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On 24 October 2019, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation held a seminar examining the requirements of #5thgenmanoeuvre. The seminar aimed to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force must  equip and organise for multi-domain operations. A basic premise was that the new capabilities being introduced into Australian service required an update to Australia’s manouevrist approach to warfare. However, before it is possible to review a concept, you must first understand its history. At the seminar, that role was filled by Central Blue editor Wing Commander Jo Brick, who provided a historical perspective of manoeuvre. Jo’s presentation provided a much-needed overview of a critical concept in Australia’s approach to warfare; accordingly, we have opted to publish it as it was presented. Terrain does not fight wars. Machines do not fight wars. People fight wars. It is in the minds of men that war must be fought. John Boyd[1] Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I am privileged to be presenting to this Williams Foundation Seminar on Fifth-Generation Manoeuvre, amongst a roster of illustrious speakers. My task is a simple one – it is to set the stage for the remainder of the presentations by providing an outline of the history of manoeuvre theory. Rest assured that I will not be focusing on the theoretical and doctrinal aspects, but rather the incredibly rich story of how humans have sought to place themselves in a position of advantage relative to their adversary so that they can remove that adversary from the contest. This is the essence of manoeuvre warfare at its simplest. As an Air Force officer, I was not specifically taught about manoeuvre theory, as much of the training and education in my early years tended to focus on air power theory, doctrine, and the key air power roles. Much of my interest in manoeuvre comes from associating too much with armoured corps officers in recent years in many of the joint roles I have had. I am still learning and refining my thinking in relation to manoeuvre warfare, but you will not be surprised to find that air power has a fundamental role to play in manoeuvre concepts. It is useful to begin by considering the question ‘what is manoeuvre?’ William S. Lind, a civilian author who wrote about the theory of manoeuvre warfare and was a contemporary and supporter of John Boyd, provided three basic answers:[2] Manoeuvre is a synonym for ‘movement’. He considers this a colloquial use of the term that has little relevance to manoeuvre warfare. Manoeuvre as movement relative to an enemy’s position. This is about obtaining physical positional advantage and includes moving to encircle, flank, or attack the rear areas of the enemy force. Manoeuvre warfare – ‘an entire style of warfare, one characterised not only by moving in relation to the enemy to gain positional advantage but also – and even more – to moving faster than the enemy, to defeat him with superior tempo’.[3] Lind’s work, however, focuses on the operational and tactical level, with a focus primarily on the physical domain and speed, or tempo, to outpace the enemy. By contrast, Robert Leonhard – a US Army officer and scholar whose book The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and AirLand Battle is a foundation text on this topic – distinguishes between tactical, operational, and strategic manoeuvre. Tactical US Army doctrine defines manoeuvre as ‘the movement of forces supported by fire to achieve a position of advantage from which to destroy or threaten destruction of the enemy’. At the operational or strategic level, Leonhard states: ‘The purpose of movement in our case is not tied to fires, but rather to gain an advantage over the enemy in some way – positionally or psychologically’.[4] I believe manoeuvre theory is much more than this. Consequently, this historical overview will focus on three central concepts. Firstly, manoeuvre applies to all domains and is not restricted to the physical environment. Secondly, the ‘manoeuvrist approach’ is a way of thinking or a philosophy that is relevant to all domains (physical/informational/cognitive) and does not specifically involve kinetic means in execution. Finally, the manoeuvrist approach provides us with a useful framework for dealing with the spectrum of 21st-century security challenges. The manoeuvrist philosophy focuses on obtaining a position of advantage relative to an adversary in order to remove them from the contest. Note, I do not limit manoeuvre to warfare. This is because manoeuvre concepts, while born out of warfare, are a mindset or ‘way of thinking’ that is useful outside of war. Today, we talk about ‘conflict’ and ‘competition’ rather than war. In this contemporary context, the manoeuvrist approach remains relevant in the information age, more so than the preceding industrial one. The information age provides greater opportunity to obtain that position of advantage over the adversary or competitor. Manoeuvrist approach for all domains The manoeuvrist approach is relevant to all domains – not just the physical environment. Major Marc Romanych, a US Army officer, provides a useful model for information operations  – see below – that is relevant for understanding manoeuvre across domain.[5] The interactions between the physical / information / cognitive domains are central to the manoeuvrist approach. In basic terms, the physical or information environments are exploited or manipulated to obtain a cognitive advantage which manifests in superior morale and/or decision-making, placing one side in a position of advantage relative to the adversary or competitor. This advantage can be used to neutralise or otherwise ultimately remove an adversary from the contest. A few historical examples can assist in the explanation here. The historical examples are similar in that they are focused on actions in the physical world that are intended to affect the information developed about that physical action, which then informs the cognitive aspect (primarily decision-making). In some examples, the focus was on manipulating the information environment through deception or denial of information through surprise. Air power as manoeuvre: Seizing the ‘high ground’ has always been important in warfare as it offers the side holding that ground the advantage of broad fields of view and tactical positions for enfilade fire. The use of aircraft for military purposes in the First World War provided the ‘ultimate high ground’, offering surveillance and intelligence collection on enemy force dispositions, and bombardment of fortified positions from above. In 1921, Giulio Douhet proposed bombardment of civilian populations as a method for dissolving the morale of the population before land and sea forces meet in battle: A complete breakdown of the social structure cannot but take place in a country subjected to this kind of merciless pounding from the air. The time would soon come when, to put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war [6] Douhet’s work was shaped by the need to avoid the protracted stalemate and attrition of the trenches in the First World War. Today we are reliant on air and space capabilities to give us the ultimate high ground vantage point. We use the information obtained from air and space-based ISR capabilities to inform find, fix, track, target, and engagement of the enemy. The absence of such capability would challenge our ability to make operational decisions and command geographically disparate forces. In other words, air (and space) power are central to our ability to obtain a position of advantage to remove the adversary from the contest. German Way of War – speed and surprise: During the interwar period, the German military achieved a ‘military revolution’ commonly called ‘blitzkrieg’. This was achieved despite the restrictions and sanctions imposed under the Treaty of Versailles.[7] Under the leadership of generals such as Hans von Seeckt, Erich von Manstein, and Heinz Guderian, the Germans refined their way of war by developing and consolidating combined arms and air power that formed the foundation for manoeuvre centred on speed and surprise. According to Robert Citino, the ‘German Way of War’ was about the ‘maneuver of large units to strike the enemy a sharp, even annihilating blow as rapidly as possible. It could be a surprise assault on an unprotected flank or, better yet, both flanks – or even better than that, his rear’.[8] The Germans favoured the Kesselschlacht or ‘battle of encirclement’, which was enabled by developing close coordination between mechanised and self-contained combined arms units – specifically Panzer divisions – and air power.[9] The use of radio communications provided the necessary command and control that made the coordination between these units more effective. The net result was that these capabilities not only achieved large encirclements but also battles of annihilation. More importantly, the Germans mastered manoeuvre warfare because they developed two important cultural characteristics – an army and officer corps imbued with aggression and a tendency to attack no matter the odds; and a flexible system of command and control (‘mission type orders’ or auftragstaktik) that enabled low ranking commanders to act on initiative and commander’s intent.[10] The strength of such a military force was its mobility rather than its mass. Von Seeckt wrote that the goal of blitzkrieg was ‘to achieve a decision with highly mobile, highly capable forces before the masses have even begun to move’.[11] The epitome of this German way of war, with manoeuvre at its foundation, is the German drives through Poland (Case White) and then Belgium and France (Case Yellow). The latter operation ultimately led to the defeat of British and allied forces and their retreat via Dunkirk. The boldness of the German way of war and successful coordination of rapid mechanised forces supported by radio technology and air power removed the ability of Allied commanders to make a decision.[12] By the time they had obtained an appreciation of what was happening, it was too late. The Double Cross System – Manoeuvre in the Information Domain: The ‘Twenty Committee’ (called ‘Double Cross’ for the Roman numerals denoting the number 20) was established in January 1941 and met until May 1945. This committee managed the double agents on the Allied side. It met weekly with the aim of determining what information could safely be allowed to pass to the Germans, and what could not. It was essentially a clearinghouse where the work of various double agents could be compared and coordinated.[13] The committee ran double agents so extensively that it dealt with a system of agents rather than a number of isolated cases. According to J.C. Masterman, the Chairman of the Twenty Committee, they ‘did much more than practice large scale deception through double agents; splinter/isolate the double agent system [they] actively ran and controlled the German espionage system in [the United Kingdom]’.[14] The work of the double agents were a large part of the machinery of deception employed by the allies. The work of these agents augmented in the minds of the Germans other pieces of deception transmitted via wireless, visual deception, and actual movement of troops in Britain.[15] One of the more celebrated double agents run by this Committee was Agent GARBO – Juan Pujol Garcia. He was a Spaniard who deliberately set out to become a double agent, initially being recruited by the German Abwehr – with the code name ‘Arabal’. He was ultimately successful in convincing MI5 to recruit him as a double agent and was managed under the XX System. GARBO played a key role in Operation FORTITUDE, the deception plan for Operation OVERLORD, the Normandy landings.[16] The intelligence that GARBO provided the Germans helped to instil in their minds that the main invasion was aimed at Pas de Calais. GARBO was so successful as a double agent that he was awarded the Iron Cross in 1944 for his contribution to the German war effort.[17] The case studies provide us with examples of the employment of manoeuvre concepts – where the physical and information domains have been exploited and manipulated to obtain a significant advantage over the enemy and influencing their cognition and decision-making in a manner favourable to the opposing side. A position of advantage is gained, and manoeuvre is achieved. However, to conceive of conflict, competition, or war in this manner requires a particular philosophy or mindset. Manoeuvre as a philosophy There is not one generally accepted definition of ‘manoeuvre warfare’. However, it is clear that many theorists consider manoeuvre to be about obtaining a position of advantage relative to an adversary in order to remove them from the contest. When considering some of the fundamental ideas relating to the manoeuvrist approach, three names come to mind. The first is Sun Tzu. He is generally advocated as one of the key strategists who proposed an approach that was focused on winning without fighting. He said: ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence’.[18] This is because even when we win the battle, we still lose people and resources, so it is better to avoid the fight. According to Leonhard, ‘the commander’s job is not necessarily to attack the enemy, but rather to defeat the enemy’.[19] Sun Tzu was also focused on the psychology of war. The target is the mind of the enemy, with the desired effect on ‘deception, morale, and the anticipation of the enemy’. A focus on the mind of the enemy is based on the key consideration proposed by Leonhard that ‘defeat is a psychological phenomenon’.[20] The focus should not be on quantitative measures such as numbers of battlefield assets destroyed or enemy forces dead. Leonhard sums up the core of Sun Tzu’s philosophy as follows: ‘The concept of winning without fighting is one of the basic principles of maneuver warfare. It manifests itself not only in strategic considerations, as Sun Tzu generally emphasises, but also in operational art and tactics. And it is the drive to win with as little fighting as possible that leads maneuver-oriented commanders to seek every possible advantage over the adversary.’[21] The second theorist is Basil Liddell Hart. In Strategy of the Indirect Approach, he studied hundreds of battles and found that the side that obtained the psychological advantage was likely to overcome the adversary.[22] He argued that success in past wars involved the use of the ‘indirect approach’, which he described as ‘strategic, operational, and tactical moves designed to defeat the enemy as economically as possible’.[23] This involved deception, subtlety, and avoidance of strength. The most well-known manoeuvrist of the late 20th century is Colonel John Boyd (USAF). Boyd was a fighter pilot who developed his own strategic thinking over two decades. His manoeuvrist approach manifested at the tactical level in his work on the Aerial Attack Study, which was a mental framework centred on understanding the operational context of fighter air combat and the spatial aspects in order to gain a physical position of advantage in air-to-air combat.[24] Boyd is best known for his OODA loop (Observation/Orientation/Decision/Action). A general conception of Boyd’s work on this concept is focused on ‘getting inside’ the adversary OODA loop, or going through your cycle faster than the adversary. This is a simplistic perspective of Boyd’s theory and often based on a misunderstanding. However, as Dutch air force pilots and Boyd scholar, Air Commodore Frans Osinga’s research has shown, there is more sophistication to the OODA loop, which was discussed throughout the body of Boyd’s work.[25] Some key aspects of his ideas are identified by Osinga, are:[26] Boyd accepted fog and friction as fundamental and generally unavoidable in conflict. The OODA loop attempts to depict the need for constant adaptation while degrading the adversary’s ability to adapt. ‘Getting inside the OODA loop’ is about infiltrating adversary vulnerabilities, and weaknesses to splinter/isolate/dislocate/disconnect the adversary system – to penetrate the moral-mental-physical being of adversaries in order to pull them apart or bring about their collapse. Boyd’s approach can be contrasted to Clausewitz. Boyd saw friction and uncertainty as tools for targeting the mind of the enemy (for example, through deception). Clausewitz saw uncertainty and friction as impediments to be overcome or reduced, without considering the idea of increasing the adversary’s uncertainty and friction.[27] Clausewitz also advocated for targeting blows to the enemy’s mass (as the centre of gravity), whereas Boyd considers the idea of targeting vulnerable but critical connections and activities on which the mass depends.[28] The manoeuvrist mindset is very different from the Clausewitzian approach, which focuses on the ‘decisive battle’.[29] Concept of ‘decisive battle’ is an obstacle that impedes progress towards true manoeuvre at all levels and in all domains. But the reality is that ‘decisive battle’ has been in decline since the massed armies of the Napoleonic age. The ability to stamp defeat in the mind of the enemy via the destruction of military forces was diminishing from that time.[30] Indeed, the creation of the operational level of war – focused on ‘emphasizing the importance of maneuvers between battles – was intended to orchestrate many disparate battles to bring meaning to them and movement towards achieving the reason (i.e. goal/strategy) for the use of military force in the first place. This included the development of sophisticated C2 and logistics support to sustain mass armies distributed throughout a large area of operations. The manoeuvrist approach entails seeing beyond the battle. Indeed, the ideal is to defeat the enemy by avoiding battle altogether. A new approach is required to focus on winning without fighting or weakening the enemy before the decisive blow. I argue that this is more achievable in the information age than it was in the industrial one. The contemporary relevance of manoeuvre theory The historical examples above focused on obtaining advantage primarily through the physical environment – whether it was the use of the third dimension (air power) or speed and surprise through blitzkrieg. Even the deception and espionage activities of the XX Committee were achieved via physical actors in the form of double agents. It was difficult to impact directly on the information itself. However, the information age has enabled the direct targeting of the information environment. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, in their paper from 1993 – Cyberwar is Coming! – refer to ‘netwar’, which is: information-related conflict at a grand level between nations or societies. It means trying to disrupt, damage, or modify what a target population “knows” or thinks it knows about itself and the world around it. A netwar may focus on public or elite opinion, or both […] In other words, netwar represents a new entry on the spectrum of conflict that spans economic, political, and social as well as military forms of “war”.[31] The information age has made ‘winning without fighting’ more achievable than ever before. The transition between industrial and information-based social systems has perhaps eroded the monopoly on industry and capital held by states. In other words, coercive effects are no longer reliant on the use of physical force by the military. Information is the new weapon system of this age and is the vector for shaping and influencing perceptions of reality and decision making in a manner that is favourable to one side vice another. The free flow and accessibility of information during the Information Age effectively means that an adversary can shape, deny, manipulate, and alter information to influence whole societies. War is, after all, a social phenomenon. So why focus only on the military forces – why not shape the cognitive dimension of all the citizens in a nation by manipulating the information they access, so that their actions are more favourable or advantageous to you? An adversary – states or non-state actors – can now shape action through the vector of information. P.W. Singer explores the use of social media in this manner by non-state actors like Daesh, whose invasion of Iraq in 2014 was, as Singer says, launched by a hashtag.[32] Daesh is an interesting case study in how to effectively use social media to influence, convince, and coerce a global audience to support its cause. Daesh uses the information environment to support and complement its operations in the physical space – tweeting about its success, and all forms of media to push its worldview and rally people to its cause. The accessibility of information and its use as a method of deterrence, coercion, and its ‘weaponisation’, underlies the ‘grey zone’ conflict discussion that is prevalent today. Such ‘grey zone’ challenges can be met by strategic manoeuvre and a whole-of-government approach because such challenges do not fall neatly and exclusively within the military domain. The definition of ‘strategic manoeuvre’ in Land Warfare Doctrine – The Fundamentals of Land Warfare is useful in this regard.:[33] Strategic manoeuvre […] is the coordinated application of the instruments of national power, directly or indirectly, in pursuit of national strategic objectives, and seeks to prevent or contain conflict. The employment of the military element of national power requires strategic manoeuvre to ensure that favourable circumstances are achieved. Ideological conflict occurs throughout the spectrum of peace and war, and requires a synchronised strategic manoeuvre approach. From a strategic perspective, manoeuvre provides a useful foundation for unifying and synchronising efforts across all elements of national power to place a nation in a position of advantage relative to a particular adversary. Australian Army’s Accelerated Warfare acknowledges the complexity of the contemporary security environment – that our adversaries challenge us short of the threshold of war. Accelerated Warfare is focused on a response that rapidly outpaces, out-manoeuvres, and out-thinks conventional and unconventional threats, which necessitates strategic manoeuvre to address it.[34] Conclusion The decisive battle is no longer relevant – indeed, the point is to avoid battle altogether. As highlighted in Accelerated Warfare, manoeuvre is about outwitting, and not necessarily physically attacking, the opponent in order to defeat them. If there is one fundamental aspect of the manoeuvrist approach it is this – success lies in targeting the mind of the enemy. It has always been this way throughout the history of conflict, competition, and war, and will likely continue to be so into the future. Wing Commander Brick is a Legal Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and is currently Directing Staff at the Australian Command & Staff Course, Australian War College. She has served on a number of operational and staff appointments from the tactical to the strategic levels of the Australian Defence Force. Wing Commander 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. The author acknowledges the support and assistance provided by Lieutenant Colonel Grant Chambers, Australian Army, in exploring some of the concepts discussed in this paper. [1] John Boyd quoted in Henry Eason, ‘New Theory Shoots down Old War Ideas,’ Atlanta Journal–Constitution, 22 March 1981. Cited in John Boyd, A Discourse on Winning and Losing, edited by Grant T. Hammond (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2018), p. 9. [2] William S. Lind, ‘The Theory and Practice of Maneuver Warfare’ in Richard D. Hooker Jr (ed), Maneuver Warfare – An Anthology (Novato: Presidio Press, 1983), pp. 3-4. [3] Lind, ‘Theory and Practice of Maneuver’, p. 4. [4] Robert Leonhard. The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver-Warfare Theory and AirLand Battle (New York: The Ballatine Publishing Group, 1991), p. 18. [5] Marc Romanych, ‘A Theory Based View of IO’, IO Sphere, Spring 2005, p. 14. [6] Giulio Douhet. Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (New York: Coward-McCann, 1942), pp. 58-9. [7] See Robert M. Citino. The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005). [8] Citino, The German Way of War, p. xiv. [9] See discussion regarding Panzer divisions in Citino, The German Way of War, pp. 254-5. [10] Citino, The German Way of War, xiv. The Germans called the war of movement at the operational level Bewegungskreig. [11] Quoted in Citino, The German Way of War, p. 243. [12] Citino, The German Way of War, p. 290. [13] J.C. Masterman. The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945 (Canberra: ANU Press, 1972), p. 10. [14] Ibid, p. 3. [15] Ibid, p. 147. [16] See Juan Pujol with Nigel West. Operation Garbo – The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent of World War II (New York: Random House, 1985), pp. 115-151. [17] Pujol, Operation Garbo, pp. 159-62. [18] Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver, p. 28. [19] Ibid, p. 29. [20] Ibid, p. 30. [21] Ibid, p. 28. [22] Ibid, p. 46. [23] Ibid, p. 46. [24] Frans Osinga. Science, Strategy and War:  The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (The Netherlands: Eburon Academic Publishers, 2005), p. 42. [25] See Frans Osinga, ‘Getting A Discourse on Winning and Losing: A Primer on Boyd’s “Theory of Intellectual Evolution”’, Contemporary Security Policy, 34:3 (2013), pp. 603-24. [26] Ibid, 614. [27] Osinga. Science, Strategy and War, p. 146. [28] Ibid. [29] Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver, p. 41. [30] Ibid, p. 40. [31] John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Cyberwar is Coming! (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1993), p. 28. [32] P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), p. 4. [33] Australian Army, Land Warfare Doctrine (LWD) 1 – The Fundamentals of Land Power 2017. [34] Australian Army, Accelerated Warfare – Futures Statement for an Army in Motion. #ColonelJohnBoyd #5thGenerationWarfare #WingCommanderJoBrick #5thGenerationAirPower #ManoeuvreWarfare

On 24 October 2019, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation held a seminar examining the requirements of #5thgenmanoeuvre. The aim of the seminar, building on previous seminars and series looking at #jointstrike and #highintensitywar, was to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force (ADF) must equip and organise for multi-domain operations. We are delighted to welcome Dougal Robertson back to The Central Blue to continue his exploration of what the people orchestrating #5thgenmanoeuvre will look like. As the political structure of the world changes, we confront an unknown military future. This fact is as old as war. However, the speed of change is new. In The Swarming Mind, we examined how the new paradigm of networked systems and mass inter-connectivity drives a need for military professionals who think and see the world in a fundamentally different way. The threats the ADF is expected to counter — hypersonic weapons, instant cyber-attacks, dysfunction in the electromagnetic spectrum — possess different characteristics to the physical threats of the age of industrial warfare. The ADF must, therefore, train warfighters through constant practice in decision-making, for this is where the advantage will lie in future conflicts. The focus must be not on faster decision-making but more effective decision-making. Moreover, the way to train warfighters is through constant, deep practice in decision-making — not part-task training. Like the body, the mind must constantly be trained in order to reach peak performance. A mental ‘gym’ would provide appropriate mental exercises to treat decision-making as a skill that needs constant practice. How would this gym be equipped? The answer lies in part with the United States Air Force fighter pilot and later organisational theorist, John Boyd. Boyd’s ‘thinking model’ of a loop, consisting of a mechanism using Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action (OODA) is an essential piece of equipment for cognitive training. Boyd’s ‘OODA’ loop. The early process was greatly refined and expanded over Boyd’s career. In essence, Boyd’s process uses ‘orientation’ to frame a decision. Through practice, one can develop the intuition that allows individuals and organisations to decide and act without the need for conscious reasoning. It uses the science of analytics and assessment to understand what is now happening and what is about to happen. It is easy to simplify the ‘OODA loop’ and reduce it to a basic process. The initial simplicity is the brilliance in Boyd’s idea because it introduces a far more complex set of ideas in an accessible manner. At a superficial level, the loop describes the essence of fighter combat — choose a course of action and decide faster than an adversary. The winner will turn through the loop faster and ‘get inside’ the adversary’s decision cycle. Decisiveness and reaction is the basis of ‘decision superiority’ and speed is the key to victory. However, there is more to ‘OODA’ than decision superiority. Enter Reality The term decision superiority was in vogue for several years after the Second Gulf War in 2003. The concept involved moving faster through a decision tree to introduce paralysis into an adversary’s system. It drew partly from John Warden and partly from a new awareness of the interconnectedness of society, drawing on ideas from complex RAND studies such as ‘netwar.’ Decision superiority was a function of speed. By adding superior technology, a warfighter would develop and maintain complete battlefield awareness which, coupled with rapid precision strike, would break an enemy decision-making apparatus (their command and control). While kinetic effects were useful, the preferred operational effect was in the human, or ‘cognitive’ domain. The destruction of Iraq’s army in 2003 appeared to validate this thinking. However, the operational concept was cast into significant doubt by 2006, following the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah. The Israel Defence Force (IDF) adopted a doctrine combining ‘effects-based operations’ and ‘systemic operational design’. This aim of this doctrine was to use speed, technology and ‘effects’ to force the ‘cognitive collapse’ of Hezbollah and paralyse the organisation’s decision-making. The IDF’s plan was based on the putative lessons of Iraq in 2003 where fast-moving armour, backed by long-range artillery and the devastating use of air power, caused the collapse of organised Iraqi military operations. Unfortunately for the IDF, Hezbollah chose not to engage in an action/reaction cycle. Instead, it fell back on extensive defensive preparations, absorbing the brunt of the IDF’s air and artillery strikes and hiding from persistent surveillance by using low-signature (and low technology) communications. When IDF armoured columns pushed north into the complex terrain of southern Lebanon, they were attacked by small, lightly armed teams based using accurate and lethal anti-tank guided missiles. Meanwhile, Hezbollah used ‘human terrain’ to good effect, placing long-range rockets, weapons caches and fighting positions in apartment buildings to neutralise the Israeli Air Force’s precision targeting capability. The Israeli Defence Force was dragged into the complex terrain of southern Lebanon. While the IDF met its operational goals, the subsequent Winograd Commission was highly critical of the IDF’s over-reliance on the pursuit of ‘decision superiority’. Hezbollah claimed victory at the cessation of hostilities as it kept key leadership intact and won the ‘information battle’ in the Arab world. At the tactical level, Hezbollah’s distributed networks of small teams neutralised the IDF’s advantage in persistent sensing, precision strike and combined arms manoeuvre. After-action reports noted the IDF made rapid decisions and moved aggressively on the ground backed by precision fires. The operational design followed a successful template of combined arms manoeuvres refined since the Six-Day War in 1967. However, now the decision cycle was unilateral — Hezbollah did not react to the IDF’s ‘tempo’; instead, it executed a well-established plan based on careful observation of the chosen battlefield. What went wrong? Hezbollah owned the environment and had tailored their OODA loop by careful study of the battlefield and the adversary — their observation and orientation were superior. When the fighting commenced, Hezbollah was able to decide and act more effectively within an environment of their choosing. They intuitively understood the changes occurring within this environment and could adapt better than the IDF. The decision cycle was not faster – it was not decision superiority in the advertised sense. Instead, it was situational understanding that allowed the right decisions to be made, irrespective of ‘tempo’ in the fight. Fighter combat and the environment John Boyd began considering decision advantage around 1952. At the time he sought to understand why the F-86 Sabre was achieving significant kills over the Soviet MiG-15 — in the order of a 10:1 kill ratio — during the Korean War. On paper, the MiG-15 was faster, had heavier weapons and a tighter turn radius than the Sabre. What then, did the F-86 have as an advantage? By 1962 Boyd was granted access to the USAF’s new computer systems at Eglin Air Force Base. What he found was the critical variable enabling the edge in fighter combat: the ability to transition from one state to another. Boyd labelled the combination of energy and manoeuvrability (EM) ‘fast transients’.  While the MiG had a tighter turn radius than a Sabre, it could not reverse, climb and descend in a non-linear way. The MiG was inferior in the turning fight, where the ability to change energy was more important than outright speed. Victory for Sabre pilots in air combat over Korea was enabled through two cognitive processes: the ability to understand the rates of change (the EM theory); and adapting to the unfolding picture. Nothing has changed. Instead of following an opponent’s action and locking into a spiralling action-reaction cycle, the victor in air combat senses changes in the environment that are precursors to an opponent’s action (the observation), and adapts accordingly to move to an advantageous position (the orientation). In fighter combat this can be as simple as visual condensation from an opponent’s wing indicating an increase in loading and decrease in laminar flow, thus reducing lift. The opponent must trade speed or altitude. The victor observes this change in the environment and can place it in the appropriate context through superior orientation. They can then make their decision before the opponent’s next manoeuvre, regardless of tempo. Experienced aircrew can even ‘get ahead of the jet’, like a fluid chess game, understanding their next moves within the airframe’s capability and evaluating adversary options. This type of deep intuition comes from hundreds of hours of deliberate practice and training. Sense and intuition play a significant role in aerial fighter combat; the aircraft in the picture may be about to ‘transition’ its energy state. The point often missed in discussions about Boyd’s theory is that ‘decision superiority’ (the decide and act parts of the loop) is not the key to success. Success is a function of observation and orientation. The complete OODA cycle is a process that uses continuous feedback loops. This allows the victor to understand changes in the environment before the opponent. They decide and act based on environmental signals — not on adversary action. Boyd scales up Boyd’s thinking model is equally relevant at the operational level. Fighter combat is about recognising sight pictures and adapting ng accordingly. Scaling up from the tactical to the operational level of understanding relies on sensing the components of an environment and recognising change as it is about to happen. Operational decision-makers must stay ahead of the environmental changes that force an opponent to act a certain way. Just as physics constrains choices in fighter combat, the warfighting domains shape the choices an adversary can make. Implications for training To train and prepare to decide and act using intuition at the operational or campaign level is complex and difficult. However, it follows the same pattern as basic fighter manoeuvre training:  start with simple actions, follow with repetition until each component is mastered, then increase the complexity. Fighter aircrew do not lead and innovate straight out of flight training school. Instead, they are taught within a controlled environment. This environment progresses from simple pre-planned manoeuvres by two aircraft within visual range, to more difficult long-range intercepts by multiple aircraft, all the way up to training against ‘dissimilar’ adversaries using fighter aircraft with different flight characteristics and EM. Each environment must be understood, and each picture intuitively recognised before the aircrew can progress. Soviet air force fighter tactics focused on the repetition of simple manoeuvres and the introduction of gradual and predictable environmental changes. These are the weights and bars in the brain gym. The joint force can scale up the concept of fighter combat training using a similar stepped approach: start light, add volume and repetition. Modelling and simulation could be used to provide a model of the operational training environment and present ‘pictures’ for decision-makers that can increase in complexity as each variable is changed. The ‘weights’ could more lethal weapons, more disruption to communications, less reliability in the information for the commander. The repetition is just that – a series of pictures to practice and refine intuitive decision-making. As the fifth-generation force becomes a reality, we will have to operate and sense in the environmental layer and respond, not to adversary actions, but environmental factors. Boyd’s model stresses the importance of observation and orientation to frame and shape decisive action. Decisive action must be underpinned by situational understanding – not just awareness or speed. Understanding comes through practice in intuitive thinking and increasing volume and repetition when training the mind. The brain gym uses practice to reinforce knowledge and build intuition and capacity. Exercising the mind through practice, linking actions and their consequences back through decisions to observation and individual orientation. This approach is the foundation for the ADF’s tactical excellence – but it remains largely absent at the operational level. A close reading of classic texts in strategy and operational art provides the baseline. The extension of professional mastery is developing the swarming mind.  We practice tactical decision making; we need to practice operational decision making. Dougal Robertson is a Royal Australian Air Force Reserve Intelligence Officer and a graduate of the 2013 Fighter Intelligence Instructor course. He works as a consultant for Defence industry specialising in analytical services and advanced training and tweets as @Mondo_Cogno. #OODALoop #ColonelJohnBoyd #RoyalAustralianAirForce #5thGenerationWarfare #5thGenerationAirPower #ManoeuvreWarfare

Welcome to 2020! The Central Blue is delighted to launch the new decade with the third part of Mick Ryan’s AugoStrat saga, a part of our #SciFi #AI and the Future of War fiction series. Check out parts one and two and then read on! The holo-screen froze, the people and scene it depicted now a static photograph shimmering over the assembled group in the dimly lit room. “We are now at a key point in the decision-pathway. Notice the elevated levels of stress in Kathy and Carl in their bio-feeds.” Jason looked around the circle of AugoStrat trainees seated at the holo-sim platform. They were a mix of backgrounds, genders and ages. It was just as it should be if they were to generate the required intellectual diversity that made the AugoStrat Corps so valuable to his nation’s strategic leaders and planners. “We now know that the interruptions were not due to any interference from outside entities, particularly the Red Accord. Unfortunately, Strategic Command had not informed several AugoStrats about the installation of a new quantum encryption that day. It caused some disruption to strategic communications but unfortunately also affected COGLINK.” The Hobart Incident was still highly classified. The reality was that it had caused minimal damage to strategic capability. But the potential had been far worse. The key roles played by several AugoStrats in the incident three years ago made it a tailor-made case study for new AugoStrats. And for more experienced AugoStrats to retain their humility. One of the AugoStrat trainees spoke up. “What about communications outside of the military? Was the Government secure-net also impacted?” Jason considered his response. It was a reasonable question. “At this point, none of the AugoStrats were aware of any degradation in government comms.” Jason paused, and then added, “and, by now, I also expect that you should be using your COGLINK more for such questions.” Today marked the halfway point in their formal course of training and education that inducted new AugoStrats into the Corps. It was a tough year by design. Almost as tough as the months of neurosurgery, recovery and rehabilitation that preceded the course. There were several new types of non-surgical brain-machine interfaces that had been trialled. But ongoing advanced research and experience had proven that only deeper neurosurgery could provide the required augmentation to their cognitive functions. “So, from here, I would like each of you to produce an analysis of options that are open to Kathy, Karl and Izzy in their advice to their commanders. Remember, we are looking at strategic options to achieve the larger objective here. Include risks and resources in your analysis. Submit it through COGLINK no later than 2345 this evening. Thank you.” The group rose from their chairs individually, some lingering to chat with a classmate or make physical notes on their wrist tabs. They are an impressive group, thought Jason. Perhaps the best class of new AugoStrats he had seen. He had seen a few over the last decade. Jason stayed behind briefly to discuss elements of the quantum encryption used by the Strategic Strike Force before excusing himself. He had a briefing to attend. And he did not want to be late – or keep his boss waiting. ******* The theatrette was small. Semicircular in shape, it contained two dozen seats in three rows orientated around a large holo-platform. Jason had moved through two security scanpoints before he could enter. It was perhaps the most secure room in the headquarters, and no one got in without multiple scans. Jason sat behind his boss, the Chief of Defence Force, who was chatting with a slightly younger three-star General sitting next to her. There was a relaxed air in the room. There was some joking among the senior officers, while their accompanying AugoStrats sat behind them either studying their commanders or taking notes on their wrist tabs. The local time display at the head of the room clicked over to 1100 hours. The room quietened. The Chief spoke: “Strat Command, lead off please.” She always started her morning briefs with the head of strategic planning and operations. It provided excellent context for everything that followed. And it ensured that the senior leadership did not get overly distracted by urgent matters at the cost of the important ones. The head of Strategic Command got up from her chair and walked to the front of the theatrette. “Maam, the Indo-Oceanic coalition remains in good shape. This week we have a strategic planning meeting that will underpin next month’s meeting of Ministers in Delhi. Strategic indicators and warning all remain unchanged. Peacekeeping in the former European states is still distracting the U.S. and former British countries. Red Accord forces remain of low or medium readiness.” Nodding at her head of strategy, the Chief paused and turned to Jason. It was normal for senior leaders at this type of brief to quickly consult with AugoStrats to see if any issues needed to be raised. Jason had none. “Thanks, Strat Command. Strat Strike please.” The brief worked through the normal commanders, who provided short updates. Strategic Strike Force had validated its new rapid space access capability but had little else to report. The Strategic Support Force had just concluded a range of new logistic and industrial arrangements with other members of the coalition. The Operations Directorate was last to brief. “Maam, our main effort remains support to the Northern Task Force. Red Accord forces remain within their quarantine zone. Normal movements of forces and supply, as well as their deployment of multiple attempted i-war activities. The South Pacific task force is conducting operations as normal. The Antarctic Task Force is continuing its support to the Anomaly Special Research Division.” The operations chief returned to his seat. Taking his place was the new three-star General that had been sitting next to the Chief. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to provide a briefing on a significant tech breakthrough.” ******* The General paused as a presentation came to life on the holo-platform. “For many years, we have used autonomous vehicles in the air, on the land and at sea. These have been terrific supplements to our military forces, particularly where there are political sensitivities to large death tolls or in remote or contaminated areas.” A depiction of an autonomous air vehicle followed by an autonomous land supply vehicle appeared on the holo-platform. “But we have been constrained in the full application of these capabilities for several reasons. First, regardless of their sophistication, the design of autonomous machines means they can only do exactly what they built to do. Even after all our advances, they still lack the agility and imagination of humans to shift between unanticipated missions. Second, security and latency have been a challenge for control. Third, the integration of machines into human organisations, while continuing to advance, remains a command challenge. Finally, the post Anomaly accords and our own legislation on the development of human-level AI and the use of autonomous weapons prohibit autonomous weapons killing humans.” He paused. The room was still, the occupants focussed on the presenter. Jason quickly called up on his wrist pad the relevant legislation and international agreements in case his boss needed some quick reference. A new image appeared over the holo-platform. It was a large group of people, who for all intents, looked a like an average sample of people taken off the street. Old and young, thin and not-so-thin, male and female. Long hair and short, some with bio-tattoos on their faces and hands. One even had a blue mohawk haircut. It was quite a bunch. All except for the fact that they each wore a blue-grey coverall. With a badge on their left upper arm that Jason had not seen before. The Chief stood and addressed the assembled senior officers. “Ladies and Gentlemen, after much trial and error. And a lot of resources and a certain amount of secrecy, we have cracked the nut on a new capability for our military. For the first time, we have developed a totally secure, extremely high bandwidth and zero latency network that can support our unmanned capability. Coupled with the low-cost manufacturing breakthroughs by our industry partners, we can now afford to deploy large numbers of a new type of remotely operated robot.” The room stirred and then quietened as the Chief resumed her seat, and the three-star General resumed his briefing. “Of course, we have always had human-controlled robotic systems. But, by and large, we have deployed these systems in only the hundreds and required sophisticated, bespoke training for its operators. Now, advances in brain-machine interfaces and developments in rapid training have allowed us to develop a new generation of robotic systems.” Jason nodded to himself. He had been monitoring this program for some time, as had other AugoStrats advising the key strategic leaders. But the potential for this new capability was extraordinary. He knew what was coming next was also transformative. The three-star General continued, describing the people that would be behind this new robotic capability. “Their operators – which do not need to pass our normal age or physical screening – only need to pass our character requirements. They need only minimal training, using our new fast-learn methods, can be based in any city, and the systems they use may be deployed on a range of land, sea, undersea, air and space missions.” The Chief of the Air-Space Force spoke up. “I was able to observe a couple of trials of the new robotic systems and visit the recruit operators. I was impressed. I really was. And this is an excellent way to increase our recruiting base a hundred-fold. But I have a couple of questions: how much of this can we afford? What does the Neuro-Tech Ethics Board think? And, is this a sovereign or coalition capability?” They were questions that were on the minds of nearly every participant in the room. Jason’s COGLINK lit ups with multiple discussions from AugoStrats in the room wanting to discreetly discuss the applications and strategic impact of this new technology. After several seconds, it was Jason’s boss who rose and took the floor. “They are the real questions, aren’t they? Let me answer each one in turn.” The Chief then described how multiple meetings with the Neuro-Tech Ethics Board had discussed the legality and ethical issues with the new human-brain interfaces and their use of robotic systems. Jason had been part of this engagement process, and after some deliberation, the board had given its approval for the military to use these new systems for non-lethal and lethal missions across all domains. There were murmurs of support from several of those present. The Chief went on to describe her interactions with the National Security Committee and various members of Government. After some initial misgivings, they had given the approval to deploy the new capability and had provided assured funding for the next decade. Lots of funding. “And of course, this has been a collaborative program with our great and powerful friends. We will share the technology, although each nation will apply its own laws and ethics frameworks.” Jason’s COGLINK highlighted one interesting discussion thread. It focussed on their efforts to wargame options for the balance of investment across the various domains, or whether they might establish a single integrated Robotic Service. Service Chiefs were always keen to hold on to activities in their domain. But this new capability was clearly a multi-domain one.  So perhaps, in this instance, a new approach might work. Jason hoped so. He and several AugoStrats had worked for weeks simulating the optimal command and control mechanisms. In a meeting last week that briefed the outcomes of these simulations, the Chief had decided on the initial approach to command and control. The Chief continued. “Ladies and gentlemen. I know we have had some good discussions on the C2 for these new systems. I have listened to you all and taken heed of your counsel. I have also considered the large body of analysis and simulation that our AugoStrats have undertaken. So, in the interests of better integration of cross-domain activities, I will be establishing a new joint, integrated robotics command.” The Chief turned to the three-star General. “General Carter, you are appointed as the inaugural commander of this new capability. You are to immediately commence large-scale production, and work with industry, the Services and other Commands on deployments in the next quarter. You are to employ our AugoStrats in all strategic decision-making. Jason here will support you in your endeavours. Your command will have the status, responsibilities and standing of an independent Service.” The Chief paused, regarded her audience, and then continued. “We all wish you the very best for your command of the new RoboCorps.” Jason sent a flash message to the AugoStrats in the room, as well as several AugoStrats and support staff who were standing by for this very communication. “Prepare the sim-room. We have a couple of long days ahead of us.” ******* This story is from the developing AugoStrat Corps saga. It tells the story of cognitively augmented humans operating in a high-tech milieu where there has been a significant realignment of global power. Watch out for the next tale from the AugoStrat Corps called Urquhart Redux, an illustrated story in the United States Marine Corps’ Destination Unknown, Volume 2 coming in 2020. Mick Ryan is an Australian Army officer. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the United States Marine Corps Staff College and School of Advanced Warfare, he is a passionate advocate of professional education and lifelong learning. He is an aspiring (but very average) writer. In January 2018, he assumed command of the Australian Defence College in Canberra, Australia. #artificialintelligence #futurewarfare #MajorGeneralMickRyan #ScienceFiction

Twenty-nineteen has been another big year for The Central Blue. A total of 41 articles have been published from a wide range of authors – 31 to be exact. About half of the articles published in 2019 were written by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) personnel with the other half being made up of Army and Defence civilians. We were pleased to welcome multiple new contributors. The Central Blue team further supported two Williams Foundation Seminars – #selfsustain and #5thgenmanoeuvre – and contributed to the excellent Why We Write series over at The Forge. The #5thgenmanoeuvre seminar was held on 24 October and was a natural progression in the Williams Foundation’s seminar series, which looked to decipher how to build an integrated fifth-generation force. We had some fantastic contributions on #5thgenmanoeuvre featured on The Central Blue, so it only seemed fitting to use the final post of the year for summarising the insights we gained on that topic from seminar speakers, learned colleagues from the Scherger Group, and a great selection of posted articles. The seminar intended to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force (ADF) must equip and organise for multi-domain operations, and as such, determine the requirements for fifth-generation manoeuvre. On first hearing about this topic, I, like many others, turned to Wikipedia to better understand what the term ‘manoeuvre’ meant in the context of air power. I had a rudimentary understanding of manoeuvre, and a general idea of what is organisationally meant by fifth-generation; but it was much harder to define the combination of terms concisely. Manoeuvre – best understood by reading works by preeminent authors such as Basil Liddell Hart, William Lind, Robert Leonhard or John Boyd – is the art of recognising and creating an advantage. It could also be posited that it is the ability to ensure freedom of manoeuvre in order to create the space required to achieve an advantage. Said advantage could be in physical geography, the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) or the less tangible cyber and information domains. When thought of in this context, the manoeuvrist approach has little to do with fifth-generation, it merely is a way of thinking. To break it down, #5thgenmanouevre can be considered from the following contexts. Understanding the environment Underpinning any attempt to exploit a weakness or move to a position of advantage is the ability to identify where said advantage is. Speaking at the seminar, both Brendan Sargeant and Michael Shoebridge spoke about the requirement to understand the environment. Their presentations looked specifically at the Australian context. Sargeant stated that policy development had failed to reflect the rapid rate of change in the region. He argued that Australian policy outside of its access to a major power or ally was underdeveloped, especially in the context of a world where the global system and rules-based order was disregarded. Without adequate knowledge (and acceptance) of a rapidly changing strategic environment, and an understanding of adversaries, there is no way for Australia to determine what advantages might present, or how to disrupt and dislocate adversaries to create freedom of manoeuvre. Below the policy level, the ability to understand the environment was discussed by Dougal Roberton in his post on The swarming mind in which he considers the critical question of what the people orchestrating #5thgenmanoeuvre will look like. We look forward to his follow-on post on this topic, to be published in the new year! Mission Command and agile control Air Commodore Phil Gordon, currently Commander of the RAAF’s Air Warfare Centre, gave an enlightening presentation that touched on the changing character of manoeuvre. He defined fifth-generation manoeuvre as the: ability of our forces to dynamically adapt and respond in a contested environment to achieve the desired effect through multiple redundant paths. Remove one vector of attack and we rapidly manoeuvre to bring other capabilities to bear through agile control. In support of this definition, he stated that the ADF needed to prepare for disruption and be better able to fight through ambiguity, to accept surprise and have tools available to assist in decision making. In achieving this end state – successfully operating in a denied and degraded EMS – the RAAF must enable ‘agile control’ whereby the control and decision authority resides with the person who has the best access to the information available. To do this, however, he affirmed that the chain of command must become comfortable with trusting mission commanders to make the right decision at the right time. That they must ‘walk the talk of ‘mission command’. Subsequently, we must also habitually train to fight in degraded modes and develop agile, empowered thinking warfighters. Training If we delve a little deeper into this idea, it would be safe to say we need to more consciously invest in the training of the ADF workforce, both at the mission command and strategic levels, including future commanders and national strategists. The first step in this process is to identify what exactly the ADF is training for? Is the ADF training for the right environment? Is it training for an existential threat that no one can imagine? A scenario that may never eventuate or should the ADF be training for the more likely contingencies such as the ‘grey zone’ competition. In either context, we must step back to conceptual basics, but also take on board what we know to be true already in that we will operate in a denied and degraded EMS regardless. Understanding the rigours of appropriate training at the tactical level was explored by Melissa Houston in her post The Power of Poseidon. Here she highlighted that hyper-connectivity could lead to poor prioritisation and breakdowns in situational awareness and that the ADF must understand the limitations of our autonomous systems, but also that of our people. Fifth-generation operators must have more discipline and self-awareness than ever before. Decision superiority In command in warfare, either high intensity or grey zone, there remains an element of both art and science. The human element can never be removed completely from the decision making process, whether that be directly or indirectly through algorithm development for instance. Through exploring this seminar topic, it became clear that there is an acceptance that we must use technology wisely to deal with the vast amount of data that will be presented to the human in order to decide. We must, therefore, train our forces to integrate humans and technology so that technology can assist the human in making the right decision quicker. In better understanding the environment through the strength of good data and thus orientating the military decision-maker, the leader is provided with the best chance of decision superiority. Interagency relationships Along with data ingestion and decision superiority, comes the requirement for strong interagency relationships. Data must come from multiple valid, verified sources to produce a strong, collaborative product. Rear Admiral Lee Goddard, currently Commander of Australia’s Maritime Border Command, spoke at the seminar about harnessing the progress made to date in achieving interagency situational understanding. This is especially pertinent when we consider that fifth-generation manoeuvre is not and cannot merely be a military endeavour. Manoeuvering to a position of strength and advantage requires a whole of government approach. Warfare remains a human endeavour that requires investment in human relationships. The systems in place which support multiple government agencies need to enable both information flow and dissemination, and a collective understanding of what that picture means. Language. Having a collective understanding of what the picture means leads to my last point. Underpinning any manoeuvrist approach is a common lexicon. This was a common theme that presented time and time again during the seminar and conversations with colleagues. Forming effective relationships and gaining decision superiority can only occur if all players on the team are playing the same sport and using the same rules. Situational domain awareness is dependent on words meaning the same thing to different people. A common lexicon of terms is vital to the success of fifth-generation manoeuvre and achieving a commander’s intent. In closing, as was expected and as is usually the case, the seminar and conversations surrounding the day presented more questions than answers. The summary here provides common themes and issues identified; however, does not necessarily provide the answers. If you think you have a different way to think about one of the topics outlined above, contact us at thecentralblue@gmail.com to float your idea for an article. This year has also increasingly demonstrated to us that no conversation is complete without including our sister services, defence industry or wider government agencies. This is a trend we would like to continue into 2020. Squadron Leader Jenna Higgins is an Air Combat Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, and a co-editor at The Central Blue. The views expressed are hers alone and do not reflect the opinion of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Department of Defence, or the Australian Government. #TheWilliamsFoundation #AustralianDefencePolicy #RoyalAustralianAirForce #5thGenerationWarfare #5thGenerationAirPower #TheCentralBlue #AustralianDefenceForce #ManeouvreWarfare

Reading is a key to professional development; our belief in that idea is why we, the editors, at The Central Blue do what we do. Nevertheless, too often we overlook that reading is not necessarily a solitary activity.  In his first post with The Central Blue, Mark Bell encourages our readership to engage more, and encourage reading and reflection by merely asking: “What are you reading?” Reading is an honour and a gift from a warrior or historian who – a decade or a thousand decades ago – set aside time to write. He distilled a lifetime of campaigning in order to have a “conversation” with you […] If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you […] History teaches that we face nothing new under the sun. James Mattis and Bing West – Callsign Chaos (2019) Life in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is chock full of detailed work, be it flying, planning, maintenance, writing reports, training, or personnel administration. Our workplaces are busy, and there is always a looming deadline. Historically, the performance of the RAAF proves we thrive in this environment. However, this collective busyness is not conducive to reading, reflection, and the development of new ideas. There is just too much going on. Our home lives are similarly hectic with children, commuting, sport, social media, etc. As a result, the lack of reading and reflection will inhibit individuals and the institution from reaching their potential. Despite this chaos, the RAAF acknowledges the importance of reading and self-development. The promulgation of Chiefs of Air Force’s (CAF) carefully curated reading lists (CAF Reading List: 2017, 2015, 2014, and further back) demonstrates this. Recently, multiple RAAF leaders (Flight Lieutenants to Group Captains from a diversity of specialisations; Lewis, Hallen, Higgins, Jovanovich, Brick, Yildirim, McInnes, Begley) wrote about the importance of writing and, incidentally, reading as a mechanism to the maintenance of the profession of arms. Other authors in this same series considered writing and intellectual development to be a core professional responsibility of military professionals (Langford, O’Neill). The recent launch of fifth-generation behaviours prioritises command commitment to the intellectual development of the RAAF’s people. These fifth-generation behaviours focus personnel development towards the requirement for informed, collaborative, resilient, integrated, and agile people. The RAAF developed these behaviours to ensure that airmen have the capacity to operate successfully in a complex environment, work with large quantities of data, understand and embrace new technologies, and operate as part of the joint force. Fifth-generation behaviours are a suite of individual and collective attributes that are to be inculcated into RAAF culture. Looking objectively at these behaviours, it could be noted that these attributes are designed to establish and maintain the RAAF’s strategic intellectual advantage. Collectively, these behaviours could also be considered an evolution of the OODA loop, adapted to the hyper-connected environment of the early 21st century. While it is anticipated that computerisation and human augmentation through artificial intelligence will typify the extensively connected and information-rich future, these technologies will not be a substitute for the intellectual competency of our people. Many of the attributes and behaviours noted－resilience, systems thinking, using emerging technology, and the centrality of human relationships－are not unique to the military environment. Consequently, the ability to effectively develop these capacities does not need to rely on conventional military literature. The above discussion establishes that people with strong intellectual capacities is a foundational characteristic of an effective fifth-generation air force. It also identifies that we will develop this intellectual core at a personal level through life-long, self-directed learning. This all leads to the core purpose of this post. RAAF leaders at all levels need to support self-directed learning through the encouragement of reading, reflection, and the discussion of ideas. This site and other resources in the professional military education (PME) eco-system (The Runway, The Forge, The Cove and other privately-run sites) are fostering the discussion of ideas. However, currently, there is a minimal focus on reading. One-way RAAF leaders could encourage reading is through asking this simple question of their subordinates and peers: “What are you currently reading?” This is not management sleight of hand or trickery. There are no predetermined right or wrong answers to this question. This question is posed as a genuine enquiry into the individual and their attitudes towards intellectual development. While the person who posed this question would almost always like to engage in a robust discussion regarding the respondent’s diverse reading habits, a response of ‘nothing’ accompanied by a blank stare is acceptable too. A lack of curiosity or of any self-initiated learning could give a leader insight about their people not otherwise available. Intellectual development is not isolated to the field of traditional military writing. Works of fiction, self-help, magazines, etc. can also have a role in intellectual development. I would suggest that popular non-fiction books such as Grit by Angela Duckworth, which considers goal actuation in the face of adversity, or The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which considers human understanding of rare and unpredictable events, may be more valuable reading materials to many RAAF members than theories of war that predate the establishment of the RAAF. The principle here is not to judge our peoples’ reading habits; it is to foster an attitude of self-development through reading.[1] This process of self-development is one of the sources of the RAAF’s strategic advantage. Lastly, if you encounter a non-reader, you could set a goal for them to read a particular book, or give a presentation on an idea, which may require some reading. Alternatively, send them a link to your favourite The Central Blue posts and start a conversation. As leaders, we must take collective responsibility for the intellectual development of our people and must give it a priority. Conversations with our people about reading is one way to impress on them the importance of self-development to the actualisation of the fifth-generation air force. I have done this and had some great conversations along the way. All references to books and blog posts above have resulted from such discussions. Proactive intellectual development underpins all fifth-generation air force behaviours, and it needs to be encouraged by leaders at all levels, regardless of specialisation or mustering. So, while grabbing your ‘large flat white, no sugar’ ask your coffee mates what they are reading. The answers may surprise you and inspire you to add the title to your reading list. Squadron Leader Mark Bell is an aeronautical engineering officer in the Royal Australian Air Force who has spent considerable time in aircraft acquisition and sustainment. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Aeronautical), Master of Business, Master of Project Management and is studying for a Juris Doctor. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. Header Image: RAAF officer aircrew patients in the library of the Loughborough Rehabilitation Centre, c. 1945. (Source: Australian War Memorial) [1] However, gentle nudges towards materials that you found beneficial would not be out of place. #ProfessionalMilitaryEducation #Reading #RoyalAustralianAirForce

On 24 October 2019, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation held a seminar examining the requirements of #5thgenmanoeuvre. The aim of the seminar, building on previous seminars and series looking at #jointstrike and #highintensitywar, was to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force (ADF) must equip and organise for multi-domain operations. Professor Brendan Sargeant was one of the highly acclaimed speakers at the seminar. The following post is a transcript of his presentation; we thank Professor Sargent for his contribution to The Central Blue. I have been asked to talk about Assured Access for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in the Asia Pacific. This is a large topic. What I want to do is step back and talk about the nature of our strategic environment, and to suggest ways of thinking about how it is changing. This is a preliminary to asking what is the nature of the strategic and defence challenge that it now presents to us. I want to put forward some propositions about what is happening in our strategic environment and how we might from an Australian perspective think about the implications of the changes that we are seeing. I would also like to put on record my appreciation for the help that Robin Laird and Paul Dibb, in our many conversations, have given me in thinking about some of these issues. Of course, any errors I commit belong to me. How we think about strategic challenges and how we describe the world, that is, how we construct the problem set, can help us think about what policy and strategic approaches might be best suited to dealing with it. We are at one of those points in world history when the strategic order is changing. This has been the central topic of discussion in policy and academic circles for the last decade. It was foreshadowed in the 2009 Defence White Paper and elaborated in different ways in the 2013 and 2016 Defence White Papers. It haunts the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper. This sense of change has become more acute over the past two or three years to the point where it seems to be generally agreed in commentary circles that the 2016 Defence White Paper is no longer adequate as a frame for understanding our strategic environment, or as a vehicle to guide future policy development. So, the question is: what now? I have often commented that in our strategic assessments and policy development, we have consistently underestimated the rate of change in our strategic environment. Perhaps this is the equivalent in policy circles of the often discussed ‘Conspiracy of Optimism’ in project management. When people talk about change in the contemporary environment, the first step is usually to point to major structural forces – demographic shifts, economic development, restructuring of national economies, urbanisation, to name some of these forces. More recently there is the rise of China, and particularly the China that has emerged as a result of the assertive policies of the current leadership under President Xi Jinping. We have also seen very significant shifts in US strategic and economic policy with the advent of President Trump. Neither the United States nor China could be now described as status quo powers. In different ways, they are seeking to reposition their role in the strategic order, and this is playing out in many different ways across the world. There are other large forces in play in the Indo-Pacific. These include economic growth, major demographic shifts, the impact of climate change, and a broader movement towards a restructuring of the strategic order. If we look across the world, major trends include a strengthening of nationalist movements within countries; the rise of populism on both the right and the left; a loss of confidence in the traditional institutions of governance at both the national and international level; and the rise of authoritarian powers within a liberal rules-based order who are now seeking to challenge and mould this order to their ends. We are in a period of political experimentation and upheaval and it is hard to see what is on the other side. One proposition we might consider is that we are seeing the breakdown of one model of globalisation, a model we have called the rules-based order. Much energy in contemporary policy work is aimed at preserving this model. Both the 2016 Defence White Paper and the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper highlighted the centrality of the rules-based order as one of the foundations of Australian prosperity. In my view, it was also the foundation of our strategy in relation to the challenge of China. Reading those documents now, one gets an uncanny sense that they repeatedly invoke the rule-based order because they know that it is diminishing. I think a question now is whether this rules-based order can be preserved? And, if not completely, what elements of it will remain as we go into the future? Perhaps there is a further question – if we think it is under serious challenge, does that mean that we are already in a different world? In other words, we talk about the future, but perhaps the future has already arrived, and we cannot see it clearly, or we do not want to see it. I think this question will preoccupy policymakers for some time to come. Regardless, the world will not return to what it was. The question for policy, when all the noise is removed, is: how are we going to adapt? What does this mean for Defence? Another proposition about the strategic system that we call the Indo-Pacific is that the strategic architecture that might establish a framework for understanding and solving the challenge of building and managing a new strategic order is not sufficient for the task. We are seeing what I would describe as experiments. In some ways, it is a period that resembles the post-Second World War environment in that there are many ideas in play, and people are proposing and experimenting with different architectural initiatives and formations or trying to renovate old ones. But we are not yet at a point where it has settled or whether we will know what will work. I put something like the Quad that brings together the United States, India, Japan and Australia in this category. This has profound implications for Australia and how we might think about defence. The debate in Australia about defence has over decades revolved around two poles, both caricatures of complex and nuanced ideas that achieve even greater complexity when you consider their practical application in the context of the times. However, caricatures are useful because they help us delineate trends in thinking – the fashions of the time, if you will. These poles are, of course, Forward Defence and Defence of Australia. Debates in Australia about defence have tended to fall within this broad conceptual framework. There are different ways of understanding the parameters of the conversation, but it boils down to the relative priority you would give to the defence of Australia as a geographical entity as opposed to defence engagement more broadly in the world to support the emergence and maintenance of an international system conducive to our national interests. Where you want to put emphasis in relation to policy will drive decisions about the development of capability and the use of the ADF. In the world of practical policy development and implementation, and operational imperatives, these debates can seem a bit theoretical. But if you look at the trend of Australian policy over decades, you can see that there is a tension and it does have consequences for the development and use of the force. One of the more significant criticisms of the 2016 White Paper is that in identifying strategic goals for defence, it did not distinguish between the relative importance of these goals and therefore provide a framework for thinking about priorities in developing capability. If you take a very broad historical perspective, the debate starts to look a bit like arguments about how many angels might fit on the head of a pin. The overriding strategic reality for Australia since its inception has been that our defence policy has been developed within the framework of our protection by a friendly hegemon – up until the end of the Second World War, the British Empire; and after the Second World War, the United States through the alliance relationship. What this has meant for Australian strategic culture is that we have never had to think about policy outside the framework of hegemonic protection. It also means that some of the heavy lifting in diplomacy and defence policy has been done by the major partner and that we have under-invested in both diplomatic and defence capability. I question whether the combination of these factors has also resulted in a strategic culture that is in many ways derivative, or immature – the culture of a young and relatively inexperienced country accustomed to the protection of a larger power. One manifestation of this is the under-investment in our diplomatic capability and our over-reliance on the US alliance as the foundation of our security. We are now moving into a strategic order where that protection may not necessarily be there on the terms that we have been accustomed to. This is a profound change. It means we have to think very differently about our strategic culture and the defence challenge. What are some features of this change? Often when we talk about the justification for having a defence force, we speak in terms of being able to exercise sovereignty, to be able to support our national interest through the use of the armed forces. My own view about defence is that it is a toolkit that enables the government to do many things in the world, but when all that is peeled away, it exists to ensure national survival against existential threats. It is the final guarantor of the state’s sovereignty. We are in a world where no country is fully sovereign – partial sovereignty is the new normal. I recognise in saying this, that this has always been a reality, but I think the situation is different now because we cannot offset that partial sovereignty with the security that was provided by the rules-based order guaranteed by the United States and the model of globalisation that it supported. From another perspective, globalisation underpinned by the rules-based order allowed us to trade sovereignty for security – or to express it another way, it enabled us to accept levels of strategic risk which are now starting to look unacceptable. So, what does the emerging world look like? Some propositions: We are seeing the emergence of new models of globalisation. Some elements include the rise of authoritarian powers underpinned by capitalist economies who are prepared to develop arrangements of convenience to advance their strategic interests and to weaken the authority and capability of the liberal democracies; We are seeing increasing nationalisms, some with malign impacts; We are seeing a weakening consensus on how the international economic order should be managed and governed; We are seeing a weakening of institutions of global governance, and the de-legitimisation of the underpinning legal frameworks that support them; We are seeing less consensus on what the global problem set is (for example, the climate change wars); We are seeing less appetite for global solutions and a strong emphasis on local, bilateral, or regional based solutions to problems; We are seeing declining capacity to manage major transnational problems – for example, people movements; We are seeing massive disruption through the proliferation of new technologies and social media. This adds up to a world where the global system is less favourable to our national interests and we have less capacity to influence the development of solutions to problems that impinge on our interests. From this perspective, the major feature of the emerging global environment is that it increases, rather than reduces, the risk to our security. And part of that risk is in how the emerging system actually operates. For example, can we assume that in a crisis we will have the same access to we currently enjoy to global supply chains? So the question is: in a world where partial sovereignty is the norm, where we can no longer trade sovereignty for security with the same confidence that we have done so in the past,  where global or transnational institutions and conventions are weakening, and where the rules that guided decision making are either diminishing in authority or being discarded, how do we achieve security? To frame the question in another way is: how do we mitigate the risk that partial sovereignty creates in a world with a global system does not deliver security benefits that it used to? How do we build and manage defence capability in this context? If we look at the defence challenge through this lens, we can see that some of the assumptions that underpinned defence policy and planning are no longer as robust as they might have seemed. Some assumptions have included: Our global supply chains will continue to deliver what we need during a crisis; We can assume privileged access to technology and war stocks through the operation of the alliance system; We do not need to stockpile fuel in Australia because of our confidence that the global system would continue to provide supply during a crisis; We could continue with a boutique defence industry and just in time logistics systems which are an outreach of larger global systems into which they are integrated. The world allowed this – in fact, the way the world worked created positive incentives to maximise efficiency through the development of interdependence with external suppliers confident that the rules-based order would continue as we had known it. It has some other consequences for our strategic culture. Most of our operational commitments have been to some extent discretionary. We have participated in coalition operations and the primary policy justification has been to support the rules-based order and to ensure that we continue to pull our weight within the alliance. The INTERFET operation in East Timor is perhaps the major exception, and I think this has some lessons for the future. We have developed capabilities that assume very high levels of interoperability with the US. This assumes continuing convergent interests, or that the US will give us priority in a crisis. We have underinvested in defence to the extent that we have used the rules-based order to manage strategic risk. Is 2% of GDP really sufficient expenditure in an environment where we are carrying much more risk because of the changes in the strategic order? I believe that this adds up to a very different world for Australia. More importantly, it means a very different way of operating in the world. There are many implications arising from what I have suggested here. I recognise that the future is difficult to discern through the fog of the present. This is another way of saying that there are many possible futures. But, if we accept that the rules-based order as we have known it is undergoing profound change, then we will need to change, and our policy and operational culture will also need to change. We will need to be far more flexible and pragmatic in our understanding and management of the alliance relationship. Alliances exist through the activities that are undertaken in their name. They are only relevant for as long as they are relevant; that is, for as long as the activities that are undertaken in the name of the alliance are meaningful to both parties. In a shifting world, we will have to continue to negotiate our alliance as a continuing and provisional proposition that works when it is expressed in meaningful activity that supports our shared security interests. The alliance as some sort of bank account into which you make investments for the future is not a useful framework in a world that is likely to be as volatile as that which we are entering, and where our interests may at times diverge. Perhaps a more productive way to think about an alliance relationship is that it enables the parties to work together to respond to a crisis at the operational level while building strategic capacity to forestall or manage future crises. This puts more emphasis on crisis response; it puts a focus on capability building; it does not imply an ongoing convergence of strategic interests in every situation. We need to build more resilience and sustainability into our defence industry and logistics systems in the recognition that the global environment carries risk that we may not be able to mitigate in a crisis. We need to strengthen and diversify our engagement across the Indo Pacific to build the capacity to work with others to respond to crises. In doing so, we need to ask the question: what are the likely security challenges and how will they take expression in ways that might require the use of armed force? We then might have a conversation about that with other countries as a framework for building the capacity to respond. We need to strengthen our diplomatic capacity and to establish a much stronger presence in our region, both to understand what is happening and to influence what might happen. Underinvestment in diplomacy reduces our capacity to shape and influence the events and trends that impinge on Australia’s interests. In times of change, presence matters and is a strategic and operational imperative. If I had to sum up the extent to which changes in the world will change us, and the response that we need to build, I would summarise thus: in the past we could handle problems within a strategic framework which was stable and which was generally understood and agreed by all the parties involved. This is what the rules-based order represented, underpinned as it was by American power and the institutions of global governance. In the future, it is likely that we will need to construct both the rules that govern how we think about a crisis in order to respond, as well as responding to the crisis at the same time. This means that every crisis will be different and will perhaps demand a response in its own terms. It means that we will experience crises that we have not had to deal with in the past, so we may not have the historical references to rely on as a vehicle for understanding what we are dealing with and guiding responses. I think this means that we need a strategic policy culture that is more improvisational, pragmatic, with a more ruthless sense of our national interests in a world that will not necessarily want to support those interests. This leads me to my final point. In the future, there will be times when we need to act alone, or where we will need to exercise leadership. We have not often had to do this in the past – The INTERFET operation in Timor, and RAMSI in the Solomon Islands are examples. We are far more comfortable operating as part of a coalition led by others. It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth, but that has been a consistent feature of our strategic culture. So I think our biggest challenge is not a technical or resource or even capability challenge – it is the enormous psychological step of recognising that in the world that we are entering we cannot assume that we have the support of others or that there will be others willing to lead when there is a crisis. We will need to exercise the leadership, and I think that is what we need to prepare for now. To return to the title of this talk: if we want assured access for the ADF in the Asia Pacific, then we need to work towards a world that ensures that that access is useful and relevant to the sorts of crises that are likely to emerge. I will leave one last proposition with you. Our assured access for the ADF in the Asia Pacific will be determined by our capacity to contribute to regional crisis management. That contribution will on some occasions require that we lead. The task now is to understand what this means and build that capacity. Brendan Sargeant is Honorary Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Studies at the Australian National University. He is currently Acting Principal at the Australian Command and Staff Course. He retired from the Department of Defence in October 2017. From September 2013 to October 2017, he was the Associate Secretary of Defence. Prior to that appointment he was the Deputy Secretary Strategy. As Associate Secretary, he was responsible for oversight of the implementation of the First Principles Review, a major reform of Defence organisation and enterprise governance, planning, performance and risk management. He was the principal author of the 2013 Defence White Paper. #AsiaPacificRegion #AssuredAccess #SDSC #Strategy #5thGenerationWarfare #ProfessorBrendanSargeant #ManoeuvreWarfare

On 24 October 2019, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation held a seminar examining the requirements of #5thgenmanoeuvre. The aim of the seminar, building on previous seminars and series looking at #jointstrike and #highintensitywar, was to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force must equip and organise for multi-domain operations. We welcome Melissa Houston to The Central Blue to explore the potential of the P-8A Poseidon in maritime warfare. What does fifth-generation manoeuvre mean in the context of airborne anti-submarine warfare? Fifth-generation, a term typically applied to fighters, encompasses highly integrated net-enabled systems within a high-performance stealth airframe. The P-8A Poseidon, the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) only maritime patrol aircraft, lacks the stealth and manoeuvrability of a fifth-generation fighter but arguably holds fifth-generation ‘systems equivalence’ due to its advanced avionics, sensors and extensive communications suite. The P-8A is designed to engage in underwater warfare, where submarines are the primary threat. In order for the submarine threat to be defeated, however, the P-8A must successfully integrate with the broader Australian Defence Force (ADF). This post will describe the strategic value the Poseidon brings to the ADF, outline the critical roles of the P-8A, and identify some of the critical challenges faced in realising that potential. The Australian government acknowledges the array of challenges to national security created by a contested maritime environment. The 2016 Defence White Paper sets a requirement to secure Australia’s northern approaches and proximate sea lines of communication, while also securing the near region, encompassing maritime South East Asia and the South Pacific. Understanding the P-8A’s value in meeting these requirements require a dive beneath the surface to analyse subsurface strategic value. A secure Australia depends upon protection from attack or coercion. Submarines play a vital role on both sides of this equation. Uncertainty as to the location and purpose of Australia’s submarines acts as a critical deterrent to a potential adversary. The reverse is true of potential opponents’ submarines. Anti-submarine warfare limits an adversary submarine’s ability to achieve sea denial, conduct intelligence activities, insert land forces or conduct missile strikes. Critically, friendly anti-submarine warfare enhances the effectiveness of friendly submarines by disrupting opposing submarine operations. The maintenance of an effective anti-submarine warfare capability allows the ADF to detect and disrupt a key threat to Australia while enhancing the potency of its undersea deterrent. The P-8A makes a unique contribution to Australia’s joint anti-submarine warfare capability as the ADF’s only fixed-wing aircraft that can find, fix, track, and attack an underwater target. The P-8A’s speed and range – it can operate over 2000 kilometres from its base – complement the persistence and presence of Australia’s surface and sub-surface anti-submarine capabilities. Range and responsiveness are particularly valuable when considering the reach of the world’s leading submarines. The P-8A’s ability to operate at range while maintaining real-time communication with various agencies, combined with its sensor and data feeds, makes it an extremely valuable asset. The P-8A acoustics system has four times the processing capability of the recently retired AP-3C Orion. The P-8A can, therefore, provide four times the coverage or four times the security in an anti-submarine warfare search.  The use of advanced sensors and processing are critical elements of the P-8A’s fifth-generation potential. However, the P-8A’s lack of stealth, low speed, and limited defensive systems leave it vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated threats in the maritime domain. The P-8A has demonstrated performance in congested environments but has yet to be employed in contested environments. Importantly, congestion in 2019 is more than a problem of dense shipping on the ocean’s surface. The P-8A faces emerging challenges in a competitive and cluttered electromagnetic spectrum, resulting in global positioning system interference, radar interference and jamming. As the P-8A’s performance is optimised as part of a highly networked fifth-generation force, disruption in the electromagnetic spectrum has the potential to reduce mission effectiveness significantly. Accordingly, the RAAF must continue to evolve how the P-8A is employed. There are several challenges facing the P-8A fleet in exploiting its potential. Resolving issues in human factors, technical integration, and command and control will help the ADF realise the Poseidon’s potential. There is little benefit in P-8A sensors and communications suites integrating with other platforms if operators are not adequately trained to exploit the data being received and know where it must feed. When it comes to fifth-generation manoeuvre, people often get excited by the high-end warfare integration components, sometimes at the expense of basic concepts. Integration is first and foremost about co-operating safely and becoming fifth-generation does not remove the threat of fratricide or accident. Understanding other platform limitations is key to successful (and safe) operations in a congested and contested environment. We must remain cognizant of the current limitations of our successful integration across ADF platforms. We must continue to develop, test and adjust joint tactics, techniques, and procedures. In an increasingly complex subsurface environment, the safe and successful prosecution P-8A’s missions, especially anti-submarine tasks, must be joint actions. Improved understanding and integration of joint combat and support systems will enable the development of a joint concept of operations. The age of information means that aircrew is more likely to be overwhelmed with the amount of information they are being fed in real-time by various agencies. This hyper-connectivity can lead to poor prioritisation and breakdowns in situational awareness. The ADF must understand the limitations of our autonomous systems – but also that of our people. Fifth-generation operators must have more discipline and self-awareness than ever before. A key component of success in fifth-generation manoeuvre is real-time, net-enabled operations. The ADF’s machines must understand one another’s data language for net-enabled operations to be feasible, just as much as the people on board need to understand each other. An example from recent exercise is the requirement for further development of joint procedures across RAAF and Royal Australian Navy elements ensure that datalink messages are transmitted and received as intended. This is paramount in targeting and employing net-enabled weapons. There is no fifth-generation force if the fifth-generation platforms cannot communicate assuredly across the force. Importantly, with the rise of challenges in the electromagnetic spectrum, ADF systems and people must become adept at operating in analogue or degraded communications modes. Building trust and confidence in systems, in people, and in systems of systems is key to exploiting the Poseidon’s potential. Finally, with the P-8A’s ability to be re-tasked for any number of missions, command and control is more complicated than ever. Assets can be reassigned in real-time, and aircrew must have a clear understanding of their C2 arrangements, particularly where an asset is dually assigned or where it has separate operational and tactical control arrangements. The P-8A will absorb the AP-3C’s legacy tasking, stretched across air power roles while integrating seamlessly with civilian agencies in search and rescue roles and ADF and coalition partners across the maritime and land domains. Real-time intelligence updates also mean that the P-8A can act and react in response to the evolving threat environment. Evolution of tasking processes and authorities must evolve to a fifth-generation way of thinking to exploit, rather than limit, the potential of advanced systems. The P-8A Poseidon brings new potential to the ADF, particularly in its primary underwater warfare role. A fifth-generation maritime patrol aircraft optimises its sensors, communications, and crew as part of an integrated force, and leverages those resources to be more effective and efficient in disrupting adversary submarines and enhancing friendly operations. Australia’s P-8A fleet has already demonstrated performance in congested environments and gained experience in several operational theatres. P-8A operations, as part of a fifth-generation force, must continue to evolve to achieve the Poseidon’s fifth-generation potential. The ADF must work through challenges in human factors, technical integration, and C2 to unlock Poseidon’s potency. Squadron Leader Melissa Houston is a P-8A tactical co-ordinator and flight commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are hers alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #MaritimeAirPower #RoyalAustralianAirForce #5thGenerationWarfare #BoeingP8Poseidon #5thGenerationAirPower #ManoeuvreWarfare

On 24 October 2019, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation is holding a seminar examining the requirements of #5thgenmanoeuvre. The aim of the seminar, building on previous seminars and series looking at #jointstrike and #highintensitywar, is to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force must equip and organise for multi-domain operations. We are delighted to welcome Peter Hunter to The Central Blue to launch our #5thgenmanoeuvre series with his provocative call for us to re-examine the value proposition of air power, and military power more broadly, in a changing and challenging environment. Andrew Davies has argued that the idea of ‘balance’ in the ADF’s force structure is lazy thinking. He is not the only one concerned by outmoded constructs like this, as we have seen from Peter Jennings and Michael Shoebridge. Moreover, at the recent Defence + Industry conference in Canberra, where the defence secretary and senior ADF leaders emphasised the importance of Australia’s Pacific step-up strategy, questions arose about what our military forces can offer to government in an era of constant contest. The answers will not come from more-of-the-same prescriptions for fixing our security challenges by acquiring more of this aircraft or fewer of that ship, as the proponents of platform-centric thinking argue. These linear arguments miss the point. Legacy models that focus on destroying targets and moving arrows on maps are being overtaken by approaches that integrate the elements of national power to produce effects that compel desired political outcomes. My new ASPI report, Projecting national power, takes aim at these questions. What are our defence forces for, in a contemporary environment where rival powers are using political warfare to win strategic objectives below the threshold of military intervention? Like many others in the Indo-Pacific region, Australia is increasingly concerned that some revisionist powers are seeking to rewrite the regional order to their own advantage through political warfare and grey-zone methods. Moreover, since Australia’s first-rate military capabilities do not seem to be deterring this sort of warfare, questions arise about what might be done to make our exquisite military platforms relevant to those challenges. Of course, nobody is suggesting that we should scale back our defence forces unless we want to resemble other mendicant security states. However, while there may be no question of that immutable need for strong, capable defences, there is still merit in a more penetrating analysis of what our investment should be buying us. This is where lazy thinking will not do. Why would spending more money on more platforms be any more effective in countering political warfare and grey-zone action than our current models? So, what is to be done? My suggestion is that we should look for better ways to use what we have, instead of asking for more. We should be figuring out how to combine the elements of national power, including defence, in smarter ways to enhance Australia’s regional influence. Moreover, while my report considers these questions from an air power perspective, the approach should be equally valid across other defence capabilities, and indeed across the whole of government. In a region characterised by increasing competition, it only makes sense for Australia to do what it can to protect and enhance its own interests. We could say that this is simply old-fashioned realist power politics. However, if we are to ensure our defence forces provide a valuable service to government in an environment characterised by winning without fighting, it will be important to encourage disruptive thinking about how our military assets might contribute to the desired strategic effect, whether that be influence, access or counter-coercion. The government’s Pacific step-up quite rightly seeks to enhance Australia’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region. However, without a robust approach to integrating the elements of our national power to achieve that influence, then neither more planes nor more ships or more tanks would seem to offer any better prospect for deterring grey-zone operations than they already do. This might require some disruptive thinking about how we use our defence resources. In addition to their war-fighter roles, how might we use our exquisite assets as tools of influence? Is it possible that complex systems built to collect and exploit electronic information might have a role in operations geared to achieving influence? Of course, this should be on the positive side of the ledger, too, since it is not just about discouraging political warfare. Australia will need to contribute to cooperative relationships in the region if we wish to sustain the access and presence required to enhance our influence. Also, where once enablers like international engagement and electronic warfare (among others) might not have been given the same attention as the acquisition of complex systems, these themes will need to be given prominence if we are to adopt an influence operations mindset. So, while there is little doubt by now that cyber and information operations have become more vital to the wielding of international influence, there remain unexplored questions on how our military assets and people can be similarly influential. My new report does not pretend to solve these problems. However, it does seek to bring the questions to the fore, so that air power, and our defence forces more broadly, can look towards delivering the best value to government. This article first appeared on ASPI’s The Strategist on 07 August 2019 and is republished here with the kind permission of The Strategist’s editors. Peter Hunter is the Director of Air Force Strategy in Air Force headquarters. He has over 25 years’ experience in Australia’s national security community, having worked across a broad range of positions in foreign and strategic policy, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Office of National Assessments. He has also served as adviser to the Minister for Defence and has undertaken diplomatic postings to Papua New Guinea and Kenya. He commenced his career as an officer in the RAAF, where he continues to serve as a wing commander in the Air Force Reserve. He is completing PhD research on Australian air power strategy through the University of NSW. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect the views of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Department of Defence, or the Australian Government. #RoyalAustralianAirForce #AirPower #AustralianDefence #5thGenerationAirPower #AustralianDefenceForce #ManeouvreWarfare

Editorial Note: This article first appeared on The Forge, the website of the Australian Defence College. The Forge exists to build and hone the intellectual edge of member’s operating within the Profession of Arms. We are grateful to The Forge for permission to reproduce this article on The Central Blue. The Scherger Group is a network of individuals motivated to constructively engage with key strategic issues to improve the depth of understanding and quality of advice to senior decision-makers. The Group provides a mechanism, independent of existing organisations, to bring together a diverse array of individuals with the specific expertise, qualities, and motivation to cultivate professional depth in areas of strategic importance and provide alternative perspectives to those developed through existing institutional norms. Author’s Note: I have attempted to group the key points based on the notes I took during the discussion. Any errors are mine. I have also added additional material and references where I have considered that they may contribute to the ideas discussed at the workshop. One constant across all of military history is the critical role of people. Far more than technology, platforms, or luck, human assets have always been the single biggest determinant of military success or failure. As such, attracting, developing, retaining, and empowering skilled personnel is the biggest challenge for the modern military. Furman Daniel III, 21st Century Patton – Strategic Insights for the Modern Era Air forces are generally techno-centric organisations, and often express themselves through technology. The more advanced, the better! Consequently, much of the discussion about the future of the Air Force centres on artificial intelligence – in either an autonomous or human-machine variant; the networked strike fighter with its sophisticated sensors and weapons suites; advances in technology related to intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance; and electronic or cyber warfare. In other words, the focus is on technologies rather than on the humans who will need to lead and fully exploit these capabilities as part of a larger joint force. There is a need for specific work to create a culture where creativity and innovation, balanced against the discipline for military operations, prepares people to prevail in the uncertainty of future warfare, which inevitably involves pushing the boundaries between peace and war. The challenge for Air Force is to create a level of specificity to provide useful guidance in recruitment, training, education, and development of its workforce to maximise the high-end capabilities that are coming into service in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and to use those capabilities in a joint and integrated context that is ambiguous and dynamic. Under the auspices of the ‘Scherger Group’, a small gathering was held in Canberra to discuss some of the challenges of building a future workforce for the RAAF. The discussion from those gathered was both energetic and insightful. While the discussion was based on developing RAAF personnel, it became clear early in the conversation that the same general considerations for developing the human intellectual edge also apply to the Army and the Navy. This gathering intended to have an open discussion on some broad workforce issues while acknowledging that these problems are going to require significant consideration and framing – to ensure the right questions are being asked, and to look at possible ways ahead. The issues discussed were focused on several key questions: What does future conflict look like? What will the future Air Force workforce need to look like? What skills/knowledge/attitudes do these personnel need? Future conflict? Any forecasts that attempt to predict, in detail, the future of conflict and warfare is bound to be wrong. This is reminiscent of the point made by Sir Michael Howard who said ‘[n]o matter how clearly one thinks, it is impossible to anticipate precisely the nature of future conflict. The key is not to be so far off the mark that it becomes impossible to adjust once that character is revealed’. For this reason, the development of bespoke designs for the future workforce is not likely to be useful. Contemporary literature and discussions about the future of war commonly refer to a taxonomy of warfare and competition that includes multi-domain battle, hybrid war, cyberwar, war in space, the use of artificial intelligence, human-machine teaming, dependency on integrated networks for communication and decision-making; the centrality of time and speed as key features of the future battlespace. This makes prognostication about the future of war incredibly difficult, with any detailed predictions destined to be off the mark. One characteristic of the contemporary security environment that is likely to continue is the need for cooperation and coordination across government. As Rosa Brooks argued, the military cannot be everything, and the military must continue to work with other government departments – like Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Federal / State / Territory police, and the National Intelligence Community – to create a continuity of security and defence efforts to span the ‘grey zone’. A corollary to coordination is to ensure that advice to the Minister for Defence, the Chief of Defence Force, and other Service Chiefs and Defence principals are cognizant of the limits of the military option, and an appreciation of the nuances of strategic environment. If we can acknowledge these requirements, then we can consider some of the broad characteristics required of personnel in the future workforce. Future workforce considerations Traditional models, traditions, and the profession. Personnel management for the contemporary Air Force, as all military organisations, is based on stability and certainty, which facilitate long term workforce planning – determining the numbers for recruitment, retention, and retirement. Yet the future Air Force will need more flexibility – to obtain access to the required expertise or services to support the delivery of air power, as directed by the Chief of Air Force on behalf of the CDF / Minister. The flexibility required is analogous to modern fighter aircraft which has a level of inherent instability that enables it to be agile and responsive but has a sophisticated flight control system that provides stability and control to correct course and trajectory when needed. The customs and traditions of the profession of arms are important foundations for military forces. The military profession implies rights and obligations to the state, in exchange for the privilege to use of lethal force in times of war. These customs and traditions and the mantle of ‘profession’ are sometimes seen as obstacles to change and the construction of an agile workforce, due largely to the authoritative and hierarchical structures that characterise military organisations. New ways of thinking are required around command and control to establish a culture in which creative/disruptive/heretical thinking is necessary to address novel problems faced in an operational environment. Team of teams. An important question discussed was: Who is in the team? How do we determine who/what is in the team? One suggestion is to consider ‘Team of Teams’ approach, where the membership of the team changes according to who/what is required to add value to the goals of the team? A ‘team of teams’ approach is one involving a network based on trust relationships that have a shared consciousness / a shared mission. The concept was articulated by General Stanley McChrystal, based on his Joint Special Operations Command experience. It is one that can perhaps best accommodate inter-agency/industry partnership/inter-governmental approaches to national security problems in a much better way than traditional hierarchical organisations. To establish this approach, relationships of trust and habits of cooperation and coordination are essential to ensure that the team of teams is agile, adaptable, and responsive. Trust and teaming. ‘Trust’ in teams is essential to creating a culture of agility and adaptability in a human workforce. The introduction of machines to the ‘trust’ proposition also becomes important when considering the future workforce. The issue of human-machine teaming is one that is the subject of considerable contemporary discussion, and one that will only become more important as capabilities with varying levels of artificial intelligence is developed. How will the future workforce interact with these sophisticated capabilities as other team members? What kind of people do we need to develop, maintain, and use these technologies? In a networked team of teams, who is accountable and responsible for decision-making – where does ‘command responsibility’ reside? Buy/build/borrow. Relationships with industry are becoming stronger today, due largely to the increased reliance on highly specialised skills for maintenance, the difficulties of managing ‘commercial-in-confidence’, and foreign military sales restrictions relating to intellectual property and security classifications as part of capability sustainment. This raises the question of the proportion of workforce required in uniform, versus the numbers of contractors from industry partners, for the sustainment of RAAF platforms like the Joint Strike Fighter. It is likely that the JSF experience will become the norm and will likely dictate the need for skilled uniformed workforce required for sustainment of such sophisticated weapon systems. The ‘team of teams’ approach will therefore likely involve these industry partners. An associated issue is ‘supply and demand segmentation’ as a driver for RAAF workforce planning. The questions underlying this issue are: What will contractors do? What will military personnel do? Some people take time to ‘build’ and ‘grow’ because of their specialist skillsets in a military context. However, some skills can be ‘bought’ via industry partnerships or contractor support because there is a significant civilian sector market for these people. What proportion of the RAAF can be ‘bought’, or contracted, and which ones do we need to ‘build’? One example provided related to the doctors and medical staff that were incorporated into the British military from the British National Health Service. This was considered a more efficient and effective means to access highly experienced and skilled doctors, nurses, and other medical specialists in a limited time frame for a particular operation, particularly when considering the significant lead time in ‘growing’ these personnel within the military. The NHS also obtained benefits from this arrangement, as their personnel gained unique experience in handling battlefield injuries and trauma. Considering all the factors discussed above, perhaps the RAAF must be guided by the Lego approach – that ‘people don’t have to work for us to work with us’. However, this ‘open innovation’ approach taken by Lego was the result of declining profits that necessitated change. Military organisations lack the imminence of such signalling to advance reform, with dire security situations leading to conflict manifesting in short time frames when such reforms are too little too late. ‘Open innovation’ requires risk-taking and novel approaches that are underwritten by leadership that recognises that we cannot wait for the dire security circumstances to drive change and that some trial and error of innovative approaches are required now to address the challenges of the future. What skills/knowledge/attributes do future personnel need? As flagged at the start, the future is likely to have similarities to the contemporary context. Addressing future challenges require cooperation and coordination outside the military domain, particularly if a ‘team of teams’ approach is to be taken. This demands personnel who are adaptable, resilient, and innovative networkers who can operate based on intent in a decentralised context. Assuming the organisational structures and cultures are in place (noting the complexities of workforce structure discussed above), what skills/knowledge/attributes does the future Air Force member need? In broad terms, intelligence, creativity, and innovation, as well as strategic thinking and the ability to work in diverse teams (emotional intelligence) were considered to be the foundational skills/knowledge/attributes for future personnel. Ender. In discussions with fellow sci-fi loving military officers, Ender Wiggin – the protagonist in Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, is often heralded as the epitome of the creativity, innovation, and resilience that is desirable in future military personnel. In their National Defense University paper, ‘Finding Ender’, Bryant and Harrison explain that Ender’s Game is ‘also a parable for defense policymakers who are confronting the multifaceted problem set of recruiting, training, educating, and retaining military personnel capable of fighting and winning the Nation’s wars in a time of technological change and international volatility.’ Bryant and Harrison argue that fundamental changes to the military organisation’s process and culture are necessary to find the Enders and propose the development of sophisticated talent management systems to do so. Talent management is in its nascent form in the RAAF, which is founded on the development of officers and airmen in specific specialisations – pilot, mission aircrew, logistician, engineer, aviation technician, clerk, imagery analyst, personnel specialist, legal officer, medical officer, intelligence officer, and so on. The talent management system is intended to find the ‘Enders’ amongst the specialists – perhaps as a way of finding those to develop outside of their ‘stovepipes’ for broader roles including strategic level leadership. The difficulty is the habitual and cultural sentimentality and assumptions attached to certain specialisations – primarily aircrew – that place them at the centre of the organisation. Each of the Services has their own similar type of biases. The problem with this approach, and one that talent management may be able to mitigate is that creativity, innovation, and resilience – the ‘Ender traits’ – are fundamentally human ones that are not exclusively bound to the DNA of certain specialists. To maximise the ‘human’ capital of the current and future Air Force, then the personnel development and talent management systems need to focus on the ‘humans’ rather than the specialists. Education / learning / play and failure. A fundamental aspect of preparing the current and future workforce for the challenges of future competition and conflict is professional military education. This ‘Intellectual Edge’ is considered to be important in maximising the technological advantages that may accrue to a smaller force. Traditionally, education raises the connotations of traditional classroom lectures and discussion. While this is still the case, there is also a place for learning through play/testing and managing failure via wargames and wargaming as being a regular part of individual and collective training and education. Such mechanisms provide for a safe place to push concepts to breaking point, find weaknesses in plans, and to develop ways of thinking and strategic acumen. Culture. Finding Ender is only half the solution. The other half is to create an organisational culture where such individuals can thrive. In traditional, hierarchical, military organisations, uniformity and conformity are prized, and oddities are assimilated or discarded. These traditional ways of thinking about developing personnel naturally come into conflict with the need to grow people who are creative and innovative and are expected to consider and develop novel approaches to the complexity of future competition and conflict. Established norms and status quo policies and practices must either evolve or ‘break’ to allow the novel idea or concept to take hold. This is perhaps the traditional tension between Daedalus and Icarus, which is often discussed in air power circles. In his Air & Space Power Journal article, Trew argues that ‘air mindedness’ for the future Air Force will require holding the characteristics of Daedalus (experience and wisdom) and Icarus (passionate, rebellious artist) together in creative tension. Leadership is necessary for this to be successful – leadership provides the guidance/intent/direction and underwrites the risk of Icarus’ creativity and drive, which are both broadly considered necessary to address future competition and conflict. Next steps? In a recent CAF Directive (10 May 2019), Air Marshal Davies identified several ‘Fifth-Generation Behaviours’ that highlights the attributes of personnel that are necessary to support the Fifth-Generation Air Force. Air Marshal Davies said that these behaviours ‘will ensure Air Force can successfully operate in a complex environment where airmen will need to work with high volumes of data, understand and embrace new technology and easily integrate with Army, Navy and Coalition partners to create a joint effect’. He also mentioned the need for agility to use these behaviours. A ‘People Capability Attributes and Behaviours’ diagram depicted the five core attributes for a Fifth-Generation Workforce – Agile/Informed/Collaborative/Resilient/Integrated. These characteristics form a good foundation on which to build the future workforce – it is an aspirational goal for the Air Force to work towards in dealing with its personnel. However, as discussed in the group, the difficulty will be in the transition – in changing the existing structures, culture, and attitudes within the Air Force and the wider Defence organisation, to get to where CAF needs us to be. As a final thought, we also need to think outside of ourselves if we are to be successful in transitioning to a new structure and culture that cultivates the personnel we need. As renowned educator and advocate for reform of the education system, Ken Robinson, stated in Out of Our Minds ‘Employers say they want people who can think creatively, who can innovate, who can communicate well, work in teams and are adaptable and self-confident.’ The Air Force and the ADF want the same characteristics in people as employers in the civilian sector. There needs to be a recognition that the Air Force, and the other Services / Defence generally, cannot expect to create the people to enable a Fifth-Generation Air Force alone. The ADF and the Defence Department are constituted of people from wider Australian society. This means we are subject to wider societal and demographic factors that impact on how Australians live and work. We are also at the whim of factors we cannot fully control: we are reliant on advances in technology and expertise in the civilian sector, and we need to stay in touch with such developments. Perhaps more importantly, the ADF is reliant upon the broader education system as a feeder for our membership – we cannot build our future workforce on poor foundations. Wing Commander Jo Brick is a Legal Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and is currently a member of the directing staff at the Australian Command and Staff College. She has served on a number of operational and staff appointments from the tactical to the strategic levels of the Australian Defence Force. Wing Commander Brick is a graduate of the Australian Command and Staff College. 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. You can find follower her on Twitter at Carl’s Cantina. #organisationalculture #capabilitydevelopment #futurewarfare #Militaryculture #RoyalAustralianAirForce #SchergerGroup #TheForge #ProfessionalMilitaryEducation

On 28 August 2019, the Air Power Development Centre in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Study of Armed Conflict and Society (ACSACS) hosted the Sir James Rowland Seminar at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). The seminar focused on Australian Aviation Culture and the enduring Air-minded approach to Air Power. Among an impressive line-up of speakers was Dr Alan Stephens, who elected to talk about Air Force Leadership in the 21st Century. The Central Blue is fortunate to be able to share his presentation with our readers today. We thank Dr Stephens for his contribution. The eminent soldier-scholar J.F.C. Fuller believed that ‘the fighting power of a defence force lies in the first instance in its organisation.’[1] Foremost amongst the essential components of a successful organisation is its senior management – that is, its leadership. At a time of extreme technological and social change, epitomised by the notion of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, a fair case can be made that the leadership of Australia’s air power and the organisational model those leaders instinctively favour may be unsuited to the task ahead. Few, if any, organisations are more intensely socialised than Western defence forces. Moreover, within that predetermined cultural environment, no one group is more dominant than air force pilots who, since air power was first applied systematically in the First World War, have led their services. I’d like to explore this point by referencing the celebrated American author, Tom Wolfe. In 1979, Wolfe published a story about America’s first astronauts. Titled The Right Stuff, the book was a best-seller and was subsequently made into a movie. All of those early astronauts were required to be a fast-jet test pilot, a qualification which not only seemed relevant to the assumed nature of space exploration but also suggested that they had the ‘right stuff to succeed in this new domain of aeronautics. Wolfe’s entertaining story at times teased the jet-pilots’ highly developed sense of self-regard. However, having had his fun, Wolfe nevertheless concluded that those space pioneers deserved our admiration and that they did indeed have the ‘right stuff.’ A parallel can be drawn between the requirement for those first astronauts to have been fast-jet pilots, and the tradition that the most senior air force posts must be filled by strike/fighter pilots. Indeed, it is not so much a tradition as an article of faith that that fraternity alone has the right stuff to command air power. Taking the RAAF as an example, since the Australian Air Force was formed in 1921, every one of the 25 men who has held the office of chief has been a pilot; and of that number, 22 can be classified as strike/fighter pilots. Before discussing this organisational phenomenon as it relates to the 21st century, it has to be acknowledged that, in the broader scheme of things, thus far, those men have done an exceptional job. Since mid-1944, when Allied air forces began to assert air supremacy in all theatres of the Second World War, Western air power has represented a military comparative advantage arguably unequalled in any combat domain in the history of warfare. Advanced Western air forces have not merely controlled the air for the past seventy years; they have dominated it. Moreover, they have simultaneously become an essential component of almost any reasonably-sized campaign on land or sea. That is not to say that air dominance has necessarily ensured political victory, whatever that might mean, but it is to say that, in discharging their brief, the West’s air commanders been extraordinarily successful. Many complex and varied factors have contributed to that success, but I am going to suggest that there has been two that have defined the essence of air warfare as we have known it for one hundred years. I am then going to suggest that in the 21st century those factors might no longer obtain. The first factor concerns why air forces exist; and the second concerns how air forces have gone about discharging the ‘why’ of their existence. First, the ‘why.’ Like navies and armies, when you get down to the basics, air forces exist to apply organised violence in the interests of the state. It is true that modern defence forces do much more than that – peacekeeping, disaster relief, border protection, nation-building, research and development, and so on. However, other organisations such as emergency services, NGOs, coast guards, industry, and private security firms can be used for those tasks. However, in democratic societies, only defence forces can legitimately apply violence against another state. As a former chief of the USAF, General Ron Fogleman, memorably put it, a military force’s unique purpose is to ‘kill people and break their stuff.’ Second, the ‘how.’ In discharging their duty to the state, air force commanders have from the earliest days correctly understood that their prime responsibility has resided in mastering two roles; namely, control of the air, and strike. It is again true that air forces do much more than that, but it is those two roles that have been at the heart of air warfare, and that have defined the best air forces. Consequently, it has been the exclusive, first-hand exposure of combat pilots to the associated warfighting concepts, tactics, technologies, and situational awareness that explains why that fraternity has dominated air power, and why its members have had the right stuff. It is noteworthy that the three most significant air power thinkers since the Second World War – John Boyd, John Warden and David Deptula – have all been fighter pilots. The problem for future air power leaders, however, is that the traditional ‘how’ and ‘why’ organisational protocols no longer apply. The model that has served the West so well is in the process of being challenged by non-state actors and the ineluctable march of technology. Taking the rise of non-state actors, the application of offensive air power is no longer the sole province of states, air forces and military pilots. The most devastating airstrike since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 occurred not in Korea, or Vietnam, or Iraq, or the Balkans, or Afghanistan, but in New York City on 11 September 2001. Al Qaeda’s attack was an astonishing event. For four hours, a non-state organisation that did not have professional pilots, or aircraft, or weapons, let alone an air force, asserted control of the air overhead continental United States by subterfuge; and its destruction of the World Trade Centre changed the world. The specific model may or may not be replicated in the future, but the anarchical thinking behind it certainly will. Moreover, that anarchical thinking will be empowered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I will elaborate on that proposition shortly. However, first, we need to have a clear understanding of the foundations of traditional advanced air forces. An advanced air force can only be constructed and sustained by countries that possess all of the following resources: a developed economy, a highly educated population, a strong industrial base, and a sophisticated infrastructure. Consequently, by my reckoning, today, no more than about a dozen countries, including Australia, have first-rate air forces. Unfortunately for those countries, again including Australia, the technologies that are empowering the Fourth Industrial Revolution will disrupt the established order and will revolutionise who can apply air power, and how. Those technologies include autonomous swarming unmanned systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cyber systems, 3D printing, high-definition quantum sensors, and hypersonic missiles.[2] By offering alternative means of achieving control of the air and conducting strategic strike, those rapidly evolving and comparatively cheap capabilities will allow previously marginalised players – non-state, third-world, assorted extremists, even individuals – to contest the established order. I want to emphasise the profound implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution by using artificial intelligence as an example. In an article that has not received sufficient attention, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has provided a compelling and disturbing analysis of the power and potential of AI.[3] It is near-impossible to read Kissinger’s analysis, ominously titled ‘[H]ow the Enlightenment Ends,’ without concluding that we are at a defining moment in world history. Kissinger’s judgment is shared by, among others, Australia’s chief scientist, Professor Alan Finkel, who believes that AI is ‘poised to disrupt almost every fabric of Australian society.’[4] Other emerging technologies invite a similar conclusion, albeit less dramatically.[5] The question now becomes: what does this mean for the RAAF? In terms of the quality of its people, platforms, weapons, training, systems, and infrastructure, the RAAF of 2019 is the best it has ever been for its size, there is no better air force in the world. We can reasonably expect that the existing force structure will continue to provide Australia with regional air superiority for the next three to five years. However, what happens, then? If we were tasked with designing an air force with a blank sheet of paper – that is, free from the influence of legacy organisations, capabilities, and thinking – what would it look like? In an era of transformative technologies, in which the pace and nature of change are profound and constantly increasing, is it rational to believe that we would arrive at the same kind of organisational arrangement as exists today – an arrangement that effectively has been the same for 75 years? The F-35 exemplifies this abstraction. While the F-35 is an exceptional weapons system, the RAAF is fortunate that the platform and its support systems are almost in place, rather than being five or ten years away. The issue is, it has taken 27 years to progress the F-35 from design development to operational readiness, and each platform is costing $100 million. Similar numbers can be provided for most combat aircraft. I would suggest that those numbers are unsustainable when autonomous drones and long-range missiles can be developed in less than one-tenth of both the time and cost. There is also the matter of legacy organisational arrangements and cultural beliefs, which leads us back to the fighter pilot syndrome, and to the military-industrial complex within which air forces exist. A recent report from the RAND Corporation suggested that the ‘fighter jock’ culture may be inhibiting the USAF’s development.[6] According to RAND, the USAF is still dominated by fast-jet pilots, even though the ‘more technologically diverse set of missions,’ the service is facing demands a broader leadership base. RAND also found that fighter pilots have been ‘somewhat grudging’ in their acceptance of drones and that the ‘manned versus unmanned aircraft debate continue[s] to permeate internal service insecurities.’ Turning to the military-industrial complex, it was US president Dwight Eisenhower – previously one of the Second World War’s greatest generals – who in 1961 warned us of the dangers of the self-serving relationship between the military leadership and the defence industry.[7] The ‘entire livelihood’ of both groups depends on keeping long-term programs intact and funded, a mentality which in turn fosters an incremental, risk-averse, status-quo approach to force development, and which favours the maintenance of traditional capabilities.[8] Defence companies that make billions from legacy systems ‘are as welcoming of disruptions to their business model as the taxi cab industry has been of Uber and Lyft.’[9] Relating this mindset – this culture – to Australia, Andrew Davies from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has argued that ‘the sunk cost and institutional fondness for the current […] structure, combined with the industrial landscape and its associated politics’ has made the ADF’s culture and configuration ‘for all practical purposes immutable.’[10] Davies sees Australia’s defence conglomerate as having neither ‘the courage [nor the] imagination required to significantly change direction.’ Applying this mentality specifically to air power, we might note the inexorable momentum within advanced air forces to develop manned, so-called ‘sixth-generation’ fighters and bombers, which surely only the greatest optimist could expect to enter service in less than a quarter of a century and at a price tag less than the GDP of a third-world country.[11] To be fair, that same optimist might point to the RAAF’s futuristic Plan Jericho, the purpose of which is to ‘protect Australia from technologically sophisticated and rapidly morphing threats […] to push the boundaries of our fifth-generation force […] [primarily] by exploiting augmented intelligence.’[12] However, a pessimist might respond by referring to real-life rather than to reverie. For example, at the start of the Second World War, on land, British and French generals who had been socialised to believe in the divine right of infantry proved incapable of comprehending the disruptive nature of mechanised warfare and were routed by Germans who had embraced change; while at sea, admirals who had been socialised to believe in the divine right of capital ships proved incapable of comprehending the disruptive nature of air power, and went down with their ships. Plan Jericho is an admirable initiative which implicitly acknowledges that the RAAF, like all of us, is living in a disruptive world. However, it remains to be seen whether the project will generate genuine change or will simply sponsor capabilities that will be absorbed into the existing cultural and organisational mindset. In 1921, the great air power theorist Giulio Douhet wrote that ‘[V]ictory smiles upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.’[13] Coincidentally, 1921 was also the year in which the RAAF was established. Australians can be grateful that in the almost one hundred years since then, the strike/fighter pilots who have dominated their air force have delivered a national defence capability of the highest quality. However, if we believe that we are indeed experiencing a Fourth Industrial Revolution, then, by definition, the culture that has served the RAAF well is unlikely to do so in the near future. The essential question facing today’s Air Force is whether or not leaders who have been socialised within an archaic organisational framework have the right stuff to take their service forward in the 21st century. Dr Alan Stephens is a Fellow of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation. He has been a senior lecturer at UNSW Canberra; a visiting fellow at ANU; a visiting fellow at UNSW Canberra; the RAAF historian; an advisor in federal parliament on foreign affairs and defence; and a pilot in the RAAF, where his experience included the command of an operational squadron and a tour in Vietnam. He has lectured internationally, and his publications have been translated into some twenty languages. He is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, the Australian National University, and the University of New England. Stephens was awarded an OAM in 2008 for his contribution to Australian military history. [1] J.F.C. Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (London, Hutchinson, 1926). [2] Andrew Davies, ‘A new DWP wouldn’t be worth the white paper it’s written on,’ The Strategist, 19 June 2019. [3] Henry Kissinger, ‘How the Enlightenment Ends,’ The Atlantic, June 2019. On the same theme, cyber might also have been used as a model: see, for example, Sue Halpern, ‘How Cyber Weapons are changing the Landscape of Modern Warfare,’ The New Yorker, 18 July 2019. For an air power-specific commentary on AI, see James Waller and Phillip Morgan, ‘Putting AI into Air: What is Artificial Intelligence and What it Might Mean for the Air Environment,’ RAF Air and Space Power Review, 22:2 (2019). [4] Quoted in Australian Council of Learned Academies, ‘The Effective and Ethical Development of Artificial Intelligence,’ July 2019. [5] See, for example, Christian Brose, ‘The New Revolution in Military Affairs,’ Foreign Affairs, 16 April 2019. [6] S. Rebecca Zimmerman, Kimberly Jackson, Natasha Lander, Colin Roberts, Dan Madden and Rebeca Orrie, Movement and Maneuver: Culture and the Competition for Influence Among the U.S. Military Services (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2019). See also Kyle Rempfer, Fighter jock culture may be holding Air Force back, Rand study says.’ Air Force Times, 26 February 2019. [7] Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, 17 January 1961. [8] Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York, Vintage Books, 2015). [9] Christian Brose, ‘The New Revolution in Military Affairs,’ Foreign Affairs, May/June 2019. [10] Davies, ‘A new DWP.’ [11] See, for example, Sebastian Roblin, ‘Beyond the F-22 or F-35: What Will the Sixth-Generation Fighter Look Like?,’ The National Interest, 21 July 2018; Kyle Mizokami, ‘Next Stop for Air Force’s New Bomber: First Flight,’ Popular Mechanics, 11 April 2019; and Tony Osborne, ‘Airbus and Dassault Reveal Vision for New-Gen Fighter,’ Aviation Week & Space Technology, 1-14 July 1-14, 2019. [12] RAAF, Plan Jericho – At the Edge. [13] Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, translated by Dino Ferrari (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1983), p. 30. #SirJamesRowlandSeminar #Militaryculture #RoyalAustralianAirForce #AirPower #MilitaryLeadership #5thGenerationAirPower #leadership

We welcome Ulie Yildirim back to The Central Blue to continue his exploration of the military profession and discuss the profession’s status and role in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). In these second of two parts, Ulie explores the RAAF’s traditionally successful approach to jurisdictional competition in the profession of arms but argues a different approach is needed to cope with new challenges. It is paradoxical that air forces willing and able to expend billions of dollars on technical and tactical education typically devote a trivial amount to understanding what they do or might do strategically and why they are asked to do so by their political owners.[1] Colin S. Gray Part 1 analysed the history surrounding the characterisation of the military profession, including the military profession’s characterisation by seminal thinkers Huntington, Janowitz and Moskos. This analysis showed that considering professions through the lens of jurisdictions, defined as ‘the link between a profession and its work’ is a useful means of exploring the RAAF’s adaptation to remain an effective and relevant policy device for the government.[2] Part 2 argues that the RAAF’s adoption of a highly specialised workforce model has been very effective. However, this model may be less effective in a rapidly changing and more challenging Indo-Pacific as the workforce has become disconnected from broader aspects of the profession of arms. Greater investment in professional military education (PME) is, therefore, necessary to reconnect the RAAF’s specialists with the military profession and ensure the Service remains a relevant and effective instrument of government. Multiple initiatives are currently in motion to transform the RAAF into a fifth-generation force able to apply air and space effects as part of an integrated joint force.[3] Several of these initiatives focus on people and promote professional and technical mastery within the RAAF.[4] These initiatives assert the importance of positive leadership, PME and the study of history while promoting the RAAF’s technologically-advanced capabilities and the need for innovation.[5] The RAAF routinely provides courses and seminars to its workforce on both the military profession, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Further education and professional development within specialist trades appear to be enthusiastically pursued. Well established funding and education programs support personnel in gaining specialist training, which is deemed to provide tangible benefits to the RAAF and the individual’s promotion prospects. These programs include overseas opportunities, Australian Defence Force Academy post-graduate courses and professional development programs that allow personnel to access specialist training and education easily. Moreover, multiple specialisations incorporate specialist education and development into career continuums from an early stage, so the link between professional development and individual progression is clear and compelling. In contrast, the workforce as a whole appears indifferent towards more general PME. Since 2009, RAAF PME has been delivered as part of promotion courses with a relatively less clear articulation of the benefits to the broader workforce in enabling the RAAF to conduct its everyday role. PME has been something individuals have to do to be promoted, not something people want to do because it will make them better at their job. This is evidenced by communication from multiple senior leaders that large numbers of personnel remain deficient in meeting their mandatory PME requirements. Accordingly, a policy of ‘no PME, no promotion’ was implemented but has reinforced the perception that PME is a compliance requirement rather than a value-adding activity. The disconnect from PME is an outcome of the RAAF’s use of a small workforce to employ complex hardware in the air domain and to prevail in its jurisdictional competition as an instrument of government. High levels of efficiency are generated through specialist-focused training, education, promotion, and employment continuums. After initial entry training, personnel are employed and managed within their specialist trades, including officers until promoted into the General List as Group Captains. A small number of officers and warrant officers are selected to attend command and staff courses or capability management courses. A still smaller number of Group Captains are also selected to attend the Defence and Strategic Studies Course and gain the necessary knowledge and skills to operate at the strategic level. Before and following these courses, personnel continue to be employed within their specialist categorisations. The value of specialist knowledge is reinforced by individual promotions (up to the rank of group captain) being determined within specialisations, rather than across the RAAF workforce as a whole. Officers promoted into the General List as Group Captains are selected from across the officer corps but continue to be employed in roles associated with their specialisations. This process has considerable strengths but creates inherent weaknesses which will be discussed in the next paragraphs. The RAAF’s emphasis on specialisation has enabled it to reliably and efficiently operate highly complex hardware in the air domain despite numerous challenges. For example, in 1991, when the Australian Government implemented the Commercial Support Program (CSP), the RAAF’s workforce was reduced from approximately 22,000 to below 13,500 personnel by 2001.[6] During the same period, the workforce was undergoing other changes due to a spate of fatal aircraft accidents attributed to operational and technical errors.[7] Despite an almost 40% workforce reduction, the RAAF continued to perform reliably, contributing to domestic and global operations while improving its safety and technical performance to establish a world-class aviation safety management framework. Hence, through the use of a highly-specialised workforce, the RAAF absorbed CSP personnel reductions, implemented an aviation safety management system, and contributed to government-directed activities – preserving and enhancing its reputation as a trusted policy device.[8] When faced with similar workforce reduction pressures, the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force (RAF) adopted an approach with less emphasis on specialisation, which has been cited as contributing to adverse outcomes. The investigation into the loss of an RAF Nimrod aircraft and 14 crew over Afghanistan in 2006 illustrated the apparent costs of a less specialised model. The report judged the principal factors at work included the creation of a larger ‘purple’ and ‘through life’ structures as well as ‘the imposition of unending cuts and change” from 1998-2006 which ‘led to a dilution of its safety and airworthiness regime and culture.’[9] Furthermore, the report identified the RAAF’s airworthiness framework as an exemplar airworthiness management model.[10] Notably, a result of the accident and subsequent report was the establishment of the British Ministry of Defence Military Aviation Authority. This single regulatory authority is headed by a three-star Director-General responsible for the oversight of British Defence aviation activities akin to the role conducted by Australia’s Defence Aviation Safety Authority. The RAF’s experience highlighted the benefits offered by a highly-specialised workforce in technical areas, including maintaining the trust of governments as a safe and reliable operator of complex equipment. While there are strengths associated with a highly-specialised workforce, there are also weaknesses. In a study of the United States Air Force officer corps, Frank Wood argued convincingly that air force personnel associate with their specialisation more than the military profession.[11] Charles Moskos’s work on the military profession in the United States also argued that due to the nature of complex hardware they employ, air forces are becoming more civilianised to attract those with specialised training. Moskos argued that those personnel ‘will be attracted to the service in a civilian rather than a military capacity and will gauge military employment in terms of marketplace standards’ within which factors such as remuneration and location stability play a bigger role.[12] Applying Mosko’s theory, the RAAF’s culture of specialisation attracts personnel inclined towards specialisation and then reinforces linkages to similar civilian specialists throughout a member’s military career, enabling ready disengagement from the military profession. The workforce efficiencies created through specialisation further reinforce this trend as a smaller workforce lacks the depth to address specialisation and broader PME. The perceived low priority afforded to PME by the RAAF personnel appears to be a symptom of their disconnection from the military profession. However, this disconnect arises from the Service’s preference for a highly-specialised workforce as a means of prevailing in its jurisdictional competition. Effects of a highly specialised but disengaged military workforce Australia’s strategic circumstances and choices have become more difficult.[13] Emerging challenges include traditional state on state threats due to the continued rise of China,[14] Sino-Indian power competition[15] and the re-balancing of American priorities within the Indo-Pacific.[16] The rise of non-traditional threats adds another layer of complexity to Australia’s strategic choices. The impacts of globalisation, energy security, minority group extremism, terrorism and the effects of climate change mean that Australia’s national security is no longer bounded simply by the need to defend Australia’s geographical sovereignty but also ‘the security of Australia’s society and its citizens.’[17] As highlighted in the 2016 Defence White Paper, Australia’s technological edge is diminishing.[18] This suggests that the RAAF’s historical preference for a highly-specialised workforce to maximise its technological edge may not be appropriate for future challenges. Of note, the Chief of Air Force’s 2017 commander’s intent and intent for learning explicitly recognised the importance of effective employment of technology by personnel who combine their technical expertise with a good understanding of the profession of arms. This can only be achieved through the marriage of engaging PME and a thorough knowledge of specialist skills. This has been a consistent message from senior leaders for several years and appears to underpin recent PME reform efforts. The RAAF’s highly-specialised approach has performed well during its operations since the Second World War. However, these operations have been relatively limited in scale and intensity, with other partners bearing the burden of higher-levels of strategy and operational planning. As a result, the RAAF’s specialised workforce was able to operate in its comfort zone and was not stretched to the point of being exposed. During these operations, the RAAF’s technological edge over its adversaries enabled its workforce to remain within its specialist stovepipes without needing to consider the impact of tactical decisions in the strategic arena which could be necessary against a possible near-peer enemy. Hence, a need arises to look externally to judge the effects of a highly specialised but professionally disengaged military workforce in other contexts, including high-intensity conflicts. Dima Adamsky’s observations on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are a useful starting point due to the IDF’s size, alliance with the United States, strong focus on workforce specialisation, and ongoing exposure to conflicts.[19] Adamsky observed that following its successes of 1949, 1956, and 1967, the IDF developed ‘a total disinterest in the art of war.’[20] The effects of this were that ‘[p]roblems were resolved in an isolated and sequential manner as if they were not interconnected.’[21] Further, Adamsky observed that the IDF General Staff continually chose to provide pragmatic but technically narrow solutions to problems because ‘[w]ith no formal professional education IDF officers thought and operated in tactical terms concentrating on giving ad hoc piecemeal solutions to immediate problems.’[22] Israel’s Iron Dome defence system is a case in point. RAND Corporation analyst Elizabeth M. Bartels argued that while the Iron Dome achieved tactical success by mitigating the risks from missiles, it was a strategic failure changing ‘strategic and political prosecution of the campaign in ways that may have denied Israel decisive victories.’ Although these observations should be qualified, noting that the IDF uses a conscription model and their conflicts have arguably been against enemies not as professional, a strong focus on specialists within the general staff has demonstrably resulted in a lack of strategic perspective. Adamsky’s observations highlight that a disengaged workforce, such as the RAAF’s, is less able to grasp the complexities of problems at the strategic level and will instead opt to focus on generating tactical solutions to immediate problems. Adamsky’s analysis of the IDF indicates that without greater emphasis on PME, the RAAF’s current focus on specialisation is likely to adversely affect its jurisdictional competitiveness as Australia confronts a more challenging environment. This logic underpins current initiatives such as Plan Wirraway, The Runway professional development portal, and a new PME continuum. There is clear top-down direction to balance technical and professional mastery as part of transforming the RAAF into a fifth-generation force. These PME initiatives must be complemented by adjustments to the RAAF’s promotion and employment continuum in order to emphasise the importance of PME in enabling the Air Force to conduct its roles and missions, with links to everyday duties. Without this immediate and tangible reinforcement of PME’s value, inertia will see RAAF personnel drift towards perfecting their specialisation and remain disinterested in air power and the military profession in broad terms. More importantly, it must be recognised that compliance-centric attempts to change the workforce’s behaviour through methods such as ‘no PME, no promotion’ will not address the root cause. While the organisation can reorient PME incentives, RAAF personnel also have a personal responsibility to seek a philosophical understanding of airpower. Despite the hierarchical nature of military organisations, Elliot Cohen’s analysis of military transformation demonstrated that assuming that change will happen following senior leader direction is false and outdated.[23] Cohen stated ‘[t]hroughout most of military history, to include the current period, change tends to come more from below, from the spontaneous interactions between military people, technology and particular tactical circumstances.’[24] It is naïve to assume that initiatives implemented from the top with sporadic injections of PME throughout RAAF personnel’s careers will enable them to fully exploit the benefits offered by the study of air power. Therefore, unless the workforce positively engages with their profession beyond top-down direction, the changes required are unlikely to succeed during crises. While a great deal of responsibility rests with the implementation of top-down initiatives, without positive engagement by RAAF personnel and an equal focus on PME, they will not be successful. Conclusion Professions, including the military profession, continually evolve and are in constant jurisdictional competitions with others. This forces them to adapt to new contexts to ensure their survival. The RAAF has successfully participated in a jurisdictional competition of protecting the nation’s interests by using a highly-specialised workforce to operate complex hardware in the air domain. The RAAF’s emphasis on training, educating and promoting specialists comes with considerable strengths, including high levels of proficiency and efficiency. However, it has come at the cost of widespread disengagement from the military profession, including disengagement from broad PME. This highly-specialised approach appears to be ill-suited to a world undergoing profound changes and presenting serious challenges to Australia’s security. Accordingly, the RAAF must prioritise PME to maintain its effectiveness and relevance as a policy device. This will require changes to the RAAF’s training, education, promotion and employment continuum to emphasise and value PME. Top-down direction is necessary, but genuine change also requires a cultural shift in the workforce to value PME and professional development. In a rapidly changing world, the RAAF must adapt lest its historically successful methods become its undoing. Squadron Leader Ulas ‘Ulie’ Yildirim is an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect the views of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. [1] Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), pp. 278-9, 303. [2] Andrew D. Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 2, 20. [3] Royal Australian Air Force, ‘Air Force Strategy 2017-2027’ (Canberra. Australia: Air Power Development Centre, 2017), pp. 1-7. [4] These include New Horizon, Air Force Adaptive Culture and active engagement by the Air Power Development Centre [5] Royal Australian Air Force, Australian Air Publication 1000D – The Air Power Manual, Sixth Edition (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2013); Sanu Kainikara, ‘Professional Mastery and Air Power Education,’ Working Paper No. 33 (Canberra: Royal Australian Air Force Air Power Development Centre, 2011); Air Power Development Centre, ‘Domain-Centric Professional Mastery: The Foundation of an Integrated Military Force’ in Pathfinder (Canberra, Air Power Development Centre, 2018); ‘Air Warfare Innovation and Integration’ in Pathfinder (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2016); ‘5th Generation Air Force’ in Pathfinder (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2016); ‘Translating Technology and Innovation into Capability-Some Lessons from between the Wars’ in Pathfinder (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2016); ‘The Future Air Force’ in Pathfinder (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2017); Royal Australian Air Force, ‘Plan Jericho’ (Canberra: Royal Australian Air Force, 2015); ‘Air Force Plan 2019-2024: ‘First Class People for a Fifth-Generation Air Force” (Canberra: Royal Australian Air Force, 2018). [6] Australian National Audit Office, ‘Commercial Support Program. Department of Defence’ (Canberra: Australian National Audit Office, 1998), p. 27; Air Power Development Centre, Australian Air Publication 1000-H – The Australian Experience of Air Power, Second Edition (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2013), p. 183; Kevin G. Barnes, Retention versus Attrition: Does the RAAF have the correct target in its sight? (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2005), p. 2. [7] Air Power Development Centre, ‘Defence Airworthiness,’ (Canberra, Australia: Air Power Development Centre, 2013). [8] Ibid.; Centre, Australian Air Publication 1000-H, pp. 126-78, 83. [9] Charles Haddon-Cave, ‘The Nimrod Review’ (London: Stationery Office Limited, 2009), p. 339. [10] Ibid., p. 485. [11] Frank R. Wood, ‘At the Cutting Edge of Institutional and Occupational Trends: The U.S. Air Force Officer Corps’ in Charles Moskos and Frank Wood (eds.), The Military More Than Just a Job? (Virginia: Pergamon-Brassey, 1988). [12] Charles Moskos, ‘The Emergent Military: Civil, Traditional, or Plural?,’ Pacific Sociological Review, 16:2 (1973), pp. 255–80; Idem., ‘What Ails the All-Volunteer Force: An Institutional Perspective,’ Parameters, 31:2 (2001), p. 23. [13] Paul Kelly, ‘Punching above Our Weight,’ Policy, 20:2 (2004), p. 29; Paul Dibb, ‘Why Australia Needs a Radically New Defence Policy,’ Centre of Gravity Series No. 44 (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centres, 2018); Brendan Sargeant, ‘Why Australia Needs a Radically New Defence Policy,’ Centre of Gravity Series No. 44 (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centres, 2018). [14] Shiro Armstrong, ‘A New Deal in Asia,’ Foreign Affairs  (March 17), p. 2; Christopher K Johnson et al., Decoding China’s Emerging “Great Power” Strategy in Asia (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2014), pp. 1-32; Zhang Yunling, ‘China and Its Neighbourhood: Transformation, Challenges and Grand Strategy,’ International Affairs, 92:4 (2016), pp. 835-48. [15] David Brewster, ‘India’s Defense Strategy and the India-Asean Relationship,’ India Review, 12:3 (2013), pp. 151-64; Rory Medcalf, ‘In Defence of the Indo-Pacific: Australia’s New Strategic Map,’ Australian Journal of International Affairs, 68:4 (2014), pp. 470-83; David Brewster, ‘India and China at Sea: A Contest of Status and Legitimacy in the Indian Ocean,’ Asia Policy, 22 (2016), pp. 4-10. [16] Sithara Fernando (ed.), United States-China-India Strategic Triangle in the Indian Ocean Region (New Delhi: KW Publishers Pty Ltd, 2015); David Brewster, ‘Australia and India: The Indian Ocean and the Limits of Strategic Convergence,’ Australian Journal of International Affairs, 64:5 (2010), 549-65; Robert Kaplan, ‘Centre Stage for the 21st Century, Power Plays in the Indian Ocean,’ Foreign Affairs (2009). [17]Andrew O’Neil, ‘Conceptualising Future Threats to Australia’s Security,’ Australian Journal of Political Science, 46:1 (2011), pp. 26-32; Michael Evans, ‘Towards an Australian National Security Strategy a Conceptual Analysis,’ Security Challenges, 3:4 (2007), pp.113-30. [18] Commonwealth of Australia, The Defence White Paper 2016 (Canberra: Australian Government Publication Service, 2016), pp. 49-50. [19] Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the U.S. And Israel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010). [20] Ibid., p. 121. [21] Ibid., p. 127. [22] Ibid. [23] Elliot A. Cohen, ‘Change and Transformation in Military Affairs,’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 27:3 (2004), p. 400. [24] Ibid. #ProfessionofArms #PersonnelManagement #RoyalAustralianAirForce #5thGenerationAirPower #ProfessionalMilitaryEducation

On 24 October 2019, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation is holding a seminar examining the requirements of Fifth Generation Manoeuvre. The aim of the seminar, building on previous seminars and series looking at #jointstrike and #highintensitywar, is to examine the differences and potential gaps in how the Australian Defence Force must equip and organise for multi-domain operations. In support of the seminar, The Central Blue will run a #5thgenmanoeuvre series to generate discussion and enable those that cannot attend the ability to gain a perspective on the topic. Do you have thoughts on what #5thgenmanoeuvre means for Australia and its region? We want to hear from you! The term ‘fifth-generation manoeuvre’ conveys the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) nascent ability to orchestrate a new way of fighting, characterised by increased tempo and new ways and means of projecting power. Building on the ADF’s existing manoeuvre capability, there is a need to explore the differences in character and attributes of fifth-generation manoeuvre and identify potential gaps in the way we must think, equip and organise to meet emerging national security outcomes. In doing so, we should consider manoeuvre from a historical perspective and evolve concepts to address emerging requirements of contemporary operations, especially as they relate to power projection and the emergence of the electromagnetic spectrum as a warfighting domain in its own right. We must examine how we sense, make sense, and decide within the emerging operational environment, cognisant of the increasingly sophisticated and integrated relationship between humans, technology, and autonomous systems which will characterise fifth-generation operations. Questions abound regarding how enduring requirements for situational awareness and deeper environment understanding can be met, and command intent communicated through a contested and congested electromagnetic spectrum. Multi-domain command and control will be a critical enabler for fifth-generation manoeuvre with communication and network resilience a fundamental consideration in force design and employment. Finally, we must consider how we shape a fifth-generation mindset for combat support and combat service support functions to better exploit the advantages of greater access and movement of information as well as the traditional physical enablers of manoeuvre. The Central Blue’s #5thgenmanoeuvre series, together with the seminar, will seek to explore these issues. Definitive answers are unlikely – but perhaps a better idea of the critical questions that must be explored will begin to emerge. We welcome contributions leading up to the seminar to help shape the discussion, but we are also keen to read about how the seminar shaped attendees’ thinking after the event. We encourage submissions from students, academics, policymakers, service personnel of all ranks, industry, and from others with an interest in these issues. We encourage potential contributors to engage early in their writing process! To help get you started, we pose the following topic suggestions: What are the differences in character and attributes of fifth-generation manoeuvre when compared to the past? What are potential gaps in the way we must think, equip and organise to meet emerging national security outcomes? How can the ADF orchestrate a rapid increase in tempo and open up new ways and means of projecting power and undertaking an indirect approach to warfare? How does the evolving relationship between the human and technology and the trusted autonomous systems affect fifth-generation operations and manoeuvre? What is the role of critical infrastructure and geography, and the opportunities and risks associated with the Australian operating environment? How can multi-domain command and control be a critical enabler for fifth-generation manoeuvre with communication and network resilience? How can we better operate when the electromagnetic spectrum is both contested and congested? What are some of the logistics and sustainment challenges arising from fifth-generation manoeuvre? What does a fifth-generation manoeuvrist look like? How do we develop them? To submit an article email us at thecentralblue@gmail.com. #RoyalAustralianAirForce #5thGenerationAirPower #MultiDomainOperations #CallforSubmissions #ManoeuvreWarfare