China gives ADF leaders ‘great clarity’ about military challenges

Military leader and strategist

Every three to four years,the Australian Defence Force undergoes a regeneration of its leadership. This means a new chief of defence force,as well as new chiefs of the army,air force and navy are appointed. For a government,this is an important opportunity to reset and clarify civil-military relations,develop new strategies and reinforce relationships across the national security community.

On Tuesday,the government announced tenure extensions for the chief and vice chief of the ADF,and new chiefs of the three services. This revised military leadership team has great clarity about the challenges it will face in the short and medium term. These can be traced back to a single source:an aggressive,assertive and militarily capable China.

Angus Campbell has retained his position as the chief of the ADF.

Angus Campbell has retained his position as the chief of the ADF.James Brickwood

The most important priority is for the ADF leadership to work with government on an updated defence strategy for Australia. For most of our history,Australia’s military leaders have outsourced strategic thinking to our great and powerful friends. First,the British and then American strategic thinking has dominated our defence debates. And while we should align with our major allies,there is much more clever thinking to be done in this nation about defence priorities,relationships,technologies,industry,basing and readiness.

Alliances and relationships will be a vital element of our defence strategy. Whether it is the ANZUS alliance,the Quad,AUKUS or our partnerships with our friends in the Pacific and South-East Asia,the ADF’s partnering arrangements will need to be reinforced and expanded. Our external relationships are a critical element of defence,and expanding them will enable new and innovative operational partnerships across the Indo-Pacific.

Australia’s deterrence capability is another important challenge – and it cannot wait for the delivery of nuclear submarines. The ADF must invest in new,long-range missile and strategic influence capabilities,cyber,space and high-readiness conventional units to ensure that any adversary thinks twice about interfering with our sovereignty or our national interests abroad. We are yet to develop something akin to Singapore’s “poisoned prawn” approach,but we need to.

Chief of Navy Mark Hammond,Chief of Army Simon Stuart and Chief of Air Force Robert Chipman at the defence briefing on Tuesday.

Chief of Navy Mark Hammond,Chief of Army Simon Stuart and Chief of Air Force Robert Chipman at the defence briefing on Tuesday.James Brickwood

The ability to procure,develop and use advanced technologies is also vital. New technologies such as hypersonics,quantum,AI,space and digital command and control change the character of warfare. But important technologies stand out for their lack of impact in the current ADF:drones,and digital command and control.

Presently,the largest user of autonomous systems is the army. It has hundreds of small and medium-sized aerial and ground autonomous systems. But the air force and navy have been laggards in this regard. Despite the excellent Loyal Wingman program,the RAAF cancelled procurement of attack drones in the past few months. The ADF must exponentially increase its ability to deploy autonomous systems,while developing systems to counter adversary drones.

The other technology that the ADF needs is an advanced digital command and control system that links all of the services in a meshed,secure network. Not only does this underpin effective command of deployed forces,it provides the glue that underpins integrated air and missile defence,combined arms operations,and joint strike and amphibious activities across the region.

The training and culture of the ADF also needs attention. Recently,much of the ADF’s capacity has been absorbed by bushfire and flood response as well as COVID support. This has seen highly trained soldiers carrying bags in hotels and standing around on isolated state borders. It has led to a significant deficit in joint war-fighting capability and resulted in an expectation in many parts of the community that this is now a core function of the ADF. The ADF must be freed up to train for the most challenging military missions. Australia’s deterrence capacity,and ability to respond to military aggression,depends on this.

With separation rates about 9 per cent per year,the ability to grow the ADF to meet previous government’s targets is challenging. But this may be evidence of a deeper cultural malaise,particularly around leadership accountability. The ongoing royal commission into veteran suicide is hurting the ADF. And the response to events unearthed by the Brereton review remains incomplete.

The actions of the Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan constitutes the greatest sustained leadership failure in ADF history.

The actions of the Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan constitutes the greatest sustained command and leadership failure in the history of the ADF. Unlike corporations where chief executives accept personal responsibility and resign over such failures,nothing similar has occurred in the ADF. The new ADF leadership must address perceptions of accountability if it is to attract and retain people.

A final priority is to prepare advice to government on a mobilisation of our nation in the event of a worst-case military challenge. At present,the ADF is simply too small to present an effective strategic deterrent,or to respond to some of these foreseeable contingencies. This will be a difficult conversation between government and ADF leadership as it will require further increases to defence spending.

For much of its history,Australia has leveraged its size,geographic distance from threats,technological advantages and its relationship with a major power to provide a foundation for defence. In aggregate,these provided time to identify threats and prepare responses. However,each of these advantages has degraded in the past decade. At the same time,the amount of time to prepare for known and potential threats has decreased.

For this reason,the new leadership of the ADF will have to think and act at a different speed from what they have been used to in the past several decades. The Chinese,drawing strategic lessons from the Ukraine war,may well advance their timeline for action against Taiwan. As such,the new ADF leadership must be prepared to think quickly,act resolutely in the face of Canberra bureaucracy,build a larger and more capable ADF – and possibly even fight a major war during their tenure.

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Mick Ryan is a retired major general who served in the ADF for more than 35 years and was commander of the Australia Defence College. He is the author of War Transformed and an adjunct fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

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