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11 February 2018 In his previous two posts, Brian Weston has described the changes in the RAAF’s organisational structure from formation until the end of the Second World War, and the post-war formation of area commands. In the third instalment of this four-part series, he explains the formation of the Force Element Groups (FEGs) which remain the defining organisational feature of today’s RAAF. The previous two posts in this series outlined the evolution of RAAF organisational policy up to 1986, with the observation that although the RAAF proclaimed to organise itself on a functional basis, that organisational functionality was disrupted by the reality that ‘RAAF Formation Officers Commanding’ were geographically limited ‘RAAF Base Officers Commanding’. So unless all the assets of an air capability were co-located, such as the maritime patrol units at RAAF Base Edinburgh, the singular oversight of an air force capability by a dedicated commander was difficult. For instance, when Mirage squadrons were resident at Williamtown, Butterworth and Darwin, the three squadrons reported through different command chains, through their respective OCs at Williamtown, Butterworth and Darwin. Similarly, the RAAF air support squadrons of Chinook, Iroquois and Caribou were spread across Fairbairn, Richmond, Amberley and Townsville with command chains through four different OCs. These command arrangements meant there was no single appointment responsible for the oversight of either the tactical fighter force or the tactical transport force until the various command chains came together at the level of the AOC, Operational Command. This was a serious organisational deficiency and it took some years to carry the argument that ‘unity of command’ over all the assets of a specific air capability was more important than ‘unity of command’ over all the units located on a particular base. After some years of discussion, especially at the tactical and operational levels, the Chief of Air Staff (as the Chief of Air Force was then known) Air Marshal ‘Jake’ Newham decided to transition the Air Force to a fully functional operational organisation. He determined, with effect from February 2 1987, that RAAF operational units would
 be organised into ‘force element groups’ (or FEGs). Newham, with his strong operational background, including tours as staff officer operations and senior air staff officer at Operational Command, was well placed to decide this issue, although initially he introduced the new arrangements on a ‘trial basis’, to give time to win over doubters. But it was obvious there would
 be no going back, and the FEG structure was formalised in June 1988. In brief, like-roled operational units would be grouped together under one commander. For the fighter capability, all fighter units together with the operational fighter training units were grouped into the Tactical Fighter Group (TFG), and with air defence and air superiority operations being dependent on air surveillance and direction,
the supporting air surveillance and direction units of the Air Defence Ground Environment (ADGE) were also included in the TFG. OC RAAF Williamtown became Commander TFG, commanding units located
at Williamtown, Tindal, Darwin, Amberley and Pearce. The Strike Reconnaissance Group (SRG) incorporated the strike/reconnaissance F-111C squadrons, together with F-111C operational training. The Maritime Patrol Group (MPG) incorporated the maritime P-3C Orion squadrons together with the P-3C operational training units. OC RAAF Amberley and OC RAAF Edinburgh became Commander SRG and Commander MPG respectively. OC RAAF Richmond became Commander Air Lift Group (ALG), gaining authority over the Fairbairn-based VIP squadron while losing command of the Richmond-based Caribou tactical transport squadron. Critical to the 24/7 operations of
 the ALG, was the Air Movements Coordination Centre and the RAAF high frequency radio network through which command and control of deployed air lift and maritime patrol aircraft was effected. A significant change was the establishment of the Tactical Transport Group (TTG) comprising the Iroquois/Black Hawk, Chinook and Caribou squadrons, resident at Fairbairn, Richmond, Amberley and Townsville. In hindsight, as all these units were in the business of ‘air support’, especially air support of the Army, this FEG might have been better titled the Air Support Group, with its command elevated to an air commodore, rather than a group captain. Both measures would have emphasised the importance the RAAF placed on air support operations. The FEG commanders also gained command over the operational/intermediate level maintenance units, such as the 400 series maintenance wings, supporting each FEG; and the reorganisation resolved the ambiguity about the authority of the Air Staff Officer by abolishing the appointment, and returning to the practice of grouping some squadrons into wings under the command of an ‘OC’, generally of group captain rank. Two of these wings, No 81 Wing (F/A-18A) and No 82 Wing (F-111C), were also given roles as deployable tactical headquarters which provided the Air Force with options for the command and control of deployed air operations. The 1987/1988 FEG reorganisation, heralded by the formation of No 9 Operational Group in 1942, was a seminal event in RAAF history, and while the FEGs have since been reshaped as the capabilities of the Air Force evolved, the Air Force became a more capable combat force because of its more focused, accountable and effective operational organisation. This article was first published in the December 2017 issue of Australian Aviation. Air Vice-Marshal Brian Weston (Ret’d) was Commander of the Tactical Fighter Group from July 1990 to July 1993.  He is currently a board member of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation. #commandandcontrol #RAAF #history #organisationalculture #FEG #AirForce

In the second Central Blue debrief, we talk with former Chief of Air Force Air Marshal Errol McCormack (Retd.) about his Air Force career, which spanned Konfrontasi to the Australian-led intervention in East Timor. During his 39 year career in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Air Marshal McCormack observed the significant changes that shaped the Cold War Air Force, and which still offer lessons to today’s airmen. Air Marshal Errol McCormack AO (Retd.) served in the RAAF for 39 years, retiring as Chief of Air Force in 2001. Following a distinguished career, he is now, among other things, Deputy Chair of the Board of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation. At the end of 2017, Air Marshal McCormack sat down with The Central Blue to reflect on his experience in Air Force spanning junior officer tours of Vietnam, progression in the ranks of the peacetime force, and leading Air Force during the Australian-led intervention in East Timor. This post summarises the highlights of the discussion and draws out lessons on organisational change, capability transition, and developing an educated workforce that have relevance for today’s Air Force. From flying club to developing a professional work force Air Marshal McCormack joined the Air Force as a direct entry pilot in 1962. For the first ten years of his career, Air Marshal McCormack was either on operations or training for operations. After graduating pilot’s course and converting onto the Sabre fighter aircraft in 1963, he was posted to Butterworth, Malaysia (a RAAF base at the time). He was soon conducting operations as part of Australia’s response to the Indonesian Konfrontasi.   This rapid transition from training to operations gave Air Marshal McCormack an early insight into the state of the Air Force’s training and categorisation scheme. When I joined, and we went to Malaysia, our categorisation scheme was virtually non-existent. Three of us arrived in Butterworth into Nos 3 and 77 Squadrons, and they said “Right, six months to go from Category D to Category C.” Two days later, Confrontation started “You’re qualified, you’re on alert”. And we never did a cat[egorisation] scheme. It was on-the-job training. And so we were sitting alert at Butterworth; I had a couple of scrambles. The problem was not just the lack of a categorisation system, but the culture and attitude within the organisation towards developing what we would now call technical mastery.  During the early years, Air Marshal McCormack learned a number of lessons about the differences between flying and fighting a fighter jet, mainly because, for the first few decades of the post-World War II period, the RAAF seemed to overlook or ignore the importance of tactical thinking, development, and instruction One that sticks in my mind is that we (No 3 Squadron) deployed to Singapore, to Tengah, and the aim was to actually have fights with the Hunters, No 20 Squadron Royal Air Force, which were based there. When we got back from having our arses thrashed, the flight commander got into us for not understanding the areas that the Hunter and the Sabre had their relative advantages. But we had never been told anything about that, never had anything like that in a cat scheme. Today you would say that you are deficient in your training if you don’t look at that sort of thing. So, we were very much an aero-club in many ways. This was not a new problem, in fact it was a problem that Australian airmen faced during the Korean War. I used to fly with guys that had been in Korea, and I get the impression that it was done much the same as we were doing it [in Butterworth and Ubon, Thailand]. They got a couple of Meteors shot down [in Korea] and they decided that they weren’t going to go into the air-to-air game, but did they really go into theatre thinking they could go and play with the MiGs? If they had stayed at a certain level, could they have out-performed the MiG? I don’t know, but that is the sort of thing they were missing. We used to bounce RF-101s, F-102s, F-4, F-105 Thunderchiefs in Thailand, but there was never any briefs about where you should do it and what you should do. The influence of the United States Air Force (USAF) appears to have played an important role in increasing the professionalism of the RAAF during the early 1970s, though this may have been taken to extremes in some areas. I know Les Fisher [Chief of Air Force 1994-1998] told me that the first time the maritime world started getting professional was when they got the P-3 and got the USN publications. The same sort of thing was happening with the F-111. People were coming back from the States with the publications. They went overboard, and went to centralised maintenance and that sort of thing, but I think Les was right that until we started working with the Americans, we didn’t think about those sort of things. We were pretty unprofessional in many things we did. We had a good time. The professionalism of our airmen today is a far cry from the ‘flying club’ days that defined Air Marshal McCormack’s early years as a fighter pilot; however, we should not take this for granted. A decline in professionalism and combat focus in the Air Force was observed in the aftermath of World War I and World War II; we need to ensure we guard against similar declining standards as our forces return from the extended period of operations in the Middle East Region. The maintenance of high standards and combat focus requires constant attention and maintenance – proficiency in air warfare atrophies rapidly and is difficult to regain. The need for critical thought in implementing policies The USAF’s influence on the RAAF during the 1960s and 1970s was, in most respects, positive. The experiences gained by Australian airmen working with their American counterparts and the improved access to publications led to the development of a more educated workforce, but it also led to a centralised maintenance system, an organisational structure described negatively by Air Marshal McCormack. He explained that centralised maintenance came about as an ‘operational economy measure’, but it was clear at the junior officer level that it didn’t work tactically. In separating maintenance from the flying squadron, there was not enough operational flexibility. In attempting to make maintenance flexible, there was a detrimental effect on manpower and esprit de corps – there was no integration and poor morale. Air Marshal McCormack experienced the negative impact of centralised maintenance during his time with No 1 Squadron flying F-111 in the 1970s and contrasted it with his experience flying the Sabre with No 3 Squadron in the 1960s. Strategic Air Command (SAC) brought in centralised maintenance as an operational economy measure.  Now, if you think what SAC did, it would say: “you, in that aeroplane, next month, will do this sortie.” They tried to bring this centralised maintenance system in to Australia, in tactical squadrons. It doesn’t work. And so, we [No 1 Squadron] used to deploy with a bunch of airmen, who would be given to us by 482 Squadron [the centralised maintenance squadron supporting F-111 operations]. Now they’d work their butt off for us, but we couldn’t reward them when we came back and send them on leave; they went back into the factory. So, from manpower, from an esprit de corps, from all those sorts of things we’d had at 3 Squadron, where we’d have hangar parties, and get together with the troops, and the gunnies would work their butts off to get us airborne, so we’d give them extra time off and all that sort of things that I saw as a pilot officer, I couldn’t do it. When I was commanding officer (CO) 1 Squadron at the time, under centralised maintenance, we had 20 people. You’ve got the aircrew, admin staff, that’s it. It was so frustrating, because you’d have to deploy for an exercise. So, you are trying to work the crews up to get everything going. And CO 482 Squadron would say “no, we’re down to two aircraft.” But what he was doing was husbanding the aircraft so that the day we deployed he had more than enough aeroplanes to deploy. So, it was a stuffed up system that we had to work around. The argument against centralised maintenance finally prevailed and the RAAF eventually returned to squadron-level maintenance, but that took time. When asked what drove the shift of maintenance back to the flying squadrons, Air Marshal McCormack noted that: It was the case of guys who were affected by it getting senior enough to actually push the case. Part of the problem at the time was that the RAAF lacked the mechanisms that enabled and encouraged critical thinking and discussion on the organisational and operational concepts that the Service employed. This resulted in the RAAF becoming, as then-CAF Air Marshal Ray Funnell observed in 1988, ‘intellectual beachcombers who comb the beach for interesting-looking bits and pieces that wash in from abroad.’ What was needed was a greater emphasis not only on education but on encouraging the critical discussion of ideas. This is one of the main reasons behind the creation of the RAAF’s Air Power Development Centre (originally known as the Air Power Studies Centre) in 1989, and, more recently, the establishment of the Williams Foundation and the subsequent creation of the Central Blue as an outlet for serving members to engage in critical discussion on the past, present and future of air power. Although progress has been made, there is still much that needs to be done. I think Air Force is lagging in its ability to contribute to the public discussion on air power. But I feel proud of the fact that Williams is making some impact. We’ve been aiming at the middle-ranked people, squadron leaders and wing commanders. We get them along to the seminars, like the one we just had on electronic warfare, and they say “jeez, I hadn’t thought about that”. And they are the ones that write the papers that then make the difference. So that’s where we are aiming. We still need Air Force to identify to us the areas where they have questions, challenges, and indeed problems. We can then expose that area to more people, get them thinking about it, and help address it. But one of the problems that has to be overcome is encouraging and motivating Air Force’s middle-ranking officers and senior non-commissioned officers to engage in critical discussion to ensure that we identify potential issues with the way in which Air Force develops, manages, and employs air power. It is an issue that The Central Blue editors are seeking to address through their own efforts in promoting serving members to think and write on the issues that they see as important. When asked what was needed to get airmen writing and contributing to the discussion, Air Marshal McCormack simply stated: We’ve got to prove to them that they are not going to be hung out to dry. I think the only way you can do that is get some people to write and engage in the discussion, people see it, that there is no retribution. But the problem won’t be solved in the short-term, I think it is a long-term learning process. The question of the Force Element Groups and their role in Air Force One area where Air Marshal McCormack noted that there was a need for Air Force to be better in its ability to criticise itself is in determining the optimal shape of the future force. He used the example of Force Element Groups (FEGs), and stated that we should be asking the question “What do you want from them?”. Air Marshal McCormack suggested that, as an organisation, we should be asking if the FEG structure is appropriate, and then developing an organisational response to that question. But the FEGs have become such a dominant and entrenched aspect of Air Force that it is difficult to imagine any other organisational structure in place. The evolution of FEGs is an excellent example of how one solution might be appropriate for a specific time or operational context; however, the FEGs have led to a number of unintended consequences, most notably the stove-piping of careers to align with internal FEG dynamics. As circumstances and requirements have changed and evolved, it raises the question of how the FEG structure should evolve to meet the needs of today’s Air Force. Do you know why FEGs were formed? We picked up the RAF system of the officer commanding (OC) base was the master of all he surveyed. And we had helicopters at Townsville, Amberley, Sale. But the OC Amberley who had F-111s, Canberras and helicopters, was apparently an “expert on helicopters.” Because he owned them, he’d fly them, and all those sorts of things. And it was the helicopter people that wrote in and said this is crazy. We’ve got 9 Squadron [Amberley-based Iroquois squadron] doing this, we’ve got 5 Squadron [Fairbairn-based Iroquois squadron] doing this, there’s no coordination between the two, we need to come under a central command. And that was when Westmore [Air Commodore Ian Westmore, OC Amberley in 1986] took that idea and Air Command agreed, well it was the Operational Command in those days, and then the FEGs came in. But it was because of this RAF system of whatever was on the base you owned. Now, the FEG system was good for the standardisation for various elements, and of course you need it now with Amberley and Williamtown [two bases that are home to the RAAF’s Super Hornet and Hornet fleets]. You need it, if you let them go off on their own, you can imagine we could go back to the old aero-club days of having a good time, without someone looking over your shoulder. Although this system worked well at the time in response to the problems that were then being faced, it was not long before the system became entrenched and difficult to adapt and evolve in response to changes that were occurring. One of the questions that Air Force is now facing is how does this structure work for a new style of platform that has a multitude of capabilities that must be integrated and cannot be operated in isolation. During his tenure as CAF, Air Marshal McCormack began the first reorganisation of the FEGs with the formation of Air Combat Group (ACG) through the merging of Tactical Fighter Group (TFG), responsible for the RAAF’s F/A-18 Hornet operations, and Strike Reconnaissance Group (SRG), responsible for the F-111s. ACG was formed in 2002, the year after Air Marshal McCormack retired. I was the first OC of the re-formed 82WG, under Strike Reconnaissance Group. And the reason I formed Air Combat Group as chief was because of my problems as OC 82WG trying to get the fighter world to actually work with and not against us. They wanted to be red ir all the time, and they would get the F-111s to just go off and do strike. But wait a minute, we are going to have to work together on ops. The only way to get past this was put the Hornet and the F-111s together. We have to ask the question: what’s the best solution for the organisation? My direction to John Quaife [who led the Air Combat Group formation project] was: this is the solution, now come up with how we get there. Unless you’ve got people in positions of power, you’ll just muddle along. During the time when the ACG-merger was being planned, Air Marshal McCormack identified that other changes needed to be made, but there was concern that Air Force could not absorb such massive changes occurring simultaneously. Regarding the merger of Maritime Patrol Group (MPG), responsible for P-3 Orion operations, and Surveillance and Control Group (SCG), responsible for the RAAF’s air surveillance and control capabilities, into Surveillance and Response Group (the new SRG) that occurred in 2004, Air Marshal McCormack noted: The only reason I didn’t pull 92 Wing [P-3 Wing] out of MPG when I started the ACG project, was because the system wouldn’t have been able to handle the merger of TFG and [old] SRG [to form ACG] at the same time as a change to the surveillance groups was coming. I said that was a bridge too far, so we will leave that for other people to do. The solution to managing the organisational inertia that would need to be overcome in any re-evaluation of Air Force’s organisational structure, according to Air Marshal McCormack is a cultural change program, one that would rectify the stove-piping that occurs in FEGs. This includes the regular movement of personnel across FEGs to prevent stovepipes from becoming too powerful. We are already starting to see this occur in Air Force with command positions in operational wings being filled by people with backgrounds outside of the wing they are now commanding. This may be an early indicator that organisation change may be more easily achieved in the future. Technical and strategic masters as Chief of Air Force The final question posed to Air Marshal McCormack was one most CAFs have been asked in many different forums: Does CAF need to be a pilot? In any organisation, if the boss doesn’t have domain knowledge you are heading for a failure. Since I have been working in industry a few companies almost went broke, because the managing director at the head didn’t have the domain knowledge of what they were all about. I suggest for an air force the necessary domain knowledge is of ‘air combat operations’. The follow-up question, which remained unasked, is: what how will changes in the application of air power into the future redefine the requirements of domain knowledge in the future force? The answer to that question may redefine the next generation of Air Force leadership. #Training #PME #RAAF #history #organisationalculture #FEG #Joint #AirForce #Jointness #leadership

#DEFAus17 is the key event for the Australian Defence Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF), affiliated with the US and UK branches as well as the Kiwi Defence Innovation Centre of Excellence. DEF-Aus is a network of serving military personnel who debate future concepts and progress ideas to tangible action. In this post, Brent Moloney summarises the key ideas he took away from #DEFAus17, and how it has motivated him to drive change in Defence. “We need bottom-up innovation, top-down is too conservative.” Alastair MacGibbon, DEFAUS17 Keynote speaker Defence Entrepreneurs Forum Australia 2017 (#DEFAUS17) was for me, and many others, an entirely new experience filled with a mixture of young and less-young eager minds with burgeoning potential. A beautiful place, where a crowd of junior leaders were revved-up by the backing of their commanders and schooled by experts from various avant-garde positions in their respective industries. After sufficient motivation and insights into the future, junior Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Australian Public Service (APS) leaders pitched their ideas to a primed audience and a panel with the requisite influence to initiate change. It is a forward thinking few days where new ideas can bypass the quagmire of traditional rank structure allowing juniors to connect with and inspire senior leaders. Think of the reality TV show Shark Tank, replace the venture capitalists with senior and influential Defence members and the over-dramatic American entrepreneurs with highly motivated junior Defence leaders attempting to improve the way we fight and serve the nation. As a fresh Officer Training School graduate, wide-eyed and intrigued, without an idea of my own to pitch, I was determined to learn something from someone and improve myself based on whatever I was to hear. To quote the silver-tongued South Central Los Angeles-based poet, O’Shea Jackson Sr. aka Ice Cube, I was “down for whatever”. The below is a much condensed version of the events, from which I learned much and which prompted me to explore an issue that I’ve experienced and believe needs improvement in Defence. The pitches and the pitchers: Solomon Birch – Gamifying Individual Readiness – Winner, Best Idea Annie Collins, Chrisafina Rick, Steve Funnell – Military Mindfulness App Cliff Brown and Matthew van der Vloet – Joint Education Capability Captain Chandra and Captain Moses, Army – REBOA Training in the ADF using artificial environment simulations David Caligari – Land Force Insights Nicola Bilton and Joyce Mau – Rapid 3D Imaging LEUT/Dr Ashley Wallin – Obesity in the ADF CAPT Jay Douglas – Digital Vuee Tuee Harry Wagner and Zac Tucker – Electrifying the Force LT Ben May – 360 Degree Reporting for Field Forces Chris Elles – Blockchain David Ashmore, Geoff McMillan, Bryan Masters – Plugging the Gap Anthony Hogan and Carl Bird – Military ethics education playing cards Chris Elles, Rob Morris and Luke Morton – Innovating for a winning edge Richard Thapthimthong (@RichieTTT) – Developing character The invited speakers – follow the links to watch the videos on the Grounded Curiosity website: #FutureFight Mr Alastair MacGibbon (@macgibbon) – Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security Cyber threat is one of the biggest threats to Australia Policy, repetition and lethargy in technological change has increased our risk of cyber-attack – case in point: 2016/17 Census hack. World is losing trust in governmental processes. Conservative military organisations need innovation, which will often be met with a brick wall – be sure to push back. Professor Genevieve Bell (@feraldata) – Reading the Future: how we think about security 20 billion-coming connected technology = 20 billion hackable bits of technology. Example: Robotic vacuum cleaners currently on the market will map out your home – what is to stop that data being put up for sale? Nothing. If everything is connected, everything is collected, and therefore everything is hackable. Data is always retrospective and it is always partial. Kerstin Oberprieler – (@kerstinoberprie) – Gamification Higher purpose, creativity, mastery, ownership, autonomy – just some of the individual benefits of the gamification process. Game mechanics already exist in our life: rewards programs encourage you to come back for more rewards – eg drink 5 coffees to get 1 free, at school you must pass an exam to ‘level up’. Building on these basic mechanics in favour of fun will nudge behaviour. #InnovationatWar Lieutenant Colonel Claire O’Neill (@clareoneill) – Innovation for the Profession of Arms We need to use the innovative opportunities in the various contexts in global confrontation. Marrying the what with the who – who do we need to be to fight our future conflicts? Resilient, adaptive, innovative, flexible people. Colonel Ian Langford (@ianlangford) – How We (Might) Fight: A discussion on the Australian way of war War is fighting, fighting is killing – Clausewitz Strategy requires 3 thinking points: geography, political ideology, economy (the means to make war). Innovation is great, applying innovation is what matters. Agility is key to success in a dynamic world. Speed is the new currency. Dr. Deane-Peter Baker (@DPBEthics) – The Ethics of Military Innovation: Some Principles Based on the Slaughterbots video: designed to scare and deter Fighting in cities is our biggest future challenge. Banning autonomous weapons will make no difference to the future of warfare, because machines can be created by anyone relatively inexpensively. There will be no way to stop someone who wants to make an automated weapon. There are always  countermeasures. #PracticalInnovation Group Captain Jerome Reid – Plan Jericho: Pragmatic Innovation for Military Strength – aka Air Force’s biggest disrupter Air Force will have the newest aircraft, but without Plan Jericho, they are just new aircraft and not better integrated capabilities. Ask game changing questions and look outside the box to find answers. Air Force is introducing a Certificate in Design Thinking – for those looking to improve. #Innovation Phil Hayes-St Clair – (@philhsc) – Ten reasons why entrepreneur s win Work hard + ship imperfection (send out your product even if you think it isn’t perfect and be embarrassed early to ensure the product is not just for you but for your customers. Be prepared for critical feedback.) + be organised + use judgement (but not just your own!) Stephan Wildenberg and Colin de Vries – Development MoD Netherlands – Future Logistics Their logistics department supplies their entire defence force. Sent a 3D printer to their forces in the field, which allows designs to be made anywhere in the world and sent to the 3D printer on site for immediate use. Augmented Reality – a heads up display (HUD) that allows the wearer to perform multiple tasks (e.g. a medical 9-liner request, video conference with your commander in the field etc) and see useful information in real time directly in front of your eyes (eg a casualty’s vital signs). LT Connor Love and LT COL Dan Wilson (@dan_wilson227) – USAPAC Greenbook If you start with something bad, leave it behind. Older people can sometimes recognise patterns a bit better because they’ve seen them over the years, how do we get that ability to younger leaders – OODA Loop perhaps? If you have the ‘answer’ use feedback and experience to prove it to someone else. No one cares about your idea – you need to convince them. #LearnandAdapt Professor Dan Marston – Learn and adapt but still lose… “We are turning our backs on our experiences already…that is extremely dangerous.” All wars offer important lessons, however, ideas and strategies will be cherry picked, removing context. What we are missing: robust debate and forethought about the next war If we do not learn from conflict and debate these points, we’re in trouble when the next war arrives. Interested in getting involved with DEFAUS in 2018? Follow @DEF_Aus and https://www.facebook.com/defaustralia for more inspiration, innovation and professional debate. #Robotics #organisationalculture #Army #technology #Joint #AirForce #Innovation #Jointness

Graham Tillett Allison Jr. is an American political scientist and professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He is renowned for his contribution to the bureaucratic analysis of decision making. Philip David Zelikow is an American attorney, diplomat and academic. He is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Allison published Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1971, revolutionising the study of international relations. A heavily revised second edition, co-authored with Zelikow, was published in 1999 to account for new and declassified materials about the Crisis. The book remains a pivotal text in understanding strategic decision-making. In this review, David Hood explores the models developed to evaluate decision-making and how they can be applied to the military context. The subtitle should not mislead readers. While Essence of Decision[1] sets out to explain strategic decision-making in the Cuban Missile Crisis, it also explores foreign policy decision-making generally.[2] Allison and Zelikow argue that their analysis is also applicable to sub-strategic decision-making, particularly within organisations immersed in highly unpredictable environments and crises—for example, military organisations.[3] Consequently, Essence of Decision is important reading for anyone wanting to understand better how governments and militaries make decisions. The book is well structured and easy to follow. Three conceptual models are presented: the Rational Actor Model (Chapter 1), the Organisational Behaviour Model (Chapter 3), and the Governmental Politics Model (Chapter 5). Complimentary chapters apply these models to the Cuban Missile Crisis as a case study. Questions are provided to aid the decision-making ‘analyst’ explain or predict events.[4] The concluding chapter includes a summary table for all three models, which this reviewer found useful to guide thinking and comprehension.[5] The Rational Actor Model is the model most often used, and used implicitly, to explain foreign policy decisions.[6] Within this model, government action is a product of choice. Decisions can be explained by recounting aims and ‘calculations’—rational assessment of choices—because rational actors seek consistent, value-maximising outcomes based on specified constraints. Government is assumed to be a united, monolithic actor, following a logic of consequences.[7] Popularised by political realism and game theory, the Rational Actor Model is attractive mainly because behaviour can be fully explained in terms of the goals being sought. However, Allison and Zelikow argue that the model can also be powerfully misleading because much of the real explanation for outcomes is inherent in assumptions and evidence external to rationality.[8] Furthermore, when attempting to evaluate government actions, ‘there exists no pattern of activity for which an imaginative analyst cannot… construct an account of preference-maximising choice for any action or set of actions performed’.[9] Many other studies show individuals to be non-rational, especially in dynamic or crisis situations.[10] Allison and Zelikow argue that in general, the Rational Actor Model does not correctly explain many of the actions that occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For example, it is unlikely that rational motives—such as a perceived need to defend Cuba, or a desire to force the removal of U.S. forces from Berlin—were behind the Soviet Union’s decision to place offensive missiles in Cuba. Furthermore, rational motives do not fully explain why the U.S. chose to respond with a maritime blockade.[11] The next conceptual model analysed—the Organisational Behaviour Model—recognises that governments are not monoliths, but ‘vast conglomerate[s] of loosely allied organisations, each with a substantial life of its own… Government leaders can substantially disturb, but rarely precisely control, the specific behaviour of these organisations’. Government actions are, therefore, less deliberate choices and more ‘outputs of large organisations functioning according to standard patterns of behaviour’.[12] Tensions caused by different organisational cultures, motivations, priorities and processes all influence decisions. Government action is, therefore, an output of organisational behaviour. Governments follow a logic of appropriateness.[13] In explaining decision-making during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Allison and Zelikow suggest the Organisational Behaviour Model performs reasonably well, highlighting the difficulty in making coherent, contextually relevant, decisions. For example, engrained practises within the Soviet Strategic Rocket Force, applicable to the defence of the Soviet Union—such as not camouflaging or hardening ballistic missiles—were inappropriately applied to the deployment of missiles into Cuba. This behaviour was never questioned because the emphasis on secrecy meant that organisations responsible for missile deployment understood little about each other’s activities. Consequently, Soviet missiles were discovered before they became fully operational. Allison and Zelikow suggest that this, and other decisions regarding the missile deployment, unintentionally increased the chance that conflict could occur. On the U.S. side, the Navy’s culture of autonomy; and operational procedures such as radio silence and the aggressive pursuit of enemy submarines, meant that controlling the interactions with Soviet forces during the blockade was not possible from the White House. This caused great tensions between the government and the Navy during the Cuban blockade.[14] ‘Only barely did the leaders of both governments manage to control organisational programs that threatened to drag both countries over the cliff. In several instances, both Americans and Soviets were just plain lucky’.[15] The final conceptual model—the Governmental Politics Model—recognises that individuals within the government are players in a game of politics. Outcomes are formed, and deformed, by the often-passionate competition between players who share power.[16] Constitutional prescription, political tradition, government practise, and democratic theory all converge to accentuate differences among the needs and interests of individuals… and to divide influence among them. Each participant sits in a seat that confers separate responsibilities. Each is committed to fulfilling his responsibilities as he sees them. Thus, those who share with the [head of government] the job of governance cannot be entirely responsive to his command… Besides, they are bound to judge his preferences in the light of their own responsibilities, not his… [H]is authority guarantees only an extensive clerkship… His bargaining advantages are rarely sufficient to assure enactment of his will.[17] Government action is, therefore, a result of bargaining games, thus making the outcomes themselves collages.[18] Allison and Zelikow do not say so, but one might suggest that governments follow a logic of politics. Applied to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Governmental Politics Model explains some actions well and demonstrates that compromises are often made during government decision-making processes. For example, the U.S. decision to impose a maritime blockade, linked to a demand for removal of missiles under threat of direct military action, emerged as a collage whose pieces were formed by the differing interests and perspectives of several key players. These included President Kennedy (who needed to demonstrate strong action after the Bay of Pigs affair); John McCone (the conservative and opinionated CIA Director, who favoured direct action short of invasion); and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson (who were both sceptical of the need for military action and concerned with escalation).[19] Attorney General Robert Kennedy, a key advisor and confidant to his brother, recalled after the Crisis that the ‘fourteen [advisors] involved were very significant—bright, able, dedicated people, all of whom had the greatest affection for the U.S. … If six of them had been President of the U.S., I think that the world might have been blown up’.[20] The concluding chapter emphasises that all three conceptual models have strengths and deficiencies and are best used together to illuminate foreign policy decision-making.[21] One might assume those dominant characteristics of the military, such as a hierarchical structure; the emphasis on rules, discipline and training; and a culture that subordinates individual desires to the needs of the collective, mean that military decisions are predominantly products of rational choice, i.e. are best explained using the Rational Actor Model. Military culture is indeed a powerful force. Significant levels of training, and a preponderance of procedures, exist to support rational, repeatable decision-making. The application of historical knowledge is also espoused to support rational decision-making.[22] However, humans are rationalising, not rational, creatures. Other forces—both organisational and individual—conspire to marginalise rational decision-making efforts. Political scientist Edward Luttwak has even argued that strategists must behave illogically to effect good strategy. Several attributes of the military serve to produce decisions as outputs of organisational behaviour. For example, by its very nature, Mission Command distributes decision-making, meaning disparate organisational behaviours influence higher-level objectives, sometimes negatively. For the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), while the six Force Element Groups (FEGs) provide the same basic function, they are largely separate stovepipes and make decisions according to their own entrenched and arguably self-centred viewpoints. This can make the employment of combined-FEG forces problematic. Finally, many military decisions remain the result of bargaining games between individuals who ‘play politics’. In his exploration of the problems associated with the ‘normal’ theory of civil-military relations, political scientist Eliot Cohen suggests the Western militaries have become increasingly like political entities where individuals within the military behave as players in a game of politics. Political adviser Rosa Brooks argues that the expansion of military activity into non-traditional, complex, arenas—so-called Military Operations Other Than War—has caused the military to behave more politically as it defends against economic, ethical, and legal challenges. Moreover, we have likely all witnessed, if not been affected by, decisions made by individuals who are overly-competitive or controlling; self-serving; have impulses of grandeur; like to grand-stand, or are uncompromising in the face of even overwhelming evidence that discredits their view. Psychologist Norman Dixon argued that individuals with such traits particularly afflict the military, suggesting they are both attracted to, and rewarded within, the military organisation. The need for multiple conceptual models infers that understanding how decisions are made is a complex activity. This is emphasised by the title of the book itself and its epigraph, both of which borrow from Kennedy’s famous reflection on the Cuban Missile Crisis: [T]he essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer—often, indeed, to the decider himself… To govern, as wise men have said, is to choose… [A decision-maker] must choose among men, among measures, among methods… [he may have] extraordinary powers. Yet it is also true that he must wield these powers under extraordinary limitations—and it is these limitations which so often give the problem of choice its complexity and even poignancy… There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process—mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved. Historian Michael Howard and others have lamented the difficulties for historians in deciphering truth from the historical record.[23] But if the decision-makers themselves cannot know the essence of their decisions, then there is no ‘horse’s mouth’, and the historian/analyst faces a near-impossible task. Furthermore, if fully understanding why decisions were made is difficult, it is equally difficult to learn the right lessons from them. However, as Professor Hedley Bull concluded, ‘[i]t is better to recognise that we are in darkness than to pretend that we can see light’.[24] Applying these sobering realisations to the military environment should serve best to motivate. Like the historian, the analyst must forge a path from ignorance to understanding, as best they can. Essence of Decision provides us with a robust conceptual framework to interpret decisions. Its application is left to us. Wing Commander David Hood is an Aeronautical Engineer working for the Royal Australian Air Force. He holds a Master of Gas Turbine Technology (Cranfield, UK) and a Master of Military and Defence Studies (Australian National University). Wing Commander Hood is currently Commanding Officer of Air Training and Aviation Commons Systems Program Office (ATACSPO). [1] Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Longman, 1999). [2] Ibid., pp.-xi, 3-7. [3] Ibid., p.7, 9. [4] Ibid., pp.3-7, 23, 26, 27, 389, 390. [5] Ibid., p.391. [6] Ibid., p.13, 15, 16, 19, 26, 402. [7] Ibid., pp.13-18, 24-26, 49, 146. [8] Ibid., p.19, 45, 49, 50. [9] Ibid., p.25, 26. [10] For example, see: Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2017); Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (London: Penguin, 2011); Yale R. Magrassis and Charles Derber, Glorious Causes: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War and Politics (UK: Taylor & Francis, 2019); David Livingstone Smith, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War (NY: St Martin’s Press, 2007). [11] Essence of Decision, chapter 2. [12] Ibid., p.143. [13] Ibid., pp.143-147, 153-156, 164-185. [14] Ibid., chapter 4. [15] Ibid., p.396. [16] Ibid., p.255, 256, 259. [17] Ibid., p.259. [18] Ibid., p255, 257, 294-313. [19] Ibid., chapter 6. [20] Ibid., p.325, 346. [21] Ibid., pp.383-392, 401-405. [22] For example, see: Byerly, Joe, Three Truths About The Personal Study of War (Blog), From the Green Notebook, 7 Jun 2015, accessed 21 Apr 2020, https://fromthegreennotebook.com/2015/06/07/three-truths-about-the-personal-atudy-of-war/?pdf=757.; Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (NY: The Free Press, 1986); Australian Department of Defence, ADFP 5.0.1: Joint Military Appreciation Process (Canberra: DPLIS, 2019); Australian Department of Defence, Good Decision-Making in Defence: A Guide for Decision-Makers and Those who Brief Them (Canberra: Defence Publishing Service, 2015). [23] Anonymous, Finding Truth in History (Blog), Farnam Street, Oct 2017, accessed 21 Apr 2020, https://fs.blog/2017/10/finding-truth-history/.; Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and The Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2013).; Michael Howard, ‘The Use and Abuse of Military History’, Royal Unites Services Institution, 107: 625 (1962), pp.4-10.; Arthur Schlesinger, ‘The Historian and History’, Foreign Affairs, 41:3 (1963), pp. 491-497. [24] Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: MacMillan Press, 1995), p.308. #BookReview #GrahamAllison #Strategy #CubanMissileCrisis #DecisionMaking #leadership

We are delighted to welcome Keirin Joyce back to The Central Blue. Few people in Australia can match Keirin’s expertise in or commitment to the Australian Defence Force’s employment of unmanned systems. In this piece, Keirin calls for greater clarity and sobriety when discussing swarming. The First World War saw flights of fighters coordinating among themselves, most doing so without even a means of electronic communication. The Second World War saw bomber raids of many aircraft, formed together under the control of their pilots, and coordinated by radio, flying exactly where and when they were told to multiply and mass effects. The massed effects of 108 B-17 bombers dropping 648 bombs in total was intended to ensure that two bombs would find the intended target. B-17 bomber raid © IWM HU 4052 Formation flying multiple aircraft is not new; military aircraft have been flown en masse for more than a century. Since the 100-drone formation flights by Intel in 2015, I have observed a growing trend that many –  particularly in the media – seem to consider formation flying by multiple unmanned aircraft to be something sensational. They talk of the ‘swarm’ and use it frequently to generate sensationalist headlines such as ‘swarming killer drones’. The connotation is extremely negative. However, they are wrong to use the term ‘swarm’. In ‘swarm robotics’ robust, scalable and flexible collective behaviours are designed for the coordination of large numbers of robots acting as a collective that takes inspiration from the self-organised behaviours of social animals. In the military context, swarming is when autonomous or partially autonomous units of action attack an enemy from several different directions and then regroup without being managed by a central command. Some might say that this is just manoeuvre warfare. Swarm is defined as ‘moving in or forming a large or dense group’. It is a collective noun, but that is not how the term is being used in the media: ‘swarm’ is being used as an adjective and is conflated with ‘swarming’ in recent discussions. Swarm and swarming are being used interchangeably to describe a collective behaviour, which is quite different from simply describing the movement of a large group of things. What is key in swarming behaviour or swarm as an adjective, as opposed to ‘a large group’ noun, is the automated or autonomous sensing of and adaptation to the environment by the members of the swarm. The swarm members have their own detection, programming, reasoning, and decision-making abilities and perform these roles themselves, independent of a central control unit. One of the most well-known contemporary examples of the incorrect use of ‘swarm’ is the multiple UAV attack against a Russian airbase in Syria on 5 and 6 January 2018. Journalists often quote the incident as the ‘first-ever drone swarm attack’. Each of 13 unmanned aircraft involved in that mission was loaded with a pre-programmed flight plan and explosives and launched to complete its mission. Individual aircraft did not sense anything other than their location. Importantly they did not sense that they were being tracked and targeted (and neutralised). They did not reason and did not adapt to or make decisions about their environment. The attack failed: six were forced to land at assigned coordinates using electronic warfare equipment and seven destroyed by anti-air missiles. This ‘swarm attack’ was no more technologically advanced than the German V-1 buzz bomb attacks on London and surrounds during the Second World War, or the multiple Tomahawk missile strikes of the First and Second Gulf Wars, or the coordinated missile strikes against Syrian facilities in 2017 and 2018. The buzz bomb was sensational 75 years ago, but this swarm attack was hardly a ‘first-ever’. The fact is that all UAV out there today are either quite dumb — programmed and have no or limited-sensing — or very smart because they are under the direct control of a human operator. When these smart, controlled UAVs are grouped into a formation or are executing a common mission, they are no different to aircraft formations of 100 or 75 years ago: the human makes the sensing, reasoning, and adaptation of the flight. This is not to say that unmanned-aircraft swarming is not coming. True swarming is coming, but it is not here yet. To achieve this, governments, industries, and academics alike are working on research to entrust swarms of robots and vehicles with behaviours and abilities to self-organise, to collaborate, and to complete multiple tasks together. Some pieces of propaganda show swarm ‘behaviours’ that are actually pre-programmed actions with logical rigidity: this is programming, not swarming. What does true swarming look like? Imagine UAVs are operating across the sky, providing aerial observation, targeting, data networks, delivery of even smaller UAV and precision navigation and timing services, with ground robots that can be tasked to take action in a wide spectrum from logistics to combat and casualty evacuation. That robotic swarm is a heterogeneous cross-domain team, consisting of dynamic configurations, sensing capabilities, spatial footprints and behavioural strategies, independent of centralised control, synchronised to work with, and cued by, their human teammates. Imagining a more expansive vignette of robotic swarming is not too difficult: It is 2030, and an Australian joint task force (JTF) is deployed on stabilisation operations in the near region against a force of insurgents who have been equipped and trained by a technologically sophisticated, militarised nation-state seeking to gain power at a regional pivot point. The Australian JTF includes swarming machines in support of an Army brigade. Multiple unmanned assets come and go with trusted permission from the networked combat teams, and they operate in all five domains: on and underwater, on land, in the air, in space, and interacting with the cyber/electromagnetic spectrum. These assets started their capability life cycle in the 2010s as small tactical unmanned aerial systems (UAS), ground robots, teleoperated armoured vehicles, and armed medium altitude long endurance (MALE) remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). They are now semi- and fully autonomous. Their configurations are dynamic, changing which assets are leading or following and adapting routes to account for unpredictable weather, changes which are frequent and difficult to predict in the Pacific. The systems take evasive action from insurgent threats in the kinetic, electromagnetic, and cyber spectrum. Loyal Wingman The insurgents are well equipped with mobile, radar-cued surface-to-air missiles and counter-UAS systems. At higher altitudes, a Loyal Wingman swarm protects the crewed Wedgetail by changing flight altitudes and /profiles to account for radar threats. Down at ground level, machines in the team sense themselves and their surroundings to adapt to conceal their signatures, and or to exploit the signatures of threat forces. This adaptation occurs across a wide spectrum of sound, vibration, colour, light, electromagnetic, radar, and particulate sensing. The machine sensing can algorithmically adjust its behaviour depending on the tactical and operational scenario and mission guidance: passive, reactive, overt, covert, offensive, defensive, or population interactive. Humans issue the orders and the mission commands, and, as the team rolls through the area of operations, the machines are cued and prioritised by the humans and their robot teammates. Robots are sacrificed, they use automated/autonomous kinetic engagement to shield their machine and human teammates, and they undertake the dull, dirty, and dangerous roles to enable the humans in the team to do what they do best. This is science fiction becoming science fact. The advent of true machine swarming behaviour is coming: an armada of machines, evolved algorithms, distributed intelligence, and complex autonomous behaviours – just as in a colony of bees. However, true swarming is not here yet. In the meantime, we need to dial down the use of the term ‘swarm’ when discussing multiple unmanned aircraft. Lieutenant Colonel Keirin Joyce, CSC is an Australian Army officer who has been supporting UAS technology development within the ADF for the last 14 years. Keirin sends his thanks to article collaborators Trav Hallen, Chris McInnes and Jacob Choi. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not represent the views of the Australian Army, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #LoyalWingman #Swarm #futurewarfare #RoyalAustralianAirForce #UnmannedAerialSystem #AustralianDefenceForce

Giulio Douhet’s theory of air power continues to be a topic of debate and controversy nearly a century after he wrote Command of the Air. Though some aspects of that book have been soundly discredited, parts of his theory continue to resonate with modern military theorists, particularly in new ‘domains’ such as cyber. In this article, Douglas Holmshaw reinterprets Douhet’s views on the offensive character of air power through cyber power lens. How many pursuit planes immobilised men and materials without ever getting the chance to defend anything…How many people, after staring long and vainly at the sky for the enemy to appear, went soundly and happily to sleep!…and all that effort, all those resources, so prodigally wasted, could have been profitably used for other purposes. Guilio Douhet, Command of the Air, 1921[1] In the pantheon of air power theorists, Guilio Douhet holds centre stage. At its inception, Guilio Douhet famously espoused the inherently offensive nature of air power: ‘the airplane is the offensive weapon par excellence’.[2] He argued that the character of aeroplanes—their speed and mobility—and the vastness of their domain would prevent the defence from ever stopping a determined bomber offensive. This article reinterprets Douhet’s thesis from a cyber warfare perspective and argues that the ubiquity, speed, and reach of cyberwarfare, combined with the vastness of cyberspace, accentuates its offensive power and undermines its defensive potential. Douhet understood the advantage of the offensive in warfare. An attacker has the luxury of planning, massing, and synchronising forces at a point in time and space unknown to the defender, allowing the attacker to gain and likely retain the initiative. Defenders would be relatively unprepared and incapable of defending all possible avenues of approach, reactively shifting defensive forces from one defended location to another, incapable of generating the mass of forces or speed of movement to defend anywhere adequately. Ultimately, the defender will be compelled to accept whatever terms the attacker sees fit to dictate. The emergence of cyber warfare eclipses the offensive potential of the air weapon. Cyber networks are ubiquitous; when this quality is combined with the speed, reach, and precision of the cyber weapon, the attacker can target any point on the defender’s networks, while the defender will lack the preparation, force capacity, and agility to provide for an adequate defence across the network. In an approach reminiscent of the Combined Bomber Offensive, cyber weapons aimed at civilian telecommunication nodes will be capable of leveraging interconnected networks to generate effects against military facilities. Civilian network administrators and defensive cyber teams are unlikely to have the expertise or capacity to defend against state-sponsored cyber-attacks, and important civilian infrastructure will sit outside the guardianship of military or government defensive cyber teams. The speed of the cyber weapon leaves no time for the defender to parry the blow or to call up reinforcements in aid of defence. It may take several weeks before a state-sponsored cyber-attack is uncovered, let alone investigated, and this initial event will be quickly outpaced during military conflict by a series of sequential non-kinetic and kinetic attacks. If defensive cyber teams are not already prepositioned and alerted to a threat, they are unlikely to be capable of providing a defence nor will they have the mobility to reach the target network before the enemy achieving their objectives. The attacker, with all the power of the initiative, will avoid defensive strongpoints and strike where the enemy is weakest, just as the Germans bypassed the Maginot line during the Second World War. All this defensive capability will amount to nothing but a useless dispersion of enormous quantities of national resources wasted on the notion of preventing not an actual attack, but a possible one. The cyber weapon is ideally suited to offensive operations. To paraphrase British politician Stanley Baldwin who spoke of the fear of the bomber in the 1930s: The cyber weapon will always get through. As the Australian Defence Force is confronted by the current upheaval in the character of war and seeks to implement the cyber capability envisioned within the 2016 Defence White Paper, the inherent offensive character of cyber warfare must be understood. The development of defensive cyber capabilities and their necessary dispersal are at odds with the inherent nature of the cyber weapon and act contrary to its inherent economy of effort. Such actions have been caused by the disorientation produced by the suddenness of the cyber weapon’s emergence. This disorientation has the potential to lead to a flawed concept of employment. Concepts for operation in new domains need to be continuously challenged to ensure the best fit. It is essential that we now challenge and contest the precepts for cyber warfare, in the same manner with which Douhet did Douglas Holmshaw is a serving Australian Defence Force officer with eight years of experience in the cyber career field and an interest in cyber strategy. [1] Douhet, Giulio, and Dino Ferrari, The Command of the Air, (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998), p. 18. [2] Ibid., p. 15. #CyberWarfare #futurewarfare #Strategy #cyber #CyberPower #AustralianDefenceForce

Phil Haun (ed.), Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Notes. xvi+297 pp. Let us not be zealots. Let us not plunge thoughtlessly from the old and known to the new and untried. Let us not claim that the airplane has outmoded all other machines of war. Rather, let us be content with an evident truth: The air force has introduced a new and different means of waging war. (p. 85) Haywood Hansell Phil Haun has compiled the lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) as a means of capturing some of the primary sources that led to the development of the American approach to strategic bombardment. The theories focused specifically on high altitude daylight precision bombing (HADPB). The lectures in Haun’s work were developed during the formative period of air power, following on from the landmark work, Command of the Air, by Giulio Douhet, which advocated for the use of air power for strategic bombardment of civilian populations and cities on the assumption that it would destroy morale and force populations to capitulate. Douhet’s work focused on the importance of gaining command of the air and the direction of air power to particular targets. What makes Haun’s compilation compelling, and its most significant contribution to the study of air power is that it preserves nascent thinking about how to put novel theories into practice. The work also highlights the perennial struggle between the development of strategic air power – to ostensibly use air power as a means to victory on its own – or the development of air power capabilities that primarily support naval and land forces. Although the technology has developed beyond what the authors of these lectures could have imagined, their ideas and arguments have a direct link and relevance to conceptions of strategic strike, and bombardment in depth. For example, Major – later General – Muir Fairchild’s discussion of the ‘National Economic Structure’ (pp. 140-64) in his 5 April 1939 lecture to the ACTS finds resonance in the targeting of Daesh oil and cash stores during Operation INHERENT RESOLVE as a means to removing the economic support to its military operations in Iraq and Syria. This compilation of lectures is recommended for military professionals, and students of military history and air power, who want access to primary sources that demonstrate the fundamental ideas on strategic bombardment and how air power could be used independently as a means of forcing the rapid capitulation of the enemy. The book is comprised of several lectures delivered at ACTS at Maxwell Field, Alabama, between 1936 and 1940, and demonstrates the development of American logic and assumptions regarding the best use of a new capability – aerial bombardment – to achieve strategic outcomes. In his ‘Notes on the Text’ (pp. xv-xvi), Haun explained the criteria he used to select the ten lectures published in the book. First, the lectures were the most quoted in subsequent publications on U.S. strategic bombardment and were therefore considered by Haun to be the most important. Second, the lectures demonstrated the most mature thinking on the theory of American strategic bombing before the entry of the United States into the Second World War in December 1941. Third, these lectures were delivered to the largest number of students at ACTS between 1938 and 1941. Fourth, the students mentioned above became the officers who planned and conducted bombardment in Germany and Japan. Fifth, there were the best-preserved lectures. Finally, and pragmatically, not all ACTS lectures could be physically included in a single volume work. The lectures were delivered by officers who were experienced aviators, and some had tertiary qualifications, though only a few had combat experience. Only a few, such as Major – later Lieutenant-General – Harold George and Fairchild, had completed some professional military education. This does not distract from the utility of the lectures presented here, as they demonstrate a practitioner’s approach to wrestling with the dilemma of how to maximise the utility of a new weapon of war, and to avoid the protracted stalemate on the Western Front only 20 years before the time these lectures were written. Haun’s introductory sections to the book provide an overview of the development of air power theory during the inter-war period. Aside from Douhet, the most important ideas that influenced the development of air power theory in the United Kingdom and the United States can be traced to a few individuals. Major-General Hugh Trenchard became the first Chief of the Air Staff of the newly established Royal Air Force in 1918. He influenced the development of British strategic bombardment theory, principally reference to attacking the enemy’s morale, which was not as blunt as Douhet’s advocacy for the bombing of the civilian population. Brigadier General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell proposed the creation of an independent air service alongside his ideas on strategic bombardment that focused on the selection of targets that would most quickly degrade the enemy’s capacity to fight and therefore shorten the war. The inter-war theorists minimised discussion about the effect of bombardment on the civilian population, with the practice of bombardment of cities by both sides in the Second World War. This culminated in dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. The effectiveness of strategic bombardment of cities remains a subject of enduring controversy.[1] The first two chapters provide an elucidation of the understanding of strategy, air power, and warfare as held by the lecturers. The enduring nature of war is discussed or mentioned in these chapters, such as Captain – later Major General – Haywood Hansell’s statement that: War is a furtherance of national policy by violence. Since nations find the real fulfilment of their policies in peace, the real object of war is not the continuance of violence, but the establishment of a satisfactory peace.’ (p. 75) The authors of these lectures also grappled with the industrialised nature of warfare that was so grimly demonstrated on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918. George, in ‘An Inquiry into the Subject of “War”,’ noted what he perceived to be the increased vulnerability of industrialised societies, due to their: susceptibility to defeat by the interruption of this economic web […] connected therewith is the industrial fabric which is absolutely essential for modern war. (p. 43) This theme is continued and further examined by Fairchild’s lectures in chapters five and six. Perhaps the least relevant lectures are those in chapter three, which are very technical and limited to the capabilities available at the time the lectures were written. Lieutenant – later Brigadier General – Kenneth Walker’s ‘Driving Home the Bombardment Attack’ discussed the tactics and formations that he considered the most effective for the bomber force to penetrate enemy air defence. They represent rudimentary ideas that were yet to be tested. Haun commented that Walker’s ideas proved to be right in that bomber formations successfully penetrated air defences, yet only focused on single raids rather than the cumulative effect of aerial attacks over time (p. 98). Major Frederick Hopkins’ lecture, ‘Tactical Offense and Tactical Defense’ considered the attrition rate of the bomber force and consequent ability to conduct offensive bomber operations. These lectures discuss the tactical viability of the bomber force and its impact on successful offensive bombing operations. However, they did not account for the development of radar, which had a dramatic impact on the effectiveness of bombardment, and was being developed at the time of their writing. Captain – later General – Laurence Kuter’s lecture on the ‘Practical Bombing Probabilities’ considered several factors that determined the accuracy of delivery and effectiveness of bombardment. Kuter’s lecture was delivered in 1939 while the Norden bombsight continued in its development. Although the bombsight would not be used until the war, the concepts and ideas discussed by Kuter represented necessary rudimentary steps in thinking about bombardment accuracy. From the ‘Practical Bombing Probabilities Problem,’ we can draw a direct link to the development of elaborate weapons effects information, and other considerations that affect bombing accuracy. The factors that determine ‘how many bombs it takes to hit and sink a battleship’ or any other target are now answered by software such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Weaponeering System, and databases such as the Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual. These targeting tools are essential for the planning of strike missions and are directed towards maximising accuracy while ensuring a high ‘probability of kill’ (Pk). Chapters five, six and seven covers the theories of Fairchild are perhaps the most useful lectures as they are still relevant today. Fairchild’s work provided insight into the dilemma of how to effectively use air power for strategic effect versus using air forces to support land and naval forces. As Haun highlighted, with the development of the Norden bombsight and the B-17 Flying Fortress, the next issue was to determine what targets could be struck to most effectively and rapidly result in victory (p. 139). Fairchild’s work is based on studies by Donald Wilson, who provided an analysis of America’s infrastructure and its vulnerability to attack because U.S. isolationism at the time prevented the collection of intelligence about the Germans and Japanese. One of the more interesting aspects of Fairchild’s lecture ‘National Economic Structure’ (pp. 140-64) is his discussion of the effectiveness of attacking an enemy population’s morale versus the enemy’s war-making capacity. He concluded that because of the adaptability of ‘man’ the fear initially caused by strategic bombardment to becomes ineffective over time. This was certainly borne out by the evident ‘Blitz Spirit’ and resolve within British society as the result of bombardment by the Luftwaffe in 1941. Fairchild went on to state that a more humane – and certainly consistent with the laws of war – approach was to understand the target as a system. He said: Complete information concerning the targets that comprise this objective is available and should be gathered during peace. Only by careful analysis – by painstaking investigation, will it be possible to select the line of action that will most efficiently and effectively accomplish our purpose, and provide the correct employment of the air force during war. It is a study for the economist – the statistician – the technical expert – rather than for the soldier. (p. 146) This is precisely the function of ‘target systems analysis’ today, which is essential for understanding the vulnerabilities of a system in order to identify the components that can be affected to destroy or degrade the operation of the system. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) acknowledged that the factors of production identified by Fairchild – transportation, petroleum refineries, and electrical power stations – were indeed critical vulnerabilities in the German economy (p. 178). The maturity of such a system was perhaps most evident in the command and control established to plan and execute the air war against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Using the small planning cell established during the Cold War called ‘Checkmate’, Colonel John Warden III developed a plan to use air power to defeat Iraq by targeting it’s ‘centres of gravity’.[2] This included obtaining control of the air by destroying Iraq’s air defences to maximise freedom of manoeuvre by the U.S. and allied air forces to strike at command and control nodes, transportation, power and communications.[3] Haun’s compilation of lectures certainly has contemporary utility by providing a good background to some of the ideas and theories that form the foundation of the practice of contemporary strategic strike. However, the book is limited by its focus on a very particular part of the development of U.S. strategic bombardment theory. Consequently, Haun’s work is a point in time reference that must be read alongside other works mentioned previously, and also with the reports of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey to provide a rich context and anchor for this work. As Eliot Cohen once argued: Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.[4] Air power has provided nations with the ability to coerce and deter others from acting in particular ways. Haun’s work ends with a summary of the perpetual struggle between the apportionment of air power resources towards strategic strike or to support other forces. The development of exquisite multi-role capabilities has alleviated the need to choose between these broad air power roles. Air power has also allowed nations to take swift and decisive action against others in a manner that does not commit it to long term ‘boots on the ground’, as Cohen’s words highlighted. The 1991 Gulf War demonstrated the effectiveness of strategic bombardment when planned and synchronised with the wider joint and combined campaign. So successful was the use of air power in the 1991 Gulf War, that it prompted the authors of Military Lessons of the Gulf War to proclaim: the inescapable conclusion […] that air power virtually brought Iraq to its knees, and the air war showed that air power may be enough to win some conflicts.[5] The use of air power, however, must be much more discerning. In the information age, the simple targeting of physical infrastructure and systems are no longer solely effective. The prolonged and ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have perhaps demonstrated the limitations of the kinetic solutions offered by strategic bombardment. Ideologies that fuelled these conflicts cannot be simply ‘bombed’ into submission. The main effort is no longer necessarily fought with the bomber or fighter force, but rather in the memes and interactions on social media.[6] Perhaps the next evolution is to incorporate some ‘axiological targeting’ considerations – which requires understanding the human population as a system, including understanding what is of value to them.[7] Relative to the conduct of war by land or sea, the use of the air for warfare is a little over one hundred years old. The utility of strategic strike continues to evolve and will present more opportunities and challenges. Many of the ideas developed and taught at ACTS lie at the foundation of the theories and practices in place today and form a humble yet essential contribution to the evolution of air power theory. This review first appeared at From Balloons to Drones. Group Captain Jo Brick is a Legal Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. She is currently the Chief of Staff, Australian Defence College. She has served on a number of operational and staff appointments from the tactical to the strategic levels of the Australian Defence Force. Group Captain Brick is a graduate of the Australian Command and Staff Course. She holds a Master of International Security Studies (Deakin University), a Master of Laws (Australian National University) and a Master (Advanced) of Military and Defence Studies (Honours) (Australian National University). She is a Member of the Military Writers Guild, an Associate Editor for The Strategy Bridge, and an Editor for The Central Blue. She can be found on Twitter at @clausewitzrocks. [1] See Charles S. Maier, ‘Targeting the City: Debates and silences about aerial bombing of World War II’, International Review of the Red Cross, 87:859 (2005). [2] Tom Clancy, with General Chuck Horner (ret’d), Every Man a Tiger – The Gulf War Air Campaign (New York: Berkley Book, 2000), pp. 256-7. See also Thomas A. Kearney and Eliot A. Cohen. Gulf War Air Power Survey – Summary Report, 1993. [3] Clancy and Horner, Every Man, 372-3. [4] Eliot Cohen, ‘The Mystique of US Air Power’, Foreign Affairs, (1994). [5] Rod Alonso, ‘The Air War’ in Bruce W Watson, Bruce George MP, Peter Tsouras, and BL Cyr. Military Lessons of the Gulf War (London: Greenhill Books, 1991), p. 77. [6] See P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, Like War – The Weaponization of Social Media (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2018). [7] See Peter Wijninga and Richard Szafranski, ‘Beyond Utility Targeting: Toward Axiological Air Operations’, Aerospace Power Journal (Winter 2000). #BookReview #UnitedStatesArmyAirForce #AirPowerTheory #AirCorpsTacticalSchool #GroupCaptainJoBrick #AirPowerHistory

In this final of three posts on Indian Ocean air power, Peter Layton turns his attention to the importance of Australian air power in the region. Though the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is a small force, there is more to Australia’s potential contribution to the region than the aircraft it operates. Other contributions include basing, resource sharing and enhanced cooperation across Indian Ocean air forces offer alternative options for improving national and regional security. Though Layton’s recommendations appear straightforward, their implementation will not be simple, but that should not preclude investigating the art of the possible more closely. For the RAAF, the Indian Ocean has traditionally been second in importance to the Pacific. This reflects that Australia has long perceived the Indian Ocean as being stabilised by others, first the British and now the United States (US).  Over time, however, the United States may substantially reduce its presence in the Indian Ocean, concentrate on Pacific-facing China, and leave Indian Ocean stability to littoral states, particularly India. Accordingly, Australia and the RAAF may need to look afresh at the Indian Ocean. The control of the Indian Ocean was last seriously contested in the Second World War when intruding German and Japanese warships, and submarines sank considerable allied merchant shipping. In that conflict, the RAAF based small air-defence and maritime strike forces in Western Australia to protect against possible Japanese carrier raids and to undertake anti-submarine patrols. Late in the war, B-24 long-range bomber missions were flown from the Kimberley region against strategic targets in Java in support of the Borneo campaign. In regional terms, today’s small, well-equipped RAAF probably ranks about number three in the Indian Ocean, behind India and Saudi Arabia. The latter two countries have quantitatively large, well-balanced air forces operating a range of modern and modernised combat aircraft while including in their national air power sizeable surface-to-air missile forces and limited numbers of surface-to-surface missile systems. Moreover, in India’s case, the air force is nuclear-capable and supported by an indigenous aircraft industry and aviation technology research base. While the Pakistan Air Force is also numerically larger than the RAAF, it operates many obsolescent aircraft, lacks comprehensive all-weather and night capabilities, and has notable electronic warfare and stand-off weapon deficiencies. The RAAF’s broad capability balance allows it to undertake independent national air operations although in higher-end conflict contingencies it would generally operate as part of a larger coalition. Realistically, if such a coalition in the Indian Ocean were not with the US, it would probably be with India. Yet, while Australia historically privileges military collaboration, India favours autonomy. India’s reticence in inviting Australia to the Malabar maritime exercise reflects its traditional strategic wariness. This may be changing with an early sign being greater interaction between the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the RAAF, including the 2018  deployment of Su-30s to Exercise Pitch Black in Darwin. IAF participation is now likely each year and opens up the possibility of a reciprocal activity to further deepen ties. India has held several exercises with the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force (USAF), Exercise Indradhanush and Exercise Cope India respectively.  The RAAF could perhaps participate with F/A-18F Super Hornets and a KC-30A tanker, mirroring Indian participation in Pitch Black. Sending an E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft might also be appropriate. Closer to Australia, new options are opening up as the RAAF introduces the MQ-4 Triton remotely piloted aircraft. Operating from Cocos Keeling Islands, Christmas Island, RAAF Base Learmonth, or RAAF Base Curtin the Triton could remain on station undertaking high-altitude maritime surveillance in the Bay of Bengal or over the Sunda and Lombok Straits for periods of 12 hours or more. The exact patrol time depends on where the Tritons operate from.  In broad terms, when flying from mainland bases compared to island bases, the Tritons lose about eight hours of on-station time. Given the RAAF is only buying seven Tritons, maximising their Indian Ocean maritime surveillance effectiveness through developing island deployment, basing options seems sensible. Under Defence Project 8129 the Cocos Keeling runway is being widened and strengthened to allow P-8 operations, but new facilities and infrastructure would be necessary to permit regular, on-going Triton flights. This raises the issue of whether to invest in Cocos Keeling and/or Christmas Islands. Geographically both have strengths and weaknesses, but low-lying Cocos Keeling will be more adversely impacted by climate change. Developing appropriate infrastructure on the islands might also provide an opportunity to enhance Australia’s relationship with India. The Indian Navy’s P-8Is could occasionally deploy there for short-term maritime surveillance operations, perhaps operating in conjunction with RAAF P-8As, thereby enhancing interoperability and helping to develop the Australia-India relationship. India has little capability to surveil that part of the Indian Ocean and, in terms of India-China geostrategic regional competition, this is a noticeable gap. Moving to the mainland, recent Defence white papers have judged the likelihood of attacks on Australia as low. Nevertheless, there are geostrategic changes underway, and some argue risks to Australian security are increasing. Prudence may dictate that these risks are managed just in case Australia’s national security situation deteriorates sharply. In such a scenario, air power might broaden from being maritime surveillance focussed as it is during peacetime, to also including air defence, strike, AEW&C, air-to-air refuelling, and air transport. Accordingly, some upgrades are planned for the bare bases of Learmonth and Curtin. At Learmonth, the runway will be strengthened and lengthened, and the fuel infrastructure upgraded to allow deployed KC-30A air-refuelling operations. At Curtin, the asphalt pavement will be resurfaced, and airfield lighting replaced. Both projects should be completed by mid-2022. A few years on from then, facilities at both bases will be upgraded to allow deployed F-35 operations and maintenance. The two bare bases may also have an increasing role in terms of supporting future coalition air operations, in particular USAF long-range bombers and their accompanying air-to-air refuelling aircraft. In times of crisis, such aircraft flying from the bases could range as far as the northern South China Sea. In times of peace, the bases offer additional training options that might augment the Australia-US Enhanced Air Cooperation program. While this program has focussed on RAAF bases Darwin and Tindal so far, as it develops further with longer and larger US Marine Corps and USAF deployments, it could potentially include air activities in the West, including short-term basing. In terms of national defence, the internationally significant North West Shelf gas fields are among the most exposed of Australia’s major economic assets. The gas fields are inherently vulnerable to damage, although their distance from possible threats provides them with some protection. Submarine attacks might be the most likely military threat, possibly countered by ADF anti-submarine warfare forces including RAAF P-8s deployed forward to Learmonth or Curtin. Less likely might be cruise missile attack, whether launched from hostile warships or long-range bombers. Such operations might be defended against through operating F-35A, F/A-18F, E-7A, and KC-30A aircraft from Learmonth and Curtin. There may also be concerns in times of high-end conflict about the liquified natural gas export tankers, especially those that supply Japan. These might be best safeguarded by routing them southwards around Australia and east of Papua New Guinea. In lesser crises, tanker protection through the Indonesian archipelago using convoys would be possible, although economically undesirable as delaying ships to form convoys is costly. Looking south, Australia has interests in Antarctica including with the Heard and McDonald Islands located in the extreme and remote Southern Indian Ocean. Fisheries exploitation is steadily increasing there, suggesting a new role for the Triton unmanned aircraft. Operating out of RAAF Base Pearce, the aircraft could spend several hours on patrol overhead the islands monitoring foreign fishing activities. Given limited numbers, additional Tritons would need to be purchased if Southern Ocean fisheries surveillance developed into a major role. Pearce’s facilities would also need further upgrading. In terms of building multilateral cooperation across Indian Ocean states, the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium offers a possible model. Some 32 countries attend a seminar-style meeting every two years that involves the respective naval chiefs. A comparable air symposium could be undertaken, perhaps initially focussing on areas of common interest such as flying safety, training, logistics and search and rescue, before later considering more difficult areas such as maritime surveillance information sharing. In a more practical vein, many Indian Ocean air forces are quite small and have considerable trouble maintaining an indigenous aircrew training capability.  From a financial perspective, it would be sensible to pool resources and undertake training at a single large facility. Australia already has such a suitable training capability at RAAF Base Pearce, that, with expansion, could provide pilot training for many of the smaller Indian Ocean air forces. Indeed, Singapore already uses Pearce for its pilot training, having done so since 1993. While being cost-effective, such pooled training would also help build relationships between Indian Ocean countries. The Indian Ocean balance of power is changing and with it the importance of airpower. Air forces across the region are steadily evolving, becoming larger, more capable, and more consequential. This has significant implications for Australia, the country with the longest coastline in the Indian Ocean.  Australian defence strategists and air power thinkers need to take note. Dr Peter Layton is a Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, a Senior Correspondent with WA DEFENCE REVIEW, and the author of the book Grand Strategy. This article was originally commissioned for, and published in, the WA Defence Review 2019 Annual Publication. #IndianOcean #RoyalAustralianAirForce #AirPower #IndoPacificRegion #AustralianDefence #AustralianDefenceForce

In this second part of a three-part series exploring Indian Ocean air power, Peter Layton turns his attention to the extra-regional players: The United States, United Kingdom, and France. These powers maintain an interest in the Indian Ocean; any effort to understand the military dynamics in the region must, therefore, include an examination of their capacity to operate in the region. Indian Ocean air power involves more than just the littoral states discussed in the first post of this series. The most impressive of the extra-regional air power states, the United States (US), has been deeply engaged in the northwest Indian Ocean for several decades. There are major US bases in Bahrain, Diego Garcia, Djibouti, Kuwait and Qatar, complemented by bilateral arrangements with several other Indian Ocean littoral states. The US can readily deploy significant air power across the Indian Ocean. American air power can be sea- or land-based. Three to four carrier battle groups are generally available for global deployment at short notice: in 2001-2002 three operated in the northern Indian Ocean supporting air operations into Afghanistan. Each carrier can operate between 70-90 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. On land, the United States Air Force (USAF) can rapidly deploy large numbers of combat aircraft into the Gulf region; some 400-500 were deployed there in 2001—although placing similar numbers elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region would be problematic. Few large air bases are available, and there are considerable access constraints imposed by many Indian Ocean countries. However, small numbers of unmanned MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft have operated from bare bases and civilian airfields in northeast Africa and adjacent islands to surveil and attack terrorist groups in Somalia and Yemen. The central Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago has long been important for US regional and global air operations. The United Kingdom (UK) purchased the archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, and over time resettled the local plantation workers elsewhere allowing the US airbase and port facilities to be established. The UK-US agreement on basing expired in 2016, but the 20-year extension option was exercised. There is an ongoing dispute over the plantation workers displacement, and in 2019 the International Court of Justice advised the islands should be returned to Mauritius. In contrast to the United States, China faces some significant geographical challenges. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) must transit through the Malacca, Lombok or Sunda Straits to access the Indian Ocean. These natural chokepoints might be made impassable in a time of crisis, especially the Malacca Straits that is bordered by Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, and India’s Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. In recent years, China has moved military forces into the Indian Ocean for extended periods to be available at short notice if required. China has established a small naval base at Djibouti alongside facilities of the United States and France and is now developing Gwadar in Pakistan into a major port and airfield complex. According to the Indian-owned Economic Times, in the next decade, some 500 000 Chinese citizens might live in Gwadar protected by PLAN marines. Gwadar forms an important part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in providing an Indian Ocean port connected to China by road through Pakistan. A 2019 article in Gulf News Asia, indicated that Gwadar’s airfield will grow to be the largest in Pakistan, well able to support People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) deployments. This airfield would permit Chinese air power to move into the northwest Indian Ocean quickly and easily. Highlighting this potential, in 2019 the PLAAF sent J-16 and J-10C fighters, JH-7 strike aircraft and K-500 airborne early warning aircraft to Pakistan to train with the Pakistan Air Force in the latest annual Shaheen exercise. Gwadar’s development takes on extra importance as China develops its medium-sized aircraft carrier forces. Gwadar will offer a safe port to retire to in time of conflict, avoiding being trapped if the Malacca, Lombok or Sunda Straits are blocked. The combination of PLAAF and PLAN forces operating from and through Gwadar would noticeably change the local balance of military power. Given China’s considerable dependence on Gulf oil and gas, being able to dampen any future instability in the northwest Indian Ocean may increasingly be considered essential. The UK retains useful air power access across the Gulf region and some parts of the Indian Ocean. The recent deployments to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) suggest what the UK could offer in times of crisis. In Operation Shader, 30 combat aircraft were deployed, supported by another 12 AEW, tanker, electronic surveillance and transport aircraft. Each of the new Royal Navy’s new carriers could provide additional air assets including, from 2023, up to 24 F-35B fighters. While the UK owns Diego Garcia, as it is a distance from the Indian Ocean littoral, it is mainly a transit air base for Royal Air Force (RAF) forces moving eastwards. France is a long-term Indian Ocean resident with bases in the French territories of Réunion and Mayotte islands and through access agreements in Djibouti and Abu Dhabi. While mainly naval oriented, these facilities allow France to introduce air power deep into the region when necessary. Using its new A330 Multi Role Tanker Transports the French Air Force could deploy a squadron of Rafale fighters to Réunion Island within 24 hours. Moreover, given adequate warning, France could also send a small carrier-battle-group able to operate some 18 Rafales in US-led coalitions or conduct small, independent actions. In 2001 an earlier French aircraft carrier did just that, operating some 16 Super Étendards and 2 Rafales in airstrikes into Afghanistan. In the more recent air war against ISIS, the French Air Force deployed a comparable land-based force to the RAF’s, operating from airbases in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. In noting naval air power, India has also made significant investments in naval aviation. The counry plans to have three medium-sized carriers in service in the 2030s, ensuring one is always available for short-notice tasks. Equipped with about 20 MiG-29K aircraft, the carriers would be useful for sea control purposes across the broader Indian Ocean and in air operations in permissive environments. Concerning sea power more broadly, several Indian Ocean countries are developing submarine forces. Most seem intended for short-duration coastal operations against near neighbours, but some could potentially interdict major international sea lines of communications. In the three choke points mentioned earlier (the Malacca, Lombok and Sunda Straits), offensive anti-submarine warfare operations would be viable, but given the Indian Ocean’s size, air power might otherwise be best employed protecting convoys transiting contested zones. Defensive assets, however, are scarce. Only Australia and India operate P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, although US Navy P-8s could supplement these. The major air force remaining is the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). The implications for the RAAF of the changes in the balance of air power in the Indian Ocean will be discussed in the third and last post. Dr Peter Layton is a Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, a Senior Correspondent with WA DEFENCE REVIEW, and the author of the book Grand Strategy. This article was originally commissioned for, and published in, the WA Defence Review 2019 Annual Publication. #RoyalAustralianAirForce #FrenchAirForce #IndoPacificRegion #UnitedStatesAirForce #AustralianDefence #RoyalAirForce

The Indian Ocean has become an area of geostrategic competition. As Australia is an Indian Ocean country, it is incumbent our national security community to understand the strategic and military dynamics of the region. The diverse air power capabilities within the region are an important aspect of those dynamics. Over a series of three posts, Peter Layton provides a starting point for readers to begin to understand Indian Ocean air power. In this first post of the series, Layton provides an overview of some of the capabilities of seven regional countries from Africa and Asia. The Indian Ocean is changing. A new balance of power is emerging as India rises, China enters, and America begins focusing its efforts elsewhere. The old balance kept the peace, albeit sometimes by making war. The defining features of this new balance still need working out and, in this, Australia is vitally interested. The balance of power term explicitly relates to military power and the most technical, individually destructive, and prestigious military power is air power. In recent years, Indian Ocean states have invested in enlarging and modernising their air forces, some to fight and win wars, others to enhance their status. This first of three posts undertakes a tour d’horizon of Indian Ocean air forces, initially looking at those at peace and then four at war. On the western side of the Indian Ocean, most air forces comprise mainly air transport aircraft with a token obsolescent fighter force. The Kenyan Air Force operates upgraded American F-5 aircraft, Tanzania next door has Chinese J-7s (new build MiG-21s), while Mozambique has several old Soviet-era MiG-21s recently refurbished in Romania. South Africa is the standout with its modest force of modern Swedish JAS-39 Grippens, a competent personnel training infrastructure, a small but capable export-oriented defence industrial base, and an innovative national science and technology organisation. The South African Air Force is suffering from spares shortages, reducing flying hours and a lack of investment in new equipment. Most of the South African Air Force’s budget now goes to personnel. Structural change is necessary together with reliable funding, which may come as the national economy recovers. On the opposite side of the Indian Ocean are Malaysia and Indonesia. Malaysia has an eclectic mix of Russian, United States (US), and European aircraft, which includes a small Su-30 fighter force. A Light Combat Aircraft competition is underway assessing Pakistan’s JF-17 Thunder, India’s Tejas, South Korea’s FA-50 Golden Eagle, Russia’s YAK-130, and Italy’s M-346. The FA-50 may have an advantage in being in service with other ASEAN nations with its cost possibly offset through palm-oil barter options. In its own way, having three Asian-made options highlights the shift to the Asian Century now underway. Indonesia has also used palm-oil barter in its most recent purchase of Russian Su-35S aircraft that will operate alongside Su-27, Su-30, and refurbished US F-16 Block 52 fighters.  More ambitiously Indonesia has joined as a 20% partner with South Korea in the development of KAI KFX/IFX 4.5-generation fighter. Indonesia has joint developer status and has integrated engineers into the project in South Korea. The first flight is set for 2021 with Indonesia initially acquiring 16 to enter service in the late 2020s. Also bordering the Bay of Bengal are the air forces of Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. All are principally force structured for internal defence, although Bangladesh has aspirations to modernise its air defence capability by 2030, including replacing its aging Chinese J-7s and Russian MiG-29s. The Indian Ocean air forces discussed so far are all peacetime-oriented, not so others in the Arabian Gulf and South Asia. In the Gulf region, the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) now leads a major coalition effort that includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Bahrain air forces in a protracted war against a Houthi uprising in Yemen. The RSAF is very well-equipped with the modern US and European fighters employing precision-guided munitions. But the RSAF has so far been unable to translate its air dominance into victory over a now well-dispersed light infantry opponent. The initial battlefield air interdiction campaign was successful in supporting an amphibious assault on Aden and deep inland advances by friendly land forces. The air campaign, though, quickly ran out of significant military targets and adopted a coercion strategy attacking Yemen’s civilian infrastructure, trying to punish the Houthis and force them to disarm and leave the capital. The RSAF operating in Yemen appears an effective air force at the tactical level, although air-to-air refuelling remains a noticeable gap. However, the RSAF has had difficulties at devising winning strategies, targeting in dynamic situations, intelligence support, and in applying the laws of armed conflict. In earlier Saudi wars, these higher-level headquarters functions were provided by the US, but in this war, the RSAF must provide for itself. Many Indian Ocean air forces are likely to have similar problems: competent tactically but deficient in operational level command and control, and so unable to realise their full combat potential. In terms of future air power, the Houthi’s have responded in two significant areas. They have fired numerous ballistic missiles deep into Saudi Arabia requiring the Royal Saudi Air Defence Force (an independent Service in the kingdom) to deploy Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries for defence. Secondly, the Houthis have also launched numerous small drones in attacks against Saudi Arabia and UAE airports and oil industry infrastructure. While more than 140 of these commercially available low-technology drones have been shot down, they are proving a useful weapon. The Houthi’s drones and missiles highlight that countries can now have offensive air power capabilities without fielding manned aircraft and that such weapons are threats that Indian Ocean air forces need to consider seriously. Nearby in South Asia, Pakistan operates some 450 combat aircraft of Chinese, US, and European origin, albeit about half are obsolescent. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is structured for a major war with India with a strong focus on national air defence and a lesser emphasis on-air support of land forces, including in counterinsurgency operations on the northern frontier. In recent years its ability to prevent intrusions into Pakistani airspace have been questioned. These intrusions though have been rare one-off events and arguably not representative of the PAF’s wartime capabilities. Even so, the PAF’s February 2019 armed intrusion into Indian airspace was operationally unimpressive saved only by shooting down a defending Indian fighter. The PAF has a nuclear weapon delivery role reportedly using its US F-16 fighters. Pakistan though also has a comprehensive range of indigenously developed short and medium-range ballistic missiles, and medium-range cruise missiles operated by the Army Strategic Forces Command to strike airfield, port facilities, and critical military targets. These missiles can be fitted with conventional or nuclear warheads; Pakistan has around 150 nuclear weapons, increasing by about 15-20 each year. The Indian Air Force (IAF), the PAF’s bête noire, must deter not just Pakistan but also an increasingly assertive China. China has built airbases in Tibet, meaning the IAF now faces the difficult prospect of a two-front war. The IAF has about 650 combat aircraft of mainly Russian or French origin. It is a well-balanced, highly capable air force that includes some 270 Su-30 fighters, airborne early warning (AEW), electronic warfare, and tanker aircraft. The IAF regularly exercises with major international air forces including at US Red Flag exercises and in 2018 at Australia’s Pitch Black. However, budget issues, a focus on problematic indigenous aircraft development, and a flawed acquisition system mean the IAF’s end-strength is gradually reducing. The capabilities of the IAF were highlighted in the February 2019 raids on three insurgent training facilities in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. The IAF launched a night raid in poor weather involving 18 Mirage 2000 strike aircraft dropping laser-guided bombs and the Spice imaging-guided weapon. In support were 4 Su-30s fighters for air defence, an Il-78 tanker, and an Embraer AEW aircraft with its indigenously developed air-surveillance radar. This was a complicated mission operationally, and tactically that fell short as the attacks apparently used inaccurate mapping data to program the Spice weapons. Such a shortcoming highlights that modern air forces are very complicated systems of systems. A small failure can make a modern air force operationally ineffective. This is becoming more so with fifth-generation aircraft requiring much greater extensive mission support than ever before. Indian Ocean air forces that try to keep up with the leading edge of military aviation must now make sizeable investments in support systems, even if at the expense of buying more air combat aircraft. In that, only three Indian Ocean states deploy globally significant air power: India, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. However, offstage US, Chinese, British and French air power await the call to intervene. The next post will discuss their Indian Ocean capabilities. Dr Peter Layton is a Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, a Senior Correspondent with WA DEFENCE REVIEW, and the author of the book Grand Strategy. This article was originally commissioned for, and published in, the WA Defence Review 2019 Annual Publication. #IndonesianAirForce #RegionalIssues #IndoPacificRegion #IndianAirForce #RoyalSaudiAirForce #MalaysianAirForce

We welcome Major General Gus McLachlan (Ret’d.) AO, Director of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation, who shares his thoughts in a two-part series on how to best approach force structure to gain a winning advantage. In part one, McLachlan covers how defence forces plan to win using one or more force design approaches: size, platforms, and people. In part two, he goes on to discuss the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) key advantage and, most importantly, the way forward. Decision-making superiority The 2016 Defence White Paper provides very specific policy direction that the ADF will seek to achieve advantage through a combination of human performance and decision-making superiority. The White Paper defines decision-making superiority as “knowing more about a situation and knowing it sooner than an adversary does so that our forces have an advantage in planning and conducting operations”[1]. The best way to understand what Defence planners meant when they described it this way is to understand why it is important. If we cannot achieve a general mass overmatch because of our small size—and in many cases platform parity—then we must seek to achieve advantage by finding precise local overmatch. We must apply our small force in exactly the right place and time. We achieve this by accessing and interpreting intelligence and surveillance data, much of which comes to us from our major alliance partner. This is an inconvenient truth for those who think it is time we go it alone. We cycle this information through a high-tempo, digitized decision-making process, and pass digital data to the people and systems that must prosecute our advantage. Perhaps I make that sound too easy. Many elements of this process are already in place. We have plenty of surveillance data and we have incredible people who are able to respond very rapidly to clear instructions. However, we have not completed the network of sensors, data storage, analytic tools, headquarters processes and near-real-time cross-domain data transfer to maximise our potential advantage. There is a range of projects described in the Integrated Investment Program that seek to remediate these remaining gaps to enhance our decision-making superiority. I believe the most important of these is project Air 6500 which is intended to provide a new digital communications spine that better enables the precise direction of our air combat assets. Importantly, it will also have the ability to link joint platforms like the air warfare destroyers and the new land-based medium-range air defence capability in a true sensor and shooter network. When operational this network will start to create the advantage our White Paper authors forecast. I suggest it might be renamed “Joint Project 6500”, and perhaps developed as an ADF main effort. Networked decision-making superiority is not an easy process. Our systems are procured at different times, making generational commonality difficult. We buy from different suppliers who each have proprietary barriers to integration and we often buy from diverse countries, each with different access rules or limitations. In my time as Head of Army Modernisation, we had a tank from the United States, Franco-German helicopters, and an Israeli land-combat network carried over an extended range communications network on US radios and satellite systems. Having been honest with you about the challenges we face, it is important we give ourselves credit where it is due. On Exercise Talisman Sabre 2017 the ADF command and control node called Headquarters 1st Division achieved levels of integrated joint command and control superior to even our most advanced peer armies and allies. A commander who can “see” the location and status of our forces in the five domains (sea, land, air, space and cyber) is well advanced in a contest for decision-making superiority. If the same commander can see some or all of the enemy disposition and status, and perhaps have insights into intentions and plans, then our small force can be applied incredibly effectively. The 2016 Defence White Paper seeks to advance us along this path as quickly as we can afford and as the technology allows. Defending our advantage Defending or maintaining this advantage is essential. Australia is transparent about the way in which we plan to win. Decision-making superiority is described as a central tenet in the 2016 Defence White Paper, and so is the centrality of the US alliance. It is logical then that these strengths will form the basis of intelligence collection and analysis by potential competitors in order to enable future disruption. The contest for decision-making superiority is underway;  the positioning of a Chinese signals-intelligence collection vessel to monitor Exercise Talisman Sabre 19 should not be a surprise to anyone. The nature of our networks, the frequencies and bands in which we communicate, our encryption technology, and the extent to which we rely on space-based navigation and communications satellites form part of our competitors’  collection priorities. Australian Army Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters. [Image Credit: Department of Defence] The ADF has the responsibility to defend its own networks and network-facing systems. This includes things like the deployable Internet of Things such as the Army combat system or battle management system. It also includes the increasing range of software-defined platforms and systems like the ARH Tiger and the MRH90. These advanced fly-by-wire aircraft can be as easily grounded by malware introduced into mission systems as by missile fire. The threat to the disruption of our decision-making superiority advantage has required an urgent inclusion of basic cyber-hygiene in all echelons of training, as well as the creation of dedicated cyber teams within major HQs and the establishment of defensive cyber units. I will not go into the size of these organisations, but in a small Army they represent a significant shift from analogue-era combat and combat support functions to cyber, electronic warfare and digital intelligence functions. They are being trained to a high standard, but they are small and the competition for skilled workforce in the cyber domain is fierce. How long we can keep our highly-trained soldiers, airmen and women, and sailors in our emerging cyber force using traditional remuneration and retention tools remain to be seen. When I was in uniform, I challenged my fellow leaders about the need for new ways of creating and preserving this workforce. I am happy to report positive movement on some of these challenges but less so on others. The Army has moved quickly to identify a new field of reserve service in which someone with cybersecurity skills in the civilian environment might become a reserve soldier and spend some time each year practicing and developing their skills in the deployable military environment. The Army continues to look for industry partners willing to share their people—and benefit from the experience and confidence that comes from working in a highly-contested military cyber domain. And for those at the leading edge of this skill set perhaps you might get to legally apply skills that you may otherwise just have to wonder about. The challenges ahead Let me now conclude by describing some of the challenges faced by Defence in realizing its 2016 Defence White Paper technology strategy. Alliances and Partnerships don’t just happen Alliances and partnerships do not just happen—they are negotiated and renegotiated, consolidated and challenged. Technical integration between nations is a complex mix of proprietary and technology barriers and security and access differences. The Afghan Mission Network during my tenure in International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a Frankenstein’s monster of cobbled-together systems in which security was risk-managed to ensure access by partner nations. Competition or conflict with more capable adversaries than the Taliban will require far more sophisticated systems. A future mission partner environment must enable national information security while allowing the sharing of mission-classified material with a wide coalition of partners. It will require connection of different generations of technology provided by different manufacturers. Some less advanced partners may need to have assisted access through the provision of equipment and training. Regional partner capacity-building in the human performance domain (training and education) is important but in state-on-state conflict between sophisticated nations, technical capacity integration is almost as important. I would like to think Australia is capable of leading the generation of a regional sensor and shooter network in which radars in regional partner nations can pass target data to a supporting Australian fires platform. Any adversary seeking to manoeuvre in the approaches to northern Australia would face virtual mass and significantly increased complexity. But can we protect these networks? I am going to pose more questions than answers. Sovereign Capability National cyber capacity remains a challenge in the face of the increasing volume of cyber-crime, intelligence gathering, and security threats. The role of Australian Signals Directorate is likely to continue to evolve as a whole-of-nation capability, so how does the ADF grow to fill any vacated space? Manning and Snowden exposed the risk of over reliance on US systems and technology. Are we doing enough advanced research to grow our own capability? The Defence Science and Technology Group is immensely capable but small. We must partner with advanced research organisations like universities but the cyber penetration of the Australian National University and the recent  controversy about potential transfer of sensitive knowledge to foreign students studying advanced degrees at the University of New South Wales, illustrate the work to be done to harness this capacity. Can the development of our mission partner environment keep pace with the developments in alliances and partner networks? The challenge of how to integrate the cheap and highly effective technology from Huawei into 5G networks has divided the previously bullet-proof “Five Eyes” partnership. I am left wondering if this deeply rooted set of relationships cannot be preserved how likely is it that a broader technical coalition is possible? Pursuit of exquisite platform superiority is expensive. The Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft is evidence that Australia can have and produce world-leading technology advantages. It is also an important study in how difficult and expensive this effort can be. We have committed to building a fleet of 12 advanced submarines and acquiring  72 Joint Strike Fighters. How many other exquisite platforms can we afford? Decision-making superiority, as part of a partner and alliance system, remains the best receipt for our national security. Let’s get on with building and protecting this system. Gus McLachlan commenced his career at the Royal Military College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1985. He completed his 37-year career with the Australian Army, retiring as a Major General in December 2018. On leaving the military, Gus McLachlan was appointed Adjunct Professor at Monash University where he advises on Defence research. He is a Director of the Williams Foundation, a National Security ‘Think Tank’ and is on the board of US and Australian Defence technology companies. McLachlan has been responsible for generating Australian Defence capability in cyberspace, electronic warfare and command and control systems. He completed two years as Head of Army Modernisation, during which time he worked closely with industry to commence a major recapitalisation of Army equipment and to network the systems of the Army. Gus McLachlan’s military career concluded after he led Land Forces Command where he was responsible for 35,000 women and men of the Army. He led a major structural transformation of the command to field new cyber and electronic warfare capacity. In January of 2020, he commenced his current role as Head of People for Boral Australia. Gus was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) for his contribution to Army Modernisation. [1] 2016 Defence White Paper, p. 86 #RAAF #Army #China #RoyalAustralianAirForce #Strategy #AirPower #technology #Joint #AirForce #Jointness #AustralianDefenceForce

We welcome Major General Gus McLachlan (Ret’d.) AO, Director of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation, who shares his thoughts in a two-part series on how to best approach force structure to gain a winning advantage. In part one, McLachlan covers how defence forces plan to win using one or more force design approaches: size, platforms, and people. In part two, he goes on to discuss the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) key advantage and, most importantly, the way forward. I am an operational leader who finished a 37-year career in Defence in 2018. It wasn’t clear early in my career – when Vietnam War-era radios provided the spine of our tactical communications – that the arc of my time working in that sector coincided with the greatest leap forward of information technology in human history. As somebody who learned to be a leader during that transformation, a level of adaptability and curiosity was required to engage with a constantly changing environment. As the rate of change accelerated and digital “disruptors” crossed from the civil sector into ours, the challenge for both generalist and technical leaders was how to pick the winners from a range of exciting, but often expensive, technologies that emerged in the last decade and a half. Since leaving the military, my work in the research and innovation sectors has confirmed my view that leading digital transformation in organisations is not just the preserve of the Chief Information Officer or Chief Technology Officer. The senior leader should articulate the “why” of technology in the organisation and identify the investment priorities. They must understand enough of the technological challenges their organisation will face as it transforms or responds to technical disruption. The aim of this paper is to offer my perspective of the technology needs and investment priorities of Defence – with an emphasis on the Army – from the foxhole of one technically informed former leader. To do so, it is important to give context to the challenges facing the Defence Department, without trying to create grand strategists in one paper, such that readers from industry and research organisations can tailor their approach and solutions to Defence’s needs. Planning to win Defence – more than any arm of government – knows it is in a competition: it competes against the Defence organisations and infrastructure of other countries, and battles internally with other government organisations for funding and resources. While well resourced, the Defence apparatus in Australia is not as large or as well-funded as many of our potential adversaries. That difference is only going to increase in coming years, regardless of who is governing. Defence leaders must maximise the impact of every dollar, planning how to win in all contests in which the ADF might be deployed. Nations establish their position and status by exercising a range of elements of national power. Similarly, defence forces plan to win using one or more force design approaches. Size Countries with big populations and big economies often rely on size to be the most decisive factor in military victory. During a briefing I gave to a visiting Chinese general while I was the Forces Commander in the Australian Army, I focused on the quality of our Defence Force people and equipment. With a smile, he told me that size has a quality all of its own. In an era of ‘come as you are’ conflict, Australia’s professional military will always be small when compared with the major and emerging powers in our region. We will not win with simple mass, but we can and do achieve virtual mass through collaboration and alliances. Professor Hugh White, in his recent book How to Defend Australia provocatively, forecasted the demise of American supremacy in our region. White reasonably projected that the cost of Australia seeking to achieve independent strategic weight as being in the order of 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). The 2016 Defence White Paper established a goal of 2% of GDP to be achieved by Financial Year (FY) 2020-21[1], a commitment the Morrison Government maintained was on track in the FY 2019-20 budget update[2]. The difference between 2% and 3.5% of GDP is significant. Consequently, Australia very carefully cultivates strategic partnerships that broaden our capability to create virtual mass. The strategy pursued by a succession of Australian governments (including the Morrison Government) since the signature of the ANZUS Treaty in 1951, seeks to achieve virtual mass through an alliance with the United States (US). However, despite the rhetoric of the ‘Pacific Pivot,’ more recent US engagement in the Pacific has been uneven. Australia now seeks to achieve increased strategic weight through partner engagement, confidence-building and capacity building with our neighbours. In our region, in the contest of influence with a re-emerging China, this creation of virtual mass has become a high priority for the ADF. It has both operational and technological lines of effort. Since we will never have a size advantage in a major conflict, even in our region, creating virtual mass remains essential. Platform Platform and technological superiority are getting harder and harder to achieve. The microprocessor revolution has democratised access to technology. The levelling of the platform superiority landscape has been further accelerated by intellectual property theft and cyber penetration, and by the new wealth of emerging economies. Commentators such as retired general and now Senator Jim Molan, already assert we have a small, exotic ADF with insufficient depth and resilience. As such, Australia will likely need to be judicious about where and when to try and pursue platform and technology advantage. The 2016 Defence White Paper and its associated Force Structure Review (FSR) – for which I was a steering group member and so am probably biased – made a good plan to create and maintain an appropriately weighted force. What emerged in the reasonable cost estimation that supported the White Paper deliberation was that we simply cannot achieve platform advantage in every area and that hard, strategic choices are necessary. Air Marshal Geoff Brown, when Chief of Air Force, used to explain an air force is like a poker hand. You can bluff up to a point; but when called upon to show your cards, being second-best counts for nothing. Over a succession of Defence policy papers, governments wisely chose to build a good poker hand for Australia’s air force. We are on track to have one of the best small air forces in the world. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) will provide the nucleus of the fifth generation ADF as a network of sensors and shooters. Our Army and Navy must join this joint sensor and shooter network. The FSR also identified the submarine as the core of our national ability to provide a complex challenge to potential adversaries. Submarines have the ability to stealthily patrol the approaches to Australia and operate further away from home to disrupt maritime chokepoints through which regional countries move resources and goods. A large, capable submarine fleet remains an excellent investment. However, I leave open the discussion about the evolving nature of undersea warfare in the decades ahead. Advances in space-based sensors and developments in robotics and autonomy will make it highly likely the nature of undersea warfare will drive fundamental changes in the design of submarines and supporting systems over the life of the current Collins-replacement project. In my former Service, the force structure described in the 2016 Defence White Paper finishes the vision articulated by Chiefs of Army Peter Leahy, to ‘Harden and Network’ the Army, and David Morrison to reorganise the Army to be better balanced under Plan Beersheba. However, gaining platform advantage for our Army is increasingly difficult in an environment in which countries are capable of proliferating large numbers of reasonably capable land combat systems at relatively affordable prices. All modernising armies have access to new fighting vehicles and attack helicopters, and most have masses of artillery and rockets that far outweigh even the Morrison government’s surprise announcement, in the lead-up to the 2019 election, that it would acquire 30 self-propelled Korean-made howitzers for the Army. Acquisition of new armoured vehicles that can protect our soldiers has commenced with the selection of the Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle, which I am confident is the best vehicle of its type in the world. I expect the current Chief of Army will have to work hard to preserve the number of vehicles to be acquired in subsequent phases of the armoured vehicle programs. It is just as important, however, that he should ensure our Army continues to evolve into a force able to reach into the other warfighting domains. People Despite the comments of my friend the visiting Chinese general, the final – and arguably most important – factor in military success is the performance of people. Put simply our Navy, Army, and Air Force recruit and train very good people. Our leaders have deep operational experience, and our people are usually empowered to use their training and initiative to seize and exploit opportunities. However, we have seen a reduction in our human performance advantage. I am going to provocatively draw upon an adage from Sun Tzu to explain a decade of equalisation in major conflict competition and project what our potential adversaries might have been saying: ‘While your enemy is doing the wrong thing never interrupt them.’ Advanced Western militaries have been focused on narrow counterinsurgencies in the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, and North Africa. During almost two decades of counterinsurgency warfare, billions of dollars were spent training, campaigning and equipping advanced Western forces for a very narrow band of the conflict spectrum. In Australia, submarine-hunting aircraft were diverted to overland intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, major warships turned to drug interdiction, and land forces engaged a tough, ruthless but technologically limited enemy. All the while, our rivals studied us closely, developed asymmetric counters to our advantages and caught up almost a decade of training and technological advantage. Winning is getting harder. Gus McLachlan commenced his career at the Royal Military College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1985. He completed his 37-year career with the Australian Army, retiring as a Major General in December 2018. On leaving the military, Gus McLachlan was appointed Adjunct Professor at Monash University where he advises on Defence research. He is a Director of the Williams Foundation, a National Security ‘Think Tank’ and is on the board of US and Australian Defence technology companies. McLachlan has been responsible for generating Australian Defence capability in cyberspace, electronic warfare and command and control systems. He completed two years as Head of Army Modernisation, during which time he worked closely with industry to commence a major recapitalisation of Army equipment and to network the systems of the Army. Gus McLachlan’s military career concluded after he led Land Forces Command where he was responsible for 35,000 women and men of the Army. He led a major structural transformation of the command to field new cyber and electronic warfare capacity. In January of 2020, he commenced his current role as Head of People for Boral Australia. Gus was made an Officer in the Order or Australia (AO) for his contribution to Army Modernisation. [1] 2016 Defence White Paper, p. 177 [2] A safer Australia – Budget 2019-20 – Defence overview #RoyalAustralianNavy #futurewarfare #AustralianArmy #RoyalAustralianAirForce #ForceStructureReview #AustralianDefenceForce #MilitaryPlanning