, in reference to Army\u2019s out-of-date small arms inventory. He raised some good points, namely that while we have abstract debates about major weapons platforms and force structures, Army\u2019s soldiers have to make do with some pretty average pieces of kit. Robert Potter agrees<\/a>, saying that there needs to be more debate on this issue so diggers can get the best personal gear available. The Australian rifleman is the Army\u2019s key weapons platform and can always use more investment.<\/p>\n What\u2019s clear in this debate is that there\u2019s a multitude of disparate views and opinions on a wide range of issues and right now the only thing that\u2019s certain is that the debate is going to keep on rolling. But that\u2019s probably what Army needs.<\/p>\n Mitchell Yates is a postgraduate doctoral research student at the University of Western Sydney. Image courtesy of Department of Defence<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Karl Claxton has done an admirable job sustaining logical and informed debate on the future of the Australian Army on The Strategist. His most recent piece, Armour, Army and Australia\u2019s future strategy corrals a number …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":314,"featured_media":19239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[429,259,488,1062],"class_list":["post-19236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-adf","tag-amphibious-operations","tag-australian-army","tag-land-400"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n