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Dr Robbin Laird, Multi-Domain Operations in Australia’s Maritime Strategy: The Army, Navy, and Air Force Orient Their Efforts, 29 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) The focus of the April 11., 2024 Williams Foundation seminar was on multi-domain operations in support of a maritime strategy. But each service focuses primarily on a particular domain and sees its role in terms of a maritime strategy from their perspective. What then really does multi-domain mean from the standpoint of each service in pursuit of an effective maritime strategy? This is determined in part by how one defines what an effective strategy requires and this determination is shaped by whether you are a land, air or surface or sub-surface force. A multi-domain focus can blur an essential perspective: in particular operations, who is the supported and supported force in pursuit of what outcome or effect desired in an operation? The Army Role The changes being worked by the Australian government have a very significant impact on the Australian Army. Not only is their role focused on the region and operations from the northern areas of the country, but their template for operations is shifting as well. They are becoming a littoral maneuver force in support of operations in the maritime regions and areas north of Australia. And the USMC rotation to the Northern Territories will be part of shaping that template. It should be noted that the Marines are working their open template for operations throughout the region, and the Australian Army and USMC will almost certainly dovetail operations. As they template is shaped, it is obvious that funding or new equipment needs to be provided. Some is already in place in terms of providing for longer range strike and for ships to move Army forces within the region. As a USNI News piece described the changes in an October 2, 2023 article: The Australian Army is slated to shift its focus to the littorals after announcing last week several major changes, which include the redeploying a sizable portion of soldiers and equipment across the country and optimizing several brigades for littoral and amphibious missions… The Australian Department of Defence announced these changes in response to the 2023 Defence Strategic Review…The DSR recommended it to be “optimized for littoral operations in our northern land and maritime spaces and provide a long-range strike capability.” Aside from reducing the procurement of infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers, some of the top recommendations for the Australian Army were to speed up the procurement and increase the quantity of HIMARS, land-based maritime Strike systems and amphibious vessels. Last week’s announcement highlighted significant changes to the mission sets of the 1st, 7th and 3rd multirole combat brigades, which will become more specialized. The 1st Brigade will be transformed into a light combat brigade, which will allow it to be “light, agile and quick to deploy in the littoral environment” and “support land-based long-range fires.” While Australia has ordered HIMARS, under LAND 4100 Phase 2 the Australian Army is looking to procure a land-based maritime strike capability… The 7th and 3rd will become motorized and armored combat brigades, respectively. However, like 1st Brigade, the two also will focus on littoral and amphibious operations. To address these littoral missions, brand-new littoral lift groups are also slated to be created and collocated with the brigades in their respective basing locations. Littoral lift groups will host Army Littoral Manoeuvre Vessels, including both landing craft medium and heavy, which will be procured in Phases 1 and 2 LAND 8710… At the moment, 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, is Australia’s premier and only amphibious-focused unit. With the changes announced last week, all three of the Australian Army’s active brigades will have either littoral or amphibious focuses. On the one hand, the Army is to play a role in supporting maritime operations by being able to deliver strike in support of maritime forces. On the other hand, the Army needs to have sufficient size to hold ground in significant areas out to Australia’s first island chain in time of conflict, and the Army then would be the supported force. The USMC unlike the Australian Army has organic lift and long-distance assets such as the Osprey and the F-35B which can support its littoral operations. The Australian Army is a rotorcraft enabled force without the kind of lift which the Osprey and the CH-53K provide the USMC. And the integration of the F-35 into the USMC maneuver element is a key element changing how the rest of the littoral force can operate. Will a similar role occur with Australian F-35s and the Australian Army? Brigadier James Davis presenting at the Williams Foundation April 11, 2024. At the seminar, the Army perspective was provided BRIG James Davis, Director General Future Land Warfare. In his presentation, he underscored to the audience that “the majority of the infrastructure which supports a maritime strategy is on land.” In that sense, littoral maneuver from one land location to another within the littoral maneuver space. Ports, airports, sensors, satellite dishes, terrestrial launch and recovery are land-based. For context, Australia has 59,000 kilometers of coast and 50% of our population live within a few kilometers of our coasts. Beyond are shores but within our sovereign area are 8,222 islands and numerous offshore installations.” He underscored that the “DSR described an Army optimized for littoral and archipelagic operations.” And here he provided a clear sense of the Army role and perspective: “The littoral is an area for the fusion of cross-domain effects and where land forces can make their greatest contribution to the integrated force.” He argued that the government has therefore shifted resources within Army to work in this domain. “This includes government direction to establish a new long range fires regiment equipped with 36 HIMARS launchers and a littoral group of 18 medium watercraft, pending approval of a second long-range strike regiment, and eight heavy landing craft will be in service from the end of the decade.” A key role for the Australian Army is working in the neighborhood. “In peacetime, army watercraft will operate to provide organic mobility to the integrated force and to work with our partners and allies in the region, building collective understanding capability and offsetting risk, because armies are the largest arm of the militaries in our region.” He then added: “In conflict, we see special and general-purpose forces using these vessels operating in operations below the engagement threshold. They will be able to enable joint and integrated C4 by getting communications nodes and relays to the right places, and getting sensors, weapons and influence to where they can exert domain control largely in the maritime domain. This includes maritime strike systems with ranges of hundreds of kilometers. The value of these systems will be the difficulty of detecting or engaging them.” He noted that “land forces will also support all domain targeting.” And control of territory within the littoral region is crucial as well. He underscored that “at times, more robust application of land power will be needed to maintain or gain control of specific terrain, such as offshore islands. These outposts have always been critical in maritime strategy.” He provided a good description of the new template. He highlighted some of the initial investments to make the template real but there are significant changes in aviation as well as watercraft, including in autonomous systems to be made and paid for in the years ahead. The Air Force Role In the presentation of Air Commodore Mick Durant, Director General Strategy and Planning—Air Force, the role of the RAAF in maritime operations was highlighted. Given that the RAAF provides the air element for the Royal Australian Navy this is somewhat equivalent to a discussion of how the U.S. Navy’s air arm works with the fleet and then with the USAF, but it is different because the integration of the RAAF and the RAN is a key element of the operational realities of the ADF. Their integration already is multi-domain so what is necessary is to sort out how the addition of the SSN’s alter this and how the new fleet elements will work to reinforce or disrupt integration already created by the 2017 government focus on the Aegis combat system being the digital backbone of the fleet which has enabled deeper RAN and RAAF integration, and in fact such digital integration is crucial to shaping multi-domain operations. As he commenced his presentation Durant highlighted the operational challenge: “From an airpower viewpoint, we will operate at distance from our home bases from austere and remote locations across our north and operate deep into the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean and the surrounding areas.” And closing kill chains across a vast region highlights the need to integrate sensors to deliver to weapons effects across the combat chessboard. In effect, the RAAF provides both sensors and shooters in the maritime areas of operation, and sensors to enable the fleet and its targeting efforts as well. Notably, the coming of Triton is symptomatic of these integration efforts whereby targeting data is generated outside of the weapons engagement zone and transmitted to other sensors and to shooter in the engagement zone. As Durant underscored: “Our potential adversaries will also be highly adaptive, and we are seeking to do the same. This also draws a requirement for the integrative force to think more deeply about building resiliency, as well as managing its own signature. All of this is underpinned by the air force intelligence and enterprise targeting capabilities. With the introduction of new platforms such as the F 35, the P-8, the Triton, and the Peregrine, the complexity and volume of intelligence data has and will continue to increase exponentially. Defense intelligence capabilities will need to embrace automation and edge processing to accelerate Association, correlation, and fusion of data within high capacity resilient and redundant networks.” He emphasized the air agility basing issue in which the ISR and C2 systems needed to embrace a dispersed force operating from various locations on Australian territory. The intersection of a kill web C4ISR system with force distribution is a crucial way ahead for the RAAF. Air Commodore Mick Durant presenting at the Williams Foundation Seminar April 11, 2024. Air Commodore Durant put it this way: “The key airpower principle of centralized control may prove to be transient. However, distributed and decentralized clusters will be able to generate both deliberate and dynamic air effects. To contextualize this through an integrated air and missile defense lens, we will never have enough exquisite interceptors to interdict all threats and to protect all key nodes. “This not only reinforces the criticality of passive protection measures of camouflage. deception and hardening, but it also underscores the need for new approaches to create distributed mass. A more asymmetric force mix that includes uncrewed and autonomous systems, to complement the force in being is how a small to medium size Air Force might generate greater mass lethality and survivability into its air combat system.” He highlighted progress underway, such as the creation of regional air force development teams across northern Australia to examine how to enhance force posture options. Air Commodore Durant provided an example of progress evidenced in the last Talisman Sabre exercise. “Last year’s exercise provided a huge opportunity for Air Force and Navy to integrate the ADF its most potent air defence maritime capabilities with HMS Sydney and Hobart integrating their air and missile defense capabilities with the Wedgetail aircraft. Combined with an equally potent force of P-8s, Growlers and F 35 stealth fighter aircraft, the participants exercised against an equally formidable threat environment where emerging capability capabilities were trialed. “Our emerging agile control teams established remote command and control linkages for the joint force demonstrating an ability to pass data using multiple discrete nodes providing resilience to a connectivity matrix in a denied environment. “Additionally, our maritime strike platforms exercised and tested their ability to find, fix and target discrete maritime assets at tactically significant ranges. Against an equally challenging threat environment, the joint force exercised their ability to introduce new tactics and procedures throughout the exercise to counter emerging threat capabilities.” Air Commodore Durant provided another example of the way ahead with regard to operational innovation evidenced in the coalition exercise Cope North. This is how he put it: “The focus of the exercise was to stress, validate and improve national and trilateral agile combat employment capabilities. Commencing in Guam, the exercise saw the activation and operation of United States Air Force and Japanese self-defence force and our own RAAF assets from the main operating base to six Island forward operating bases. Over the course of three weeks. Air Force representatives from Air Command innovation and Jericho joined the exercise to work with the USAF combined rapid capability development team. This team was focused on solving critical operational problem sets as they arose in theater, or as a response to adverse reaction with the ability to rapidly deploy the solution to the frontline in order to maintain the competitive advantage of the coalition effect.” He concluded: “The ability for airpower to deliver impactful projection within our maritime approaches requires a combination of effective defence, combined with a series of highly integrated multi-domain offensive counters as part of the integrated force and in conjunction with allies and partners. This is how airpower will deliver a strategy of denial in our key maritime approaches.” The Navy Role The perspective of the Royal Australian Navy was presented by Rear Admiral Stephen Hughes, Head of Navy Capability. Hughes presented at the last seminar as well and there he provided a number of insights. At that seminar, RADM Stephen Hughes, Head Navy Capability, underscored that when focusing on the maritime domain, one is inherently focused on multi-domain strike. The maritime warfighting domain is shaped by strike whether coming from land, surface, subsurface or air domains, as well the cyber and space domains. “To attain long range strike capabilities allows us to move from a strategy of defense to a strategy of deterrence through denial which signifies a national shift that aims to hold an adversary at risk a greater range raising a question in the adversary’s mind about whether they want to attempt to act against us. “So what does the maritime force bring to the fight? “A maritime force is able to be agile, mobile expeditionary scalable, sustainable, versatile, networked, and lethal. Maritime force provides critical advantages through their ability to use the oceans to maneuver and hide in the case of submarines, and the airspace and the space above that domain. Maritime force combines distributed fleet operations, and mobile expeditionary forces with sea control and sea denial capabilities. “However, a maritime force does not compete, deter, or fight alone. The maritime force is an integral part of the joint force and works closely with allies and partners to bring to bear maritime effects. Controlling the seas enables the maritime force to project power in support of Joint Force efforts. surging into the theater of operations, where adversaries must cross open water. Sea denial deprives them the initiative prevents them from achieving their objectives. “Maritime force controls or denies the seas by destroying an adversary’s fleet or their associated air support. And in in the modern battle space even extends into space. It can contain it in areas that prevents meaningful operations prohibited from leaving port by controlling sea lines of communication. Maritime forces capable of controlling critical choke points enable joint forces to impose military and economic costs on the adversary.” Rear Admiral Stephen Hughes presenting at the Williams Foundation Seminar April 11, 2024. He also added comments with regard to the innovation which Navy is working to enhance multi-domain strike. “The future of our strike capability needs to include the use of uncrewed systems. Navy is working with industry in exploring solutions through the autonomous warrior series of experimental exercises. And such systems will have the ability to strike deep against an adversary by deploying mines and other guided weapons by using sovereign Australian capabilities.” As he underscored: “The defense strategic review has placed a premium on accelerating lethality for deterrence and impactful projection,” He cited the examples not only of acquiring TLAMS but the development of greater maritime strike capabilities. against maritime forces, whether from an F-35 or from anti-ship missile capabilities. At this seminar, he added an update with regard to what the Australian government has focused on in its strategic shift, namely, a focused force on the region which will eventually include nuclear attack submarines and new surface ships as announced in the fleet review recently announced. As the government announced on February 20, 2024, the intention was to expand the surface fleet. Today, the Albanese Government has released its blueprint for a larger and more lethal surface combatant fleet for the Royal Australian Navy, more than doubling the size of the surface combatant fleet under the former government’s plan. This follows the Government’s careful consideration of the recommendations of the independent analysis of the surface combatant fleet, commissioned in response to the Defence Strategic Review. Our strategic circumstances require a larger and more lethal surface combatant fleet, complemented by a conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet. Navy’s future fleet will be integral to ensure the safety and security of our sea lines of communication and maritime trade, through operations in our immediate region. This fleet will constitute the largest number of surface combatants since WWII. The independent analysis of Navy’s surface combatant fleet lamented the current surface combatant fleet was the oldest fleet Navy has operated in its history, and emphasised the need for immediate action to boost Navy’s air defence, long-range strike, presence and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. In line with independent analysis’ recommendations, Navy’s future surface combatant fleet will comprise: 26 major surface combatants consisting of: Three Hobart class air warfare destroyers with upgraded air defence and strike capabilities Six Hunter class frigates to boost Navy’s undersea warfare and strike capabilities 11 new general purpose frigates that will provide maritime and land strike, air defence and escort capabilities Six new Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels (LOSVs) that will significantly increase Navy’s long-range strike capacity Six remaining Anzac class frigates with the two oldest ships to be decommissioned as per their planned service life. The Government has also accepted the independent analysis’ recommendations to have: 25 minor war vessels to contribute to civil maritime security operations, which includes six Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs). The Hunter class frigates will be built at the Osborne shipyard in South Australia, and will be followed by the replacement of the Hobart class destroyer. The Hobart destroyers will be upgraded at Osborne with the latest US Navy Aegis combat system. The new general purpose frigate will be accelerated to replace the Anzac class frigates, meaning the Transition Capability Assurance (TransCAP) upgrades are no longer required. These new general purpose frigates will be modern, capable and more lethal, requiring smaller crews than the Anzac. Consolidation of the Henderson precinct is currently underway, as recommended by the Defence Strategic Review. Successful and timely consolidation will enable eight new general purpose frigates to be built at the Henderson precinct, and will also enable a pathway to build six new Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels in Western Australia. The Albanese Government is committed to continuous naval shipbuilding in Australia and the design of Navy’s future fleet will provide a stable and ongoing pipeline of work to the 2040s and beyond. Although the review described projected fleet size, the crucial question is how the subsurface and surface fleet, crewed and uncrewed, are integrated in or integratable within a kill web force. It is about the effects created through such a force rather than simply having a ship building program in my view. In fact when a colleague and I were working for a senior US Navy Admiral, we began to work on a project that he thought was long overdue, namely, replacing the 30 year shipbuilding program with a very different measure, namely a 30 year Navy capability plan. The words are significant here. This is in my view one of the challenges is using a phrase like multi-domain as it may obscure what the real objective is, namely, to project power and to have effective mobile defence of your forces and nation to deliver the desired combat and strategic effects. The future of the Royal Australian Navy rests within this matrix, and as Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett has argued in my recent interview with him, that ramping up capability in the three-to-five-year period rests ultimately on the ability to shape operational space to use autonomous systems, As he stated: “The surface combatant review took an eye to considering autonomous systems but considered them a generation away. But the reality is that we are already down the autonomous systems path now. “It is wrong simply to focus on long range prospects for autonomous systems not yet here, such as platforms which could potentially carry a large number of weapons cells, rather than on the systems that are already here. The current systems can deliver significant ISR capability for example, and we need to integrate these systems into the operating force.” The other key consideration is the integration of the combat systems in the surface and subsurface fleet in a way that allows for the kind of integration mentioned earlier in the Air Force perspective, namely the air warfare destroyer’s integration of air force combat systems. In 2017, the Australian government took a key decision which in my view is crucial to maintain. This was the October 3, 2017 announcement: The new approach for combat management systems will ensure our Navy’s future ships are fitted out to protect Australia in the decades ahead. Under the plan, the combat management system for Australia’s fleet of nine Future Frigates will be provided by the Aegis Combat Management System, together with an Australian tactical interface, which will be developed by SAAB Australia. This decision will maximise the Future Frigate’s air warfare capabilities, enabling these ships to engage threat missiles at long range, which is vital given rogue states are developing missiles with advanced range and speed. The Future Frigates will be operating in a complex and growing threat environment. By bringing together the proven Aegis system, with a cutting edge Australian tactical interface developed by SAAB Australia, our Future Frigates will have the best capability to defeat future threats above and below the surface, while also ensuring we maintain sovereign control of key technologies, such as the Australian designed and built CEA phased array radar. In the past, Defence has taken the tendered combat management systems individually, which has meant that the Navy has operated numerous systems at the same time. This has not allowed defence industry to strategically invest for the long-term and has also increased the cost of training, maintenance and repair. Under the Turnbull Government’s new strategic enterprise approach, the Government has now mandated that where the high-end warfighting capabilities of the Aegis system are not required, a SAAB Australia developed combat management system will be used on all of Australia’s future ship projects. This includes mandating a SAAB Australia combat management system on the upcoming Offshore Patrol Vessels, which will be built in Australia from 2018, and an Australian tactical interface developed by SAAB Australia for the Hobart class Air Warfare Destroyers when their Aegis combat management system is upgraded in the future, consistent with the 2016 Defence White Paper. Further, it guarantees the development of a long-term sustainable Australian Combat Management System industry, which is integral to the implementation of the Government’s Naval Shipbuilding Plan. Frankly, nothing has changed for the necessity of such an approach. And in fact arguing for a multi-domain integrated Navy only underscores its necessity.

Dr Robbin Laird, Aligning Airpower Capabilities with Australia’s Maritime Strategy, 26 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) At the April 11, 2024 Williams Foundation seminar, the former head of the Air Warfare Center and now Director General for Air Combat Capability, Air Commodore Ross Bender, addressed the way ahead for the RAAF in dovetailing with the new strategic focus of the Australian government. Bender noted that the RAAF although closely partnered with other allies is focused on “conducting campaigns directed to the operational and strategic goals supporting national defense.” It is focused in this sense, and increasingly on the region. The speed and range of airpower is an essential contribution to the defense of Australia’s maritime interests. As Bender put it: “The ADF must be able to operate across great distances to assure the security of our economic interests and be able to support our allies and partners. Air capability is vital to the maritime domain by providing the speed and responsiveness which it can deliver.” He provided a slide which reminded the audience of an aspect of the range and focus challenge. He commented on this slide as follows: “And though we’ll discuss northern approaches, we should not forget the south with the Antarctic Treaty in mind, which from 2048, any of the parties can call for review. I also flag our contributions to some long standing and some relatively new maritime surveillance operations throughout our region, supporting the Australian Government and importantly, our regional partners. “You might be aware of the Australian P-8 that recently visited La Réunion. Australia is a maritime nation and the ADF must be able to operate across great distances to assure the security of economic interests and be able to support our allies and partners.” I would note that the ADF is truly dependent on what the RAAF can do as it provides both the air capability associated with the USAF in the United States as well as what the U.S. Navy provides for the U.S. military. It delivers strike, reconnaissance, maritime ISR and targeting data to the ADF. If the RAAF is not capable of performing its air delivered 360 degree capabilities, then the entire maritime domain defense enterprise for Australia is severely weakened. In his talk, he discussed the need for the RAAF to develop its own version of agile employment which largely will evolve over ways to operate from the Northern areas of Australia where there are significant infrastructure and work force limitations. The challenge of fuel and logistical support to a distributed force is a major one to be met. I would note that it has been announced that there is to be acquisition of AGM-158C LRASM anti-ship missiles to be carried on F/A-18Fs, P-8As and eventually F-35As, as well as AGM-158B JASSM-ER air-to-ground missiles. Another item is integration of the Kongsberg Joint Strike Missile on the F-35A. E/A-18G Growlers will receive 63 AGM-88E AARGM-ER missiles for attacking radars. And as McInnes noted in his presentation, the range of these missiles in terms of effective attack is expanded by the operation of the air platform themselves. Bender then discussed the coming of Triton to the ADF. “Triton will operate from RAAF base Tyndall in the Northern Territory and be controlled from RAAF base Edinburgh in South Australia, a clear example of the new paradigm for the ADF and the Air Force. The platform is high cost, requires a highly skilled workforce to operate and maintain, but its capability is ideally suited for constant observation of our northern approaches.” But the plan is to expand over time autonomous capabilities augmenting the manned and remotely piloted combat force. Air Commodore Bender underscored: “Advanced autonomous concepts and capabilities, such as collaborative combat aircraft, can expand the projected envelope of high value, air or maritime assets, while extending their effective reach.” Air Commodore Bender presenting at the Williams Foundation Seminar April 11, 2024. A challenging and I personally believe costly effort that is not fully recognized in realistic budget discussions is simply adapting the RAAF to new operational conditions and contexts. This is how Air Commodore Bender put It: “There must be important efforts to address a challenge in operating force in Australia. We can’t consider our bases as sanctuaries anymore, disconnected from the support base in Australia. How do we continue to operate and demonstrate resilience and maintain the initiative to support deterrence? “The Air Force is adopting an agile operations concept of a maneuver across a dispersed and hardened network of bases. Of course, this approach must include the measures we can take through the development of integrated air and missile defense capabilities. This protection also requires an understanding of own force signatures, and the automated threat environment, including to supporting and enabling elements. “An agile posture increases deterrence by being strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable. Strategic predictability comes from ensuring potential adversaries are left under no doubt about our resolve to ensure survivable, resilient, and enduring airpower operations. Agility at the level we think necessary requires new approaches to combat support, logistics and command and control. “At its heart, an agile operations concept provides a network of air domain access points to enable aircraft to move rapidly to enable us to aggregate effects, and then disaggregate and reconstitute to complicate advisory targeting. Agile operations enable the resilience of our airpower.” But what is the challenge in moving ahead with such a vision? What follow are my own thoughts and not those of any speaker during the day of the Williams Foundation seminar from the ADF. The reality is that the government is cutting airpower in favor of its investments in the future maritime force, notably SSNs and the future surface fleet. This leaves clear gaps with regard to the enhancing of ADF capability in the crucial three-to-five year period facing the ADF. Government documents and officials have embraced the notion that Australia’s warning time is significantly reduced but the reality is that the government is cutting current capability to pay for a force 10 years away. One needs to be clear. The decision to cut funding for the fourth squadron of F-35s is a significant reduction in capability. Notably, when one considers the range at which F-35s operating as an allied fleet can move data for targeting, eliminating the numbers of aircraft have an impact. And the RAAF F-35s are capable of integration with those of the USAF and in fact now operate in such a manner. This is not interoperability but integratability which is a very unique contribution delivered by the F-35 across the ADF and U.S. militaries fleet of F-35s, USMC, US Navy and USAF. This is simply not true of a legacy aircraft like the Super Hornet, for in fact that is why the ADF was buying the F-35 in the first place. And air autonomous systems are not a solution for the three-to-five-year period in and of themselves but might become useful adjuncts as ISR or C2 nodes in a kill web especially as Triton comes on board. There could be accelerated capability to move data from Triton to loyal wingman operations if there is an operational and budgetary space for the USE of autonomous systems prioritized by the government in the three-to-five-year period. And the work on the Australian approach to agile combat employment is a priority but will be costly up front and require new working relationships between Army and the RAAF as well. In an interview I did last year with John Blackburn with Air Vice-Marshal Darren Goldie, then the Air Commander of the RAAF, we discussed the challenge of re-focusing the force: “We don’t have the level of knowledge and normative experience we need to generate regarding infrastructure across Western and Northern Australia for the Australian version of agile combat employment.” He contrasted the Australian to the PACAF approach to agility. The USAF in his view was working on how to trim down support staff for air operations and learning how to use multiple bases in the Pacific, some of which they owned and some of which they did not own. The Australian concept he was highlighting was focused on Australian geography and how the joint force and the infrastructure which could be built — much of it mobile – could allow for dispersed air combat operations. This meant in his view that “we need to have a clear understanding of the fail and no-fail enablers” for the kind of dispersed operations necessary to enhance the ADF’s deterrent capability. A key element of this is C2. Rather than looking to traditional CAOC battle management, the focus needs as well to focus on C2 in a dispersed or disaggregate way, where the commander knows what is available to them in an area of operations and aggregate those forces into an integrated combat element operating as a distributed entity. Goldie commented: “We are developing concepts about how we will do command and control on a more geographic basis. This builds on our history with Darwin and Tindal to a certain extent, although technology has widened that scale to be a truly continental distributed control concept. “We already a familiar with how an air asset like the Wedgetail can take over the C2 of an air battle when communications are cut to the CAOC, but we don’t have a great understanding of how that works from a geographic basing perspective. What authorities to move aircraft, people and other assets are vested in local area Commanders that would be resilient to degradation in communications from the theatre commander – or JFACC? “We need to focus on how we can design our force to manoeuvre effectively using our own territory as the chessboard.” Air Vice-Marshal Goldie underscored that the ability to work with limited resources to generate air combat capability is exercised regularly by the normal activity of 75 Squadron, flying F-35s in Australia’s Air Combat Group. This squadron operates from RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory and as Goldie put it: “they have to operate with what they have in a very austere area.” He highlighted a recent exercise which 75 squadron did with their Malaysian partners. The squadron operated their F-35s, and each day practiced operations using a different support structure. One day the operated with a C-27J which carried secure communication, along with HF communications systems and dealing with bandwidth challenges each bearer posed. Another day they would operate with a ground vehicle packed with support equipment and on another day they would operate without either support capability. The point being the need is to learn to operate in austere support environments and to shape the skill sets to do so. By learning how to use Australian territory to support agile air operations, and to take those capabilities to partner or allied operational areas, Australia will significantly enhance its deterrent capabilities going forward. This is a key challenge being squarely addressed by the RAAF. So what can be achieved in the near to midterm along these lines? In my view, this is a key measure of the credibility of Australian deterrence by denial or whatever other term you might use.

Dr Robbin Laird, Conceptualizing Australia’s Maritime Strategy and Shaping a Government Approach, 24 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) I followed up with Jennifer Parker on April 19, 2024 with regard to her presentation on how to conceptualize Australian maritime strategic interests and strategy. We focused on how she conceptualized the strategy and the needed approach as much wider than a focus on ADF capabilities. We discussed the need for reforming the Australian Defense Force’s structure to address 21st century security challenges. We highlighted in our discussion the importance of involving society and the economy in a broader conversation about defense and security, and the need for expedited capability acquisition to address existing gaps and emerging threats. We finally focused on the challenge to shape a more ambitious approach to defense organization design, involving a broader societal and economic involvement to address capacity issues and maximize government capacity. Parker started by arguing that “in Australia, we jump to the capability conversation to quickly.” She argued that any consideration of national security strategy must start with assessing Australia’s critical vulnerabilities across various domains, including political warfare, cyber warfare, and space which affects its maritime interests. Maritime strategy then would be part of such an approach. And when done in this manner, Parker argues that “we need to address organizational structure and how we have organized ourselves to deal with our vulnerabilities.” Doing so will underscore the need for restructuring national agencies and departments to better address these vulnerabilities, with a focus on linking up broader considerations and authorities to do so. This suggests or reinforces the need for a national security architecture to coordinate maritime security efforts. In such an architecture one key organizational issue to be dealt with is the lack of data sharing across fleets and departments, and the need for a central authority to address security crises. Such a re-think then would lead to a broader engagement of the society and the economic leaders in shaping such a national strategy which would be inclusive of a maritime one. Parker put it this way: “The third thing to do after focusing on vulnerabilities and government restructuring is to be really open with the public about what’s happening, and why we need these changes.” This is a version of my own argument that simply pursuing a national security strategy in age where global security challenges are diffuse within our societies is simply continuing the role if national security decision makers as some sort of high priesthood. The broader engagement of the society and economy is critical. Evolving defense needs rely increasingly on a security base which is not narrowly about defense. Much or perhaps most of the technologies to be mastered for defense come from the commercial sector. The flow of dual use technologies has changed from defense to the civil economy to operating the other way around. Based on such a re-set the ADF needs to review its structure to address multiple domains of operations as it proceeds with its multi-domain integration. We then discussed the capability issues. How does Australia address its gaps in Navy capabilities, particularly in submarines and ships, in a more urgent manner? Parker underscored that the Navy’s capability acquisition process needs reform in order to move faster and be more responsive to changing needs. I mentioned my discussions with a senior U,S, Admiral who focused on their need to fill capabilities gaps with new or extant technologies, but the U.S. acquisition process simply does not allow them to do so. The same is true of Australia, and this especially significant as contributions from autonomous systems – air and maritime – which are software driven payload carriers — become especially significant in force redesign an meeting shortfalls in the short and medium term. Their constant redesign as use dictates a new approach whereby the users and the developers need to be working in an ongoing and continuous process of changing these systems based on real world experience. When the Plan Jericho approach was launched by the RAAF one of the key themes identified was the need to enable software transient advantages for the force compared to an adversary. This is evident now in the coming of autonomous systems and how to include them in the force, but the challenge of how data is generated by the force and used in a whole of government maritime security and defense effort only is worsened by the coming of these systems. There needs to be organizational change in the ADF and in whole of government in order to effectively employ these new platforms – who are not covered at all by the legacy acquisition process – to the benefit of the ADF, the Maritime Border Command and to the Australian government. When such a re-design is pursued then the workforce problem changes as well. Parker emphasized the need to shift from a more traditional conversation of recruitment and retention to how agencies are organized for cross domain capacity. How to enhance the efficacy and efficiency of the government cross domain to deliver the necessary decisions in the right time? How to use the workforce more effectively and to assess the ability to deliver desired effects is even more important than managing the extant workforce to increase its numbers as the ADF seeks to expand.

Dr Robbin Laird, Shaping Space for Autonomous Systems in the Operating Force: The Case of the Loyal Wingman, 23 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) In the re-direction of Australian defence underway by the Labor government, a key challenge will be to make progress in the three to five years ahead for the ADF and the nation in meeting the growing global threats, while investments are being made to shape a different force down the road. In such an effort, shaping a space for autonomous systems to assist in the process is an important aspect. But as I have argued in my recent book on The Coming of Maritime Autonomous Systems, such systems complement the manned force, they don’t replace. In fact, they will be incorporated not with a replacement of platform logic but as a kill web logic: how do these platforms as payload enablers add specific capability to solve key problems facing the force? They are not one to one platform replacements which means that the logic for their inclusion in the forces is not inherited from the past but is part of shaping an innovative way forward. What these systems provide are payloads which can assist in various tasks to augment the lethality and survivability of the manned force. A good example of what is entailed is the Loyal Wingman program in Australia. In a February 9, 2024 press release this is what the government said about the program: The Albanese Government has secured hundreds of highly skilled jobs while driving innovation in Australia’s local defence industry with the allocation of an additional $399 million for the ongoing development of the MQ-28A Ghost Bat. The MQ-28A Ghost Bat, known as a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), is being developed in cooperation with Boeing Defence Australia. It is the first military combat aircraft to be designed, engineered and manufactured in Australia in more than 50 years. An entirely new technology, it is designed to act as a loyal wingman which will be able to protect and support our military assets and pilots and undertake a wide range of activities across large distances, including performing combat roles. The Government is now moving forward with the next stage of the program, including delivery of three Block 2 aircraft which have an enhanced design and improved capabilities. This funding boost will enable a focus on developing sensor and mission payloads, an integrated combat system and autonomous systems. The additional funding announced today also secures over 350 jobs across Australia and will ensure ongoing work for over 200 suppliers, supporting the local defence industry and further contributing to well-paid employment opportunities for Australians. The further development of MQ-28A Ghost Bat comes after the Government agreed with a Defence Strategic Review recommendation that options be developed for collaboration and technology sharing with the United States. In line with the Government’s response, Defence signed a CCA development project arrangement with the United States on 30 March 2023. More than 70 per cent of the MQ-28A Ghost Bat delivery program is being directed towards Australian industry content, delivering substantial benefits to local companies and their highly skilled workforces. Quotes attributable to Minister for Defence Industry, the Hon Pat Conroy MP: “This is the first military aircraft to be designed, engineered and manufactured in Australia in more than 50 years and underscores the depth of innovation and expertise in our defence industry. “More than 200 Australian companies have already contributed to the MQ-28A program, including more than 50 small and medium enterprises within the supply chain. This project demonstrates that with the appropriate support from government, Australia’s defence industry can continue to be a world leader and a key source of jobs. “The prosperity and security of our nation and will always be a top priority for the Albanese Government. That’s why giving our Air Force the critical capabilities it needs to protect Australians, and their interests, is paramount.” Ok, but what problem is the new air system being designed to solve? Where will it fit into the force? And how does it add capability without burdening the sustainment enterprise within the ADF itself? I had a chance to discuss the way ahead with Group Captain Darren Clare, Director Combat Futures. As the first squadron commander of the F-35, Clare has a good sense of the direction of air combat power, and is now working the issue of where a new autonomous air system would contribute most in the mid-term and thereby lay down capabilities for expanded use in the longer term. Commander Air Combat Group, Air Commodore Tim Alsop (left) and Commanding Officer of No. 3 Squadron, Wing Commander Darren Clare in front of A35-010 which has been temporarily rebranded in celebration of Mr Felix Sainsbury on his 100th Birthday. Credit: Australian Department of Defence, May 14, 2020 A core problem facing the new generation of autonomous systems beyond the question of how to develop and build them is where to incorporate them in the force. A loyal wingman is a key point, for a fifth-generation air force does not operate with wingmen in the legacy sense but in new ways in much wider formations. They are part of a kill web, so the place for the payloads on such an air system will be found in terms of what they can contribute that the combat force finds useful. Where do they fit into the force? How can they be sustained and operated by the force? And what payloads can be credibly used by the officers charged with the authorities to use combat power for kinetic purposes? In other words, determining where they fit into the force is crucial to ensure that we are not simply focusing on science projects, rather than on assets which are sustainable parts of an operating joint force. For such capabilities to be significant, they must be more than aspirational: they must be in the hands of warfighters who understand what problems they are solving for the combat force. In the discussion with GPCAPT Clare he underscored a number of key points which need to be addressed in order to bring the new systems into the operating force. First, there is a need to demonstrate credible, achievable roles for autonomous systems. Second, the demands placed on the operational force are significant and for the new systems to be adopted there is a need to convince commanders of new system’s worth. Third, the squadron commander needs to be able to control and provide feedback on autonomous systems in real-time. Fourth, to progress to use, it is clear that experimentation and prototyping of autonomous systems are needed to find the best way to integrate them into the Air Force. Above all, the importance of understanding the problem being solved with autonomous systems, and why they are better than traditional systems needs to be demonstrated to convince warfighters to use the capability and to figure how best to integrate it into the force in ways that enhance rather than degrade operational performance. One of my favorite examples of the limits of technology not integrated is how useful the introduction of radar was to the U.S. forces in Hawaii in dealing with the Pearl Harbor attack. An example of how to integrate new systems into an integrated force was Air Marshal Dowding and his crafting of integrated system for air defense of Britain rather than simply having a single new technology – radar – introduced to the force. It is clear at least in my view that an early credible use of such an air system would be to carry payloads which could make the new aircraft a node in a kill web, which could move data from Triton and distribute to the joint force. Frankly, I think that weaponizing such a system is down the road but enhancing the contribution of P-8s and Tritons in terms of distributing data in the battlespace particularly with AI routing is a much nearer term capability which be valued by the operational force. And perhaps this would happen earlier in the operational force if the new aircraft would not be managed by a squadron, but by an organization like the Surveillance and Response Group as part of their providing data to the joint force. But getting on with use rather than conceiving of this program as if it were a traditional replacement air platform is critical if the ADF is to receive benefit from the program in the three to five year period in front of the ADF that needs to avoid a valley of reduced capability to pay for the future force. Credit Photo: The Airpower Teaming System – ‘Loyal Wingman’ prototype aircraft during a flight over Woomera, South Australia. Credit: Australian Department of Defence, September 29, 2021.

Dr Robbin Laird, Air Power in Australia’s Maritime Strategy, 21 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) This was the title of the presentation by Chris McInnes, a noted Australian airpower and defence analyst, to the April 11, 2024 Williams Foundation Seminar. He provided an overview of how airpower made unique contributions to Australian defence by providing rapid strike options throughout the Australian areas of interest. McInnes highlighted air power’s ability to provide rapid engagement and could do so over extensive operational space to deliver desired effects. He argued that in times of an effects-based approach, airpower transforms the time and space dimension for Australia’s maritime strategy. Airpower provides cost-effective options for Australia’s national security and cost-effectiveness should be prioritized in Australia’s maritime strategy of denial, focusing on delivering large amounts of high explosives to hard targets like warships, airfields, and ports. Indeed, his presentation was an argument that airpower provided a cost-effective way to deliver massive firepower at range. His analysis led to his argument that airpower gives Australia time and space to plan, act, and move effectively. This means that prioritizing investment in air superiority to avoid second-best hand in high-stakes situations is crucial. The presentation can be broken down into three core efforts. The first was to look back at World War II and examine airpower’s key role in the Pacific campaign. It played a crucial and decisive impact on the enemy prior to any other means to encroach on the Japanese advances in the Pacific. A combined arms campaign was necessary to recover territory seized by the Japanese empire, but air power was the tip of the spear and a core element of the ability of the allied air forces from sea and land to destroy enemy forces. The second revolved around the question of the time-space functionality of airpower. Every platform in the joint force is a time-space entity with core characteristics which define what it is able to do. Airpower can move at speed and range no ship can; ships provide slower moving capabilities which can build out a presence force. As he argued: “We can swiftly respond with airpower across huge distances with different options in different places on different days. We have more options available and more time in which to consider them. “But it works both ways. Three hours from Darwin is also three hours to Darwin. PLA airpower can and does hold Australia and its assets at risk across our region in a discretionary, scalable and sustainable manner and in hours, not days. It has already disrupted Australia’s sense of time and space. We are inside our warning time. “I don’t think we’ve quite latched on to what that means though. Airpower shapes how we sense and exploit time and space, which is the most precious thing for Australia and its maritime strategy.” He used a chart to visually underscore the time-space point about airpower. McInnes carefully examined the cost-benefit of weapons delivery enabled by airpower with standoff weapons from sea or land. He introduced his analysis as follows: “My analysis is limited to strike as the central operational feature of Australia’s maritime strategy of denial. I see the delivery of large amounts of high explosives as determining strike effectiveness and war, and credibility in circumstances short of war. “Australia’s maritime strategy of denial depends on our ability to deliver large and concentrated amounts of high explosive at long range, we could call this impactful projection. We need to hit hard enough to stop movement in different places on different days across a huge area over and over again. The charts he showed highlighted the range, unit costs per weapon, and warhead class correlated with the launch platform to assess cost effectiveness of ADF weapons. He described the charts this way: “Unit costs are shown in U.S. dollars and are based on U.S. budget figures going back to the 70s. The unit cost of new weapons will fall as more are purchased. “The charts clearly show that the delivering the weight of explosive our maritime strategy needs is going to be very expensive, particularly if we become overly reliant on stand-off missiles rather than stand-in weapons in the bottom left corner. It is remarkable how often one reads of the ADF need for long range missiles because of the apparently short range of our air power. “We must however distinguish between stand-off range – which is the distance a weapon travels from its launcher, and which is what the first chart shows – and effective reach, which incorporates the distance the platform and weapons can rapidly cover. “When considering effective reach rather than stand-off range, the picture changes dramatically. Stand-in weapons suddenly become some of our longest-range options. “The second chart incorporates a modest strike radius for the Super Hornet, our shortest-range weapon carrying aircraft. The ADF certainly does need stand-off weapons as they have specific utility against particular targets including air defenses, but they are expensive and inefficient high explosive delivery devices. “Every exquisite component is single use and many many missiles are needed for strikes, particularly against defended targets. They must carry and do everything internally, including propulsion, navigation and communication. This forces trade-offs, often in warhead size.” “Stand-in weapons are much lower cost and almost entirely warhead, including our largest options. They do rely on expensive delivery platforms, but these are reusable, and multi-role. We do need standoff weapons for specific tasks. But once that is done, stand-in weapons are our most economical and among our longest range options for maritime strategy of denial.” He then focused on the key question of the operational infrastructure for the ADF and its operations, arguing that criticism of airpower as too dependent on vulnerable bases and supply lines overlooked the reality that these dependencies could not be avoided. This is how he put it when looking at the opportunity costs of different operations: “What are the trade-offs? “It seems unavoidable that Australia will always need bases and supplies in its north for military operations in our region. Because at some point, all operations need bases and they will all need air power of some kind. Suggestions that dispersing Australia’s assets throughout the archipelago to our north can somehow minimize these costs are hard to square. “Even assuming we hold permission to fly missiles through our neighbours airspace, the units will need to supply and defend themselves locally against air and other attack and they will still need supply lines back to Australia, which will have to be secured using air and sea power.” McInnes’s closing point was to call for a renewed emphasis on the primacy of air superiority in airpower thinking and investment. As he said: “However, we will have no options at all without air superiority. And this I contend is where we have reason for concern. In its simplest sense, air superiority is the condition under which we can operate free from prohibitive interference by the enemy. “Air superiority can be general or local in time and space, it is almost never absolute, and it is a continuous struggle. It is deeply ingrained in the design and operation of Western societies and military forces, including the ADF. It is fundamentally why Australia has an Air Force. It was explicitly the prime campaign for Australian air power until the turn of the century. “But the Western bloc has lost sight of this primacy over the last 30 years due to complacency and distraction. While the U.S. is reinvigorating it’s air superiority approach, its Air Force is struggling for funding while operating its oldest and smallest aircraft fleet since it was formed. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given European air forces a rude wake up. Australia has strengths in the air but it would appear requirements exceed resources geographically and across missions. Mass and tempo are limited.” “Air superiority is a fast-moving competition and deeply unforgiving for those who fall behind. The primacy of air superiority needs to be restored, particularly as the threat grows and funding is squeezed.” Chris McInnes presenting at the Williams Foundation Seminar April 11, 2024. The really decisive aspect of his presentation and indeed what is at the core of the evolution of 21st century combat forces, is the question of payloads and platforms or what I refer to as the evolution of the kill-web force. At the heart of the evolution of fifth generation enabled operations is a significant shift in terms of the sensor-shooter relationship whereby the weapons to be fired at an adversary do not necessarily come for the platform which has the sensor which has identified the target. This is at the heart of the F-35 development which frankly is still not fully understood and comprehended in the defence analytical world. If your goal is to deliver lethal payloads, there are a variety of ways to do so. But at the heart of the issue is where are they launched from and determining what target sets determine which weapons you need and their range. With manned and uncrewed air assets, one significantly reduces the range of the weapon necessary to strike a target as opposed to being launched from land or a ship. The U.S. aircraft carriers have combined speed, mobility, and launching airpower to close the distance for the missiles being fired. To conclude, I want to build on McInnes’s focus on the need dramatically to reduce the cost of the weapons being used. I would argue that we need to build the functional equivalent of the 155mm shell used by the artillery for an air-launched missile which can be produced across the allied forces. This will not be a super long missile, probably in the range of 400 miles, but the long range TLAMS which go further are expensive and in limited supply. What this means is that the future belongs to the common air missile produced in quantity that could also be fired from the ground or sea. The functional equivalent of the role of the shells of the 88 in the German army in World War II is what I envisage.

Dr Robbin Laird, Shaping a Way Ahead for Australian Maritime Strategy, 20 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) The Williams Foundation Seminar held on April 11, 2024 focused on how multi-domain operations could enable Australia to more effectively execute an effective Australian maritime strategy. But such a discussion pre-supposes that Australia has a maritime strategy and a fairly clear sense of what its maritime interests are which need to be protected. The government’s Defence Strategic Review last year and the recently released defence strategy certainly highlights a range of maritime capabilities which the government has focused upon to determine how best to enhance Australian defence. But what are the tools in place and the new tools which need to be acquired to enhance Australian maritime security and defence? Or in other words, there are prior questions to the question of acquiring new ships. What are the threats? How to organize for them? Who should be responsible for dealing with them? And how to deal with them most effectively with what means? The government has highlighted a central focus on a strategy of deterrence by denial. But if the Chinese seriously disrupt Australia’s ability to move goods by sea, who is denying whom? At the seminar, two presentations directly dealt with the questions of maritime strategy and security. The presentation Jennifer Parker of the National Security College of the Australian National University addressed the question of whether Australia actually has a maritime strategy and if they did what was it? The second was by the Commissioner of the Australian Border Force, Michael Outram, and dealt with the very significant question of the daunting challenges to maritime security in a period of disruption of the “rules-based” order. Parker provided a broad stroke analysis of maritime strategy, rather than reducing the discussion to what platforms and capability which Australia has to operate in the maritime domain. In her presentation she defined maritime strategy for Australia as “the plan to protect Australia’s maritime strategic interests using all aspects of national power.” Her perspective meant that she would conclude that a maritime strategy defined as deterrence by denial would be too narrow to capture the full spectrum of demands from the maritime domain that required an appropriate security and defense regime to determine and defend Australian maritime interests. She mentioned several cases of conflicts in the maritime domain which have been evident in the recent past which illustrate the broad nature of the challenges to be dealt with. One was the targeting of shipping to send a political message which is evident in what is going on in the Middle East. Given Australia’s dependence on maritime trade, this is a problem which Australia clearly needs to be prepared for. The second has been evident in both the confrontation in the Black Sea and the challenges being addressed by the Nordics and the Baltic states involving the Russians and the Baltic Sea. This is a question of port security and undersea cable protection. Here one is talking about active measures for security and defense, not simply posturing for deterrence. The third has been the importance of “information war” in the maritime domain evident in the Chinese anything but gray zone confrontation with the Philippines. The Philippines are pulling the strings on their alliance relationships to generate defence options, but they have used transparency to fight back in the information war with the Chinese. It is also the case that they are adding new defence capabilities which will allow them to counter directly Chinese aggression which again is not building a posture for deterrence by denial – it is about directly confronting the adversary, which has been a major failure, in my view, of characterizing the Chinese as operating the gray zoos. In a book review I wrote about a book dealing with China and the gray zone, I underscored the limitations of using this concept from the standpoint of shaping credible action policy: This is how I highlighted the challenge: “Western analysts have coined phrases like hybrid war and gray zones as a way to describe peer conflict below the level of general armed conflict. But such language creates a cottage industry of think tank analysts, rather than accurately portraying the international security environment. “Peer conflict notably between the liberal democracies and the 21st century authoritarian powers is conflict over global dominance and management. It is not about managing the global commons; it is about whose rules dominate and apply. Rather than being hybrid or gray, these conflicts, like most grand strategy since Napoleon, are much more about “non war” than they are about war. They shape the rules of the game to give one side usable advantage. They exploit the risk of moving to a higher intensity of confrontation. “What limits should be crossed to manipulate the risk of going to a higher intensity of competition?” In our period of history, no credible defence approach can be designed without a strong security foundation. It is not simply about the point of the spear, or the forces generated in a force design for the professional military. It is about having a society and economy built on solid foundation of security. The presentation of the Commissioner of the Australian Border Force provided a broad understanding of the need for a robust security policy to underwrite a credible maritime strategy. Michael Outram highlighted the importance of Australia’s maritime domain citing its $1 trillion in annual trade and 5% of GDP. Commissioner Outram speaking at the Williams Foundation seminar April 11, 2024. He underscored that there are wide ranging security threats in maritime domain which include illegal fishing, cyberattacks, and biosecurity risks. The challenges of maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region, include the resilience and agility of criminal networks and the limitations of publicly accountable bureaucracies. To deal with these challenges. the Australian Border Force (ABF) is collaborating with Pacific island nations to build capacity and address growing criminal threats, including illegal fishing and migration. The Australian Border Force (ABF) and Defence have an overlap in their missions, particularly in the maritime domain, but this overlap is not static and can shift depending on circumstances. The Maritime Border Command within ABF working with defence focus on the challenge or surveilling and monitoring vessels operating in Australia’s maritime domain. In my own view, there is a significant opportunity to leverage autonomous systems into an integrated security and defence operational culture which will be critical in order to be able to deal with the larger issues which Parker highlighted. The Commissioner went on to argue that the time was ripe for from serious rethinking about how the Australia government needs to work in this area. He identified several areas where progress needs to be made: Consider developing a new civil maritime security strategy that addresses strategic coherence, governance, funding structures, and the definition and scope of civil maritime security in light of changing geopolitical and technological conditions. Conduct a series of future focused scenario-based planning exercises to evaluate whether the current operating model or an alternative model such as an independent Coast Guard could be more effective in addressing strategic shifts over the next decade. Give serious thought to whether the regional security situation, shifts in technology, and other factors require a different strategic approach to civil maritime security and a redefining of the scope of operations. Determine if the current civil maritime strategic architecture, planning, governance, funding, and structure remains fit for purpose over the next decade. Assess if the civil maritime operating model of the past 20 years can be sustained and remains fit for the strategic purpose over the next 20 years. He concluded with the importance of addressing long-term structural funding issues to maintain a fit for purpose civil maritime capability appropriate to Australia’s interests. The two presentations taken together underscore the need to focus on how the Australian government is organized to address maritime security and defence issues. And I would argue that to use new technologies in this domain is also required fundamental organizational change as well. The featured graphic is from Jennifer Parker’s brief at the seminar and highlights the maritime supply chain, the security of which is beyond what one might consider is not covered easily by a focus on deterrence by denial.

It is with great sadness that we advise the passing of Errol (Mac) McCormack Air Marshal AO (Retd). Errol was born in Bundaberg in 1941 and commissioned as a RAAF pilot in 1963. He was assigned fast jet and completed tours in South East Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Borneo) on the F-86 Sabre, Vietnam on the Canberra bomber, US on the F-111A and US on the RF-4C Reconnaissance Phantom. Errol had a distinguished career in the RAAF, commanding at squadron, wing and Air Force levels and retired from the RAAF as Chief of Air Force in May 2001. After retiring he was a Board Member and consulted for many local and foreign companies dealing with Defence. AIRMSHL McCormack was the inaugural Chair of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation and was instrumental in founding the organisation. A service will be held for Errol at the ANZAC Memorial Chapel of St Paul, RMC Duntroon, on Monday 22 April at 1330h. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation in Errol's name would be appreciated - https://foundation.petermac.org/donate

Dr Robbin Laird, Multi-Domain Operations in the Maritime Domain: The Significance of Digital Interoperability, 16 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info The April 11, 2024 Williams Foundation Seminar focused on multi-domain operations in support of maritime security and defence. The progress made as the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has been building a fifth generation enabled force needs to be continued in the years ahead. What is at stake is building an effective kill web enabled force which is built on a digital integration effort to allow the ADF to get best results from its deployed force in the operating area of significance. We have just seen a real-world example of what this means as the Iran attack on Israel was deflected by a kill web force of sensors and shooters spread across a coalition in support of the defence of Israel. I highlighted this future in a piece I wrote in 2012 and published in The Proceedings entitled the long reach of Aegis. That piece was focused on how F-35 integration with Aegis would yield significant results in defense capabilities. And when I visited the HMAS Hobart in Sydney Harbour, I was reminded how important a common combat system is for integration across a coalition and one’s ability to shape digital integration across a multi-domain force. After a visit to HMAS Hobart in 2018, this is what I wrote: The ship introduces a new level of combat capability into the Royal Australian Navy in which the ship’s reach is significantly greater than any previous ship operational in the Aussie fleet because of its Aegis Combat system. It is a key building block in shaping an integrated air-sea task force navy in that the capabilities onboard the ship can contribute to an integrated C2, ISR and strike grid in which the evolving capabilities of the ADF can cover a wider area of operation in the waters surrounding Australia or in service of missions further abroad. As Rear Admiral Mayer noted during an interview I conducted with him while he was Commander of the Australian fleet: “We are joint by necessity. “Unlike the US Navy, we do not have our own air force or our own army. Joint is not a theological choice, it’s an operational necessity.” What clearly this means is that the future of the Hobart class is working ways to operate in an integrated battlespace with land-based RAAF F-35s, Tritons and P-8s among other air assets. Their future is not protecting the carrier battle group, as the Aussies have no carrier. Rather, their future is “to provide air defence for accompanying ships in addition to land forces and infrastructure in coastal areas, and for self-protection against missiles and aircraft.” The skill sets being learned to operate the ship, notably the workflow on board the ship, in terms of the use of data, ISR and C2 systems, working situational awareness throughout the work stations onboard the ship, are foundational for other ships coming to the fleet. With the coming of the Brisbane, the HMAS Hobart will no longer be a single ship but the lead into a class of ships. And with the Australian decision with regard to its new frigates which will leverage the Aegis combat system capability as well, the HMAS Hobart has become the lead into a whole new approach to how the Australian fleet will shape its combat networks as well. The importance of continuing to build integratability across the fleet was emphasized at the seminar by Liam Catterson in his presentation. He is a former Royal Australian Naval officer who served on the Hobart and operated the Aegis combat system. He is now with Lockheed Martin Australia. In his presentation he highlighted the significance of the Aegis Combat System for fleet and ADF integrability with the U.S. Navy and Australia’s other core maritime allies, Japan and South Korea, all of whom operate Aegis and F-35s. Catterson underscored the following: It is important to note that the current fleet of three Hobart-class DDGs are interoperable with the Aegis equipped platforms of the USN, and other Aegis equipped coalition partners, such as the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force and the Republic of Korean Navy. This point was best illustrated through the first operational deployments within the Indo-pacific supporting 7th fleet activities, becoming a integral platform in the INDOPACOM theatre as opposed to previous deployments. This can be attributed in part to Aegis being as much a fighting philosophy as it is a Combat Management System, melding the concepts of a layered defensive posture, through depth of fire, sensor optimisation, autonomy and integrated fire control through Cooperative Engagement Capability. Without a CMS, a warship ceases to be that; no longer an instrument of deterrence. Without an interoperable CMS, a warship is a well-informed target and a potential hindrance to the joint force. This is a critical distinction when considering the acquisition of any future classes of surface combatants. The density of VLS cells in an Aegis destroyer is force projection however it is the Aegis Combat System that makes it a force multiplier. Slide from Catterson’s presentation to the Sir Richard Williams Seminar 11 April 2024. I had a chance to follow up with Catterson in a meeting at his office in Canberra on 15 April 2024. We discussed the way ahead with the digital backbone of a kill web force and the contribution of the common combat system built around Aegis for the Australian fleet and its integration with those of its allies in the region. We started by discussing how the Aegis combat system enabled significant interoperability across the allied forces in the Pacific. As Catterson noted: “One of the key things about the Aegis combat system operating across the Indo Pacific is that it provides a strong backbone of interconnectivity and interoperability from Australia all the way through the north through to Japan, and then across the Sea of Japan to the Republic of Korea as well. “The Aegis combat system provides a common language across the Indo Pacific fleets allowing for the for the fleets to deploy and operate together and to conduct combat operations in a coherent manner.” Liam Catterson attending the Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminar April 11, 2024. I then raised a key question. When one mentions the Aegis combat system at a seminar like we had at Williams, one might think that it is special pleading for a specific company, in this case Lockheed Martin. But over the years the combat system has changed dramatically and it is clearly the US Navy driving the development with Lockheed a close partners, but it is essentially a US Navy combat system today. Catterson provided an explanation of this development. “One of the strengths of Aegis is it was developed by the US Navy, and it has been a strong customer holding corporations to account to deliver what they wanted. Lockheed has been fortunate to be in lockstep with the US Navy, but it’s the US Navy driving these changes for it allows them to embark on the next generation of an integrated combat system for the fleet. This will enable them to operate as a system of systems to allow for interoperability, but also to enable cost effective and rapid roll out of developmental changes.” He closed with this thought which is very relevant to the future development of ADF multi-domain capabilities: “One of the strengths of the Aegis program is leveraging the operational experience from not only the U.S. but also other Aegis users as well. This allows for upgrading the fleet in a spiral development process. And this allows countries to remain in lockstep with each other. This means that integration costs are spread out over different partner nations in that manner.” Also, see the following: https://www.williamsfoundation.org.au/post/looking-back-and-looking-forward-shaping-a-way-ahead-for-the-integrated-networked-dr-robbin-laird https://thediplomat.com/2014/06/would-you-like-an-f-35-to-go-with-your-aegis/ https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-72/Article/577488/forging-a-21st-century-military-strategy-leveraging-challenges/ https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA498159.pdf

Dr Robbin Laird, What does a 21st century defence strategy look like for Australia in a multi-polar authoritarian world?, 16 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info) The answer is that it does not look like the defence strategy which has been followed throughout most of the post-war period. The threat envelope is quite different. There is no American and Western managed rules-based order dominating the world. There are diverse authoritarian movements and states which follow their distinct interests but play off of one another. As one analyst has put it: “But the end of the Cold War has led to the atomisation of threats – many of these threat groups possess weapons and backing from powerful regional states that in some cases make them as capable as state-based actors. “Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Middle East, where improved military capabilities are combined with an ideological zealotry that makes normal cost-benefit calculations underpinning deterrence redundant. This makes it very difficult for Washington to achieve the type of deterrence on which long-term regional stability is often based.” And the direct threat to Australia is broad and not narrowly focused on what the Australian Defence Force can do. A sustainable force and a resilient Australia are beyond the scope of narrowly considered defence investments in a ready force. They are all of government and all of society challenges. At the Williams Foundation Seminar held on April 11, 2024, the former Australian Secretary of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, clearly underscored how different the era into which Australia and its allies had entered compared to the previous one. As he put it in his presentation: “What might this mean for Australia and specifically the Australian defence enterprise? Defence planning is rightly focused on a wide range of contingencies. With very little notice the Australian Defence Force could be called upon to undertake rapid deployments into the nearby arc of small states. While necessary and important, such ventures would only be marginally relevant to today’s great issues of war and peace. The same could be said of vital operations in support of distressed communities in the wake of natural disasters. “Given long lead times, defence also has to focus on complex capability and programming issues, especially as related to the planned force of 2035 and beyond.” But he cautioned that the threats in front of Australia now needed to drive a re-set in efforts that considered the engagement of the society in its own defence, not just crafting hypothetical future force structures. And he quite correctly warned against the danger of shaping Potemkin long range capabilities that may never arrive in time to make a difference. He focused much of his attention on the need to engage whole of government in working with economic leaders in shaping a way ahead for a more resilient Australia that could support a sustainable ADF along with core allies working with Australia as a strategic reserve both to deter and to prevail in crisis situations. Mike Pezzullo presenting at the Williams Foundation seminar on April 11, 2024. He underscored: “The most important question is whether a nation at large has the structures, capabilities and above all, the mindset and the will, that are required to fight and keep fighting to absorb, recover, endure and prevail. These cannot be put in place or engendered on the eve of the storm. “Now as a practical suggestion to focus relevant effort, we should consider modernizing the earlier practice from the 1930s and and then again from the 1950s of the preparation of a war book. The war book of those times were guides on what would need to be done and by whom, in the event of war. Preparing a new war book would help to focus the national mind.” He clarified his suggested approach as follows: “A new war book would deal with the entire span of civil defense and mobilization which would be required to move to a war footing, consisting of a range of coordinated plans. Some would deal with critical infrastructure protection, and national cyber defense. Other plans would deal with the mobilization of labour and industrial production covering supply chains, industrial materials, chemicals, minerals, and so on. “Sectoral plans would address the allocation, rationing and or stockpiling of fuel, energy, water, food, transport, shipping, aviation, communications, health services, pharmaceuticals, building construction resources, and so on and so forth. “They would also be plans for the protection of the civil population covering evacuation, rapid fortification and or shelter construction, and for augmenting police fire, rescue and ambulance capacities, and also dealing with social cohesion, border security, domestic security and public safety. “Lessons could be adapted from international experience, especially Ukraine and Israel, as well as from domestic experiences such as natural disasters, and the COVID pandemic noting however, that war is different.” In short, 21st century defence is not narrowly focused on the ADF and long range investments in a future force. All one has to look around you and find the activity of the multi-polar authoritarian world and the end of the American-led “rules-based order” to understand the future is now. How best to shape a way ahead in terms of augmented capabilities in short to mid-term and engage the nation in its own defence for the longer term is really the challenge.

Dr Robbin Laird, The Future is Now for the ADF: Shaping Space for Maritime Autonomous Systems, 15 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info During my current visit to Australia, both at the 11 April Williams Foundation Seminar and in my interviews and discussions, there is a clear concern for ramping up ADF capabilities now. In addition to any longer term additive capabilities, it is crucial in the evolving strategic context to find ways to enhance the ADF in the near to mid-term. This means finding ways to do so. Clearly one way to do so is in terms of building in operational space within the operating force for autonomous systems. In my recent book on the subject, I highlighted in detail how this can be done with the extant maritime autonomous systems to provide for mission threads or specific tasks. They are not replacing crewed or manned systems but they can be delegated specific ISR and C2 tasks, and with specific ways they can be weaponized to do specific missions correlated with capital assets. I had a chance to discuss this approach with Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett, who is not only the Williams Foundation board, but also on the Trusted Autonomous Systems Cooperative Research Centre board. As Chief of Navy, he launched the initial work on maritime autonomous systems and has seen initial systems coming to fruition. We discussed maritime autonomous systems and the way ahead with regard to the ADF. Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett highlighted: “The surface combatant review took an eye to considering autonomous systems but considered them a generation away. But the reality is that we are already down the autonomous systems path now. “It is wrong simply to focus on long range prospects for autonomous systems not yet here, such as platforms which could potentially carry a large number of weapons cells, rather than on the systems that are already here. The current systems can deliver significant ISR capability for example, and we need to integrate these systems into the operating force.” These systems are software and AI enabled and carry payloads. They are continuously upgraded and re-designed as they are used: they are not designed to a platform requirements standard. As Barrett underscored: “You have to embed them into the operating force to drive the demand for further fleet innovation. They are not an add-in to some future platform. “We need to use them actively to grow the force we need now in the threat environment we face now. We have done extensive experimentation in our Autonomous Warrior series of exercises but the future is now and we need to get on with it.” We then turned to a subject which I think highlights how you can enhance the ADF in the next three to five years with technology at hand. I wrote a study in 2020 on the new Offshore Patrol Vessel, which is a very flexible ship being built now. It is a platform designed to work with maritime autonomous systems. Given the absolute necessity to enhance maritime security in the northern waters of Australia, clearly the OPV in the hands of the Maritime Border Patrol plus autonomous systems is a way to go. And as ISR is enhanced for security purposes quite obviously that is a foundation for direct defense tasks as well. Not only could the OPV operate as a center for managing the deployed fleet of autonomous systems but it could refuel those who needed to as well. And the crew could swap out or repair payloads on the autonomous systems. Some will be remotely piloted and those could be done from the OPV; others will be truly autonomous and directed to their tasks. I asked Barrett about this opportunity which in my view is a low hanging fruit for ramping up ADF and Australian security and defence capabilities. The T-38 MARTAC Devil Ray T-38 Autonomous Maritime Vessel being refueled at sea by a USCG Cutter after coming to the ship by self-direction in 2023 in the 5th Fleet Area of Operations. Photo Credit: MARTAC According to Barrett: “It was the intention of the OPV to do exactly that. That is why the flight deck was retained. It was intended to compliment or supplement the hulls that are used for constabulary duty. It was to be a hull available to support the work of maritime remotes. “But we are still experimenting. We are addressing maritime autonomous systems as if they were legacy platforms with a generational life. “They simply are not like that. They carry payloads that are in a constant state of evolution. Their development needs to be rapid and in relation to the task at hand. They are mission thread defined: not platform defined. “They are outside of the normal long-cycle acquisition process. In fact, the challenge is that we are NOT organized to be able to use these systems now or to engage in the transformation process driven by maritime autonomous systems. “You cannot design a future force realistically if you are not engaged in the transformation of force through the use of maritime autonomous systems now.”

Dr Robbin Laird, Working the Sustainability Piece in Australian Defence: The Case of Munitions, 10 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info When shaping a relevant 21st century defence approach, sustainability is a key aspect of any credible effort. Gone are the days where just in time delivery from distant global supply chains is an effective means for deployed defense assets. Credible defense capability is built on a foundation of sustainability. The war in Ukraine has exposed the Achilles heel of Western defense, namely the lack of magazine depth. Munitions and weapons have been in perilously short supply. Digging into one’s war reserves to help the Ukrainians is short term necessity and folly. We collectively face the challenge of building a 21st century version of the arsenal of democracy, whereby allies build munitions in common and cross support one another in a crisis. Just having a single point of failure or having to wait for delivery from a global supply chain almost certainly to be disrupted is a strategic failure of the first order. If you are Australia, you face an especially difficult challenge as an island continent which is completely dependent in many areas on long global supply chains and a country in which manufacturing and self-processing of its rich natural resources has not been prioritized. Such a formula guarantees the absence of sustainable forces. This situation becomes even more significant when one looks at the most plausible allied engagement strategy, namely working with all of its Pacific allies to cross-support one another, and not simply focus on the United States. By enhancing its indigenous supply capabilities, Australia can also form a strategic reserve for allies in the region or forces that might operate from Australia in the future. But planning for such a future in the context of ongoing studies and briefing charts will not cut the cake. Briefing charts only kill the audience, not the enemy. So what can be done in the three to five year period do achieve something real and concrete? One answer is to build indigenous munitions capabilities, essentially a no-brainer from my point of view. If one looks at France, several years ago the government abolished the munitions facility established at the time of Louis XIV. Just in time was enough in our peaceful world. But with Macron focusing on the need for a war economy, the French have already rebuilt their munitions production capability and are proceeding apace. It is rather obvious that Australia needs to do the same on a priority basis. During my April 2024 visit to Australia, I had the chance to talk with a key munitions manufacturer, Robert Nioa about the challenge. He is head of the Nioa group which is described on their website as follows: NIOA is a privately-owned global munitions company. Established in Queensland, Australia in 1973, today the NIOA Group has strategic locations around the world. We are dedicated to the best practice supply and manufacture of firearms, weapons and munitions to Australian and allied nation defence forces, law enforcement agencies and commercial markets. My main question to him was could they work an effective strategy of sustainable munitions supply for Australia in the timeframe which I think is critical. According to Nioa: “Within a three-to-five-year window, we can enable Australia to provide the munitions required for an allied effort within the Indo Pacific region. We need dramatically expand our energetics production, and we can do that within that three-to-five-year window. “We don’t have enough production capacity in Australia currently to support what we need to do for ourselves, let alone to support allies in the Indo Pacific region. “But we can build factories within that timeframe to provide the explosives required to produce the kinetic enablers for the ADF and as we scale up for allies in the region. We can build a factory to make solid rocket motors. “We can build a factory to make the warheads. And then we can bring in technology for the guidance systems for long range strike or even expand conventional munitions production, everything from artillery munitions through to small arms production. It’s simply an allocation of funds and priorities.” The demand signal for such expanded sustainable capability is clearly there with the shortfalls exposed in the war in Ukraine. By Australia expanding capacity they can become a strategic reserve for allies in the region as well. And building such a sustainable infrastructure provides the material to enable lethal payloads in the future as new platforms and ways of delivering lethality evolve as well, such as I discuss in my latest book entitled The Coming of Maritime Autonomous Systems. One can get caught up in imagining weapons of the future and building planning scenarios: but if you don’t have the building blocks in place for effective force sustainability, it really will not matter when you face a determined adversary that has built a sustainable force. Photo: An Australian Army soldier from 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, fires the 84mm Carl Gustaf on 5th January 2024, Townsville Field Training Area, Queensland. Australian Army Soldiers from 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment conducted static live fire with the 84mm Carl Gustaf, engaging 450-metre targets at the Townville Field Training Area. The training aimed to build confidence in members when using the weapon system and qualify junior non-commissioned officers as a part of the Section Commander Battle Course (SCBC). 5 January 2024. Credit: Australian Department of Defence See also the following: https://www.eurosatory.com/en/ammunition-supply-the-growing-role-of-australias-nioa-group-on-the-international-stage/

Dr Robbin Laird, Multi-Domain Requirements of an Australian Maritime Strategy: The April 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation Seminar, 13 April 2024 Link to article (Defense.info The first of two seminars of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation in 2024 was held on 11 April 2024 at the National Gallery of Australia. The seminar was entitled, “The Multi-Domain Requirements of an Australian Maritime Strategy”, and the aim of the seminar was identified as follows: “To examine the enduring and emerging multi-domain requirements of an Australian maritime strategy in the context of the Defence Strategic Review. The Seminar examines the requirements through a Defence lens but will consider all national means that contribute to a maritime strategy and the need for coherence across concepts, doctrine, equipment, basing and preparedness. This strategic coherence is needed to synchronise effects across the Whole of Australian Government, Defence and industry, as well as international partners.” Last year’s DSR highlighted the ramped-up threat to Australia and the need to focus on the region, its partnerships and the need to build a more effective defence effort by Australia in the regional deterrence context. The focus of the government in its subsequent priorities has tended to focus on longer term acquisitions, first in terms of nuclear submarines through the AUKUS relationship and then for a new surface fleet in its recently released surface fleet review. A multi-domain operations discussion builds on the work of the Foundation during the time I have been writing the reports since 2014. The focus has been upon building a fifth-generation force, which after all revolves around sensor-shooter relationships built across an integrated force delivering multi-domain effects or what I prefer to call a kill-web enabled force. The focus is upon how you get full value out of your force now and to build out that extant force in the future to become more lethal and survivable. If you are focused on the fight tonight, which any credible combat force must focus on, then long range assets are projections of the possible, not augmentations of the credibility of the operational force. So any multi-domain discussion inevitably focuses on the way ahead for the force in being, rather than a force planning discussion of a projected future. When you add a specific target of what is that force in being operating in support of, inevitably gaps are identified, and the question then is how do you close the most significant gaps which threaten your security and defence interests. Such a focus is in turn raised if one raises the question of the means to the end of what one might consider a maritime threat envelope and strategy to deal with that envelope. In other words, one would expect the seminar discussion to focus more on the transition challenges of the ADF and the nation to deal with threat environment in the near to midterm rather than in 2040. That is what happened at the seminar in which speakers started by highlighting the importance of focusing on the here and now rather than on the force that might exist in 2035 or 2040. After the initial presentations focused on the current challenges and the role of the ADF and the nation to prepare to deal with them, the discussion shifted to whether Australia had a maritime strategy and if so what were the priorities of such a strategy. The majority of the presentations focused on specific services or industrial perspectives of how best to meet the multi-domain requirements for the evolving Australian defence challenge. But at the heart of the discussion was really the major challenge facing Australia: how to close defence gaps? How to engage the nation beyond the ADF in the broader defence challenges facing Australia? How to build a sustainable force? In later articles, I will provide detailed looks at the presentations and how the presenters dealt with these and other issues associated with the transition of the ADF. But here I am going to focus on the key issue of how does the ADF get more capable in the next three-to-five years and to do so in a way that is a prologue to the anticipated force transformation being designed? Peter Jennings was the first speaker and he underscored that the DSR had highlighted the near-term threats but was putting its money in forces a decade away. He put the challenge as follows: Governments can and do promise to spend unbelievable quantities of money on the future force but you only know what you get when you open the box. Not one cent of it buys deterrence today. From a deterrence perspective there is potentially some risk in promising strong deterrent capabilities in the future while maintaining the military capabilities of a skinned cat in the present day. That is the risk of pre-emption. Indeed, one reason why analysists are so worried about a mid- to late-2020s risk of conflict against Taiwan, or in the South China Sea, is that Xi Jinping may calculate that he faces a ‘use it or lose it’ choice with the PLA. Xi’s best chance of strategic success to achieve unchallenged military dominance in the Pacific are maximised by early action before his opponents’ next generation military capabilities are realised and while the democracies are internally distracted and divided. The tragedy is that there is so much which could be done with a bit of political and Defence push to strengthen ADF and national capabilities in the relative short term. For example: Ramping up domestic ammunition production and stockpiling. Establishing offensive drone capabilities on the basis of existing technology – not everything has to be quantum, AI, hypersonically joint and enabled. Funding some of the incredibly smart military capabilities that have been developed by Australian businesses. Researching some of the remarkable military and operational achievements which the Ukrainians (with allied help) and the Israelis have used in recent months. Here I’m not just talking about drones; but also optimising air defence capabilities; integrating intelligence and battlefield situational awareness; finding the right balance between exotic and more prosaic technology; working out how to get things in production in less than a decade. There is so much that could be done, so much so, in fact that our failure to do any of this makes me wonder if it is not the case that the government and Defence establishment is actually getting what it really wants? The second presentation was by Mike Pezzullo, the former Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, who made an impassioned speech reminding the audience that building an effective defence structure is not simply the task of the ADF. The society needed to be engaged in shaping an Australia more capable of defending itself. You cannot outsource defence and security to an alliance or to the professional military for one needs to build a more resilient and sustainable Australian society and nation. Jennifer Parker of the National Security College (ANU) provided a comprehensive look at the maritime security challenges facing Australia and argued that in fact there was no strategy to deal with these comprehensive challenges. Her talk focused attention on what is the demand signal and what is the product needed to deal with that demand signal for maritime security and defence. Such an approach highlights what are the gaps to be met and how to meet them, which is quite different from force structure planning of an envisaged future force. Rather, one looks at demand drivers and what tools a nation has available to it, far beyond simply a professional military. The remaining presentations provided insights regarding how the ADF is changing to deal with the evolving challenges and I will take a detailed look at these presentations and focus on them in later articles. I will then return to the question of the match between the specific recommendations and the challenge of building an effective multi-domain force and sustainable society in dealing with the evolving threats and challenges.