{"id":21228,"date":"2015-06-25T11:45:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T01:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=21228"},"modified":"2015-06-25T16:57:47","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T06:57:47","slug":"the-future-of-australian-land-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-future-of-australian-land-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of Australian land operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LTGEN<\/a><\/p>\n

In my role to lead and prepare an Army to serve its nation, my career experience has developed in me a profound commitment to the value, indeed the necessity, of joint, inter-agency, coalition and allied operations, as the best and most sustainable way to pursue our nation\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n

This is because of the extraordinary skills, and potential for greatness, resident within our people, especially when we team across the boundaries of a diverse national and regional community.<\/p>\n

The Army has an important<\/em> contribution to make to this team, bringing many unique and useful capabilities. Important, although not always preeminent; context is all.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, as a Chief of Army, I am not an adherent to the false god of ‘high tech war\u2019, that declares armies redundant, so banal is this analysis. Lieutenant General HR McMaster speaks in his usual compelling manner on this topic in his recent essay, Change and Continuity: the Nature of Future Armed Conflict<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Like all of you I dread war, and would welcome quick, clean, bloodless, decisive clashes, but when Shakespeare wrote, \u2018Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war\u2019, he reminded us that these dogs, elsewhere alluded to as Famine, Sword and Fire, have a will of their own.<\/p>\n

A war started is not necessarily a war ended; home by Christmas an illusion. War can slip readily out of the control of any of its belligerents. On land, at sea or in the air, cyber and space domains, war can all too easily spill over the convenient boundaries and timelines we so desire of it. An adversary on the defensive is an adversary looking for another domain in which to attack. This violent clash of wills doesn\u2019t necessarily end when or how we choose.<\/p>\n

In the deeply human and political tragedy that is war, in the last resort, violence often comes to a dramatic, exhausted or lingering close on land, because that is where we live.<\/p>\n

However, this is no easy pass, the Australian Army should always be able to explain to the government and the people its role and utility, within a wider team effort, in defence of our nation and its interests.<\/p>\n

Army\u2019s priorities are:<\/p>\n