LIEUTENANT GENERAL DAVID MORRISON, AO
CHIEF OF THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY
Chief of Army opening address to the Chief of Army Exercise 2014,
Brisbane, 22 September 2014.
Check against delivery.
To the many distinguished guests who have travelled, in some cases almost a
world away to be here in Brisbane; to the Defence attaches who make up so
much of the important business that is conducted, not just in Canberra but
across the country; to senior officers in the Australian Army; to members of
academia and members of the media who have been invited to participate in
the CA’s exercise—welcome.
I would acknowledge that there has been a commitment by many countries.
Countries, obviously from the Asia Pacific region. But also from countries that
are well removed from Australia—from North East Asia, from China, from the
UK, from Canada. And of course from both the US Marines and Army in the
Pacific, as well as from the West Coast of continental USA.
I am very grateful for the commitment to be here today, so, thank you.
It is important both to me and this country to take the first step in welcoming
you to Australia and Brisbane and this Exercise. To do this I would like to
acknowledge the Jagera and Turrbal people as the traditional owners of this
land on which we gather today. I want to personally honour and acknowledge
their custodianship of this land and honour their elders, past and present.
Before I get on with the formal part of this opening address, I would like to
briefly talk about the format of the conference. I have attended many in my
time, and I’m almost sure that all of you in the audience have as well. And it
has been a relentless series of ‘transmit and receive’—that is, that someone
stands at the front and transmits, and that you sit in the audience and receive.
But those types of conferences have never worked particularly well for me.
And given that what I want to achieve out of the next two days is a better
understanding amongst our militaries, and that engagement is an absolute
essential for that to occur, the format for this exercise will centre around only
four formal sessions — I look forward to hearing the presentations on lessons
from contemporary operations from Professor Grey and Dr Andrew
Krepinevich. On regional engagement by General Iwata, and General
Nurmantyo. On modernisation by General Sengleman, Professor Evans and
General Shibo. And of course the keynote address at dinner tonight by
General Brooks. For the remainder of our time together, we will spend it
either in smaller groups where key matters will be discussed, or in plenary
sessions to share those ideas. This will leave us time to establish, maintain
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and develop relationships with other armies and to conduct bilateral and
multilateral discussions.
I have designed the exercise to capitalise on the collective knowledge and
experience of attendees and I not only encourage, but welcome your input
and thoughts. The collective ‘intellectual horsepower’ present at this event will
undoubtedly inform key aspects of Army’s development. It is my hope that
through plenary discussion we can develop an understanding of regional
approaches to the modernisation of Land Forces; identify the influence and
impacts of land force modernisation on regional security and stability; and
identify modernisation opportunities to achieve shared security objectives
within the region. In this way we can improve our understanding of each of our
nation’s modernisation priorities, concerns and risks within the regional
strategic environment.
I hope this exercise also provides a forum for Army’s senior leadership team,
other nations’ senior commanders, key stakeholders, and academics to
discuss and contribute to issues of relevance to your Land Forces. It is a
forum in which regional land forces can work together towards better
understanding each other and the major strategic issues facing the region.
Now, the opportunity to open my own conference as Chief of Army is both a
thrill and an honour. Leadership of the Australian Army, I’ve got to tell you, is
an onerous, yet privileged honour. I think that I have a very solemn obligation
to the nation. And I think that that obligation is brought into even starker relief
when you consider where our primarily young men and women, soldiers all,
are currently serving at the nation’s call— in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Timor
Leste, and in a host of UN and multinational missions around the world. And
that means, to me, that we should be unsparing in our commitment of intellect
and professional focus in terms of preparing for and conducting military
operations, including war.
The theme of this year’s exercise is ‘Modernisation of Land Forces in the
Indo-Pacific’. By the time we leave I hope we 1) develop an understanding of
regional approaches to the modernisation of Land Forces. 2) identify the
influence and impacts of land force modernisation on regional security and
stability. 3) enhance working relationships with regional interlocutors. 4)
identify modernisation opportunities to achieve shared security objectives
within the region; and finally 5) achieve improved understanding of the
modernisation priorities, concerns and risks within the regional strategic
environment.
I need to apply the qualification that with a Defence White Paper and Force
Structure Review due to be delivered in the near future, I am going to be very
careful not to get out in front of my Government. Having said that I don’t think
it contentious to observe that Australia’s strategic environment is entering an
uncertain and challenging era. We are poised to be a beneficiary of what is
being termed colloquially as the Asia-Pacific Century, though, I, like many,
now prefer the more lengthy, but more accurate, term Indo-Asia-Pacific
Century. Such transitional eras present particular challenges to Land Forces.
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We are obliged to try to discern the meta-trends around the use of force, all
while scanning the environment in search of any disruptive changes in
international relations or technology.
The Indo-Asia-Pacific is a much broader geographic area than the more
traditional primary operating environment described in strategic guidance of
the recent past.
In order to positively influence the Indo-Asia-Pacific, and provide strategic
weight to alliances for Global Order, Australia must maintain an expeditionary
focus within a Joint and Coalition environment. This requires an ongoing and
meaningful level of engagement at all levels with our allies, friends and
partners.
Positive influence also requires an Operating Concept that lets the ADF
practice, and execute, joint operations in a maritime environment, both as a
single nation and with our regional friends and allies.
Army is a joint force. It is hard to overstate the importance of Army’s
integration into Australia’s Maritime Strategy and the development of a mature
of force projection capability. The Army is committed to developing the ADF’s
amphibious capability. Through its development Australia aspires to be able to
mount joint operations orchestrating air, sea, and land forces linked with
spaced based capabilities.
We are well on the way to achieving that level of maritime capability in
Australia with political support across the spectrum. That vision, of a
seamlessly joint ADF, structured to implement a maritime strategy in the
defence of Australia, through denial of the use of our land, sea and air
approaches to our nation is correct. It is supported by the ADF senior
leadership and is underpinned by a Defence Capability Plan which will put
flesh on the bones of that vision. Of course it will require a shift in national
resources to fund and sustain it. And in the aftermath of our longest war,
fought primarily in a land-locked country, we must take the intellectual lead in
explaining this to the Australian public
An example of Army’s commitment to the development of a balanced joint
force was the decision to forgo the funding for SP Howitzers to redirect it into
the Amphibious capability. Army takes its responsibility as the Capability
Manager for a number of joint capabilities including joint fires, specialist
intelligence and information operations capabilities seriously.
As part of our modernisation and Building on Beersheba the Army has
identified the need to consider how to become a truly joint Army. This requires
a truly joint outlook that understands how air, sea and land power interact to
maintain Australia’s economic and security position. After all, Australian needs
its ADF more than it needs its Army, Navy or Air Force.
Land power has enduring strategic utility. War's enduring nature is chaotic,
violent and uncertain; a fundamentally human endeavour but with its
character constantly evolving.
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Understanding that primary construct, Land Power is the ability to project
force in and from land in peace, crisis and war to advance strategic and
operational outcomes. In peace, Land Power supports Strategic Deterrence
by shaping perceptions and engaging allies, partners and friends. In crisis and
war, Land Power provides scalable options for Strategic Response that
reinforces the levers of National Power and provides persistent influence on
land.
Australia's preference has been to maintain a flexible force, with power
projection capacity that can influence Australia's interests overseas. Such a
force must Promote and Protect Australia's Interests, Deter Threats to
Australia's Sovereignty, and Defeat attacks on Australia's Population. This
requires a continued clear focus on building scalable and adaptable credible
capabilities for the future force.
Credible land power remains vital because ultimately it is on land that we
make decisions that effect populations and politics. Capable land power
provides the posture credibility necessary for shaping the strategic
environment. To do this we must have realistic inputs to our capability backed
up by a strong joint operating concept that enables maritime power to support
the national interests.
And so, while Armies must continually seek to modernise; modernisation is
also a continuous process. For our Army, Plan Beersheba represents an
essential step in that process and as such it will continue to be built upon.
Plan Beersheba is a major re-structure of Army’s Combat Brigades and their
force generation cycle that will provide a versatile and sustainable joint land
force that can be employed across the conflict spectrum.
Such a Force Generation Cycle provides both the utility of an immediately
deployable force for the most likely scenarios and a strategic hedge against
the uncertainty of the future. Such utility gives credible scalable options to
Government for Posture (providing strategic weight), engagement (shaping
the region in the current environment), and reaction (deny and defeat within a
coalition).
Army's contribution to the joint amphibious capability is a clear demonstration
of its commitment to joint capability, a maritime strategy, and supporting the
region through partnerships.
Army seeks to establish an Intellectual Pivot as we modernise. Army has
deliberately initiated discussion with eminent academics (Strachan, Evans),
public policy experts (Cohen and Kilcullen) and institutions (UNSW, ANU
(SDSS), AIS, Lowy and Wikistrat) to consider other ideas and approaches
and to critically review our own thinking.
This year we published ‘The Army's Future Land Warfare Report’, which
outlines the major challenges facing military forces. This report was critically
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peer reviewed and articulates some of the initial implications these challenges
will pose for Army's modernisation.
Finally we established the first departmental dedicated public website and
blog entitled The Land Power Forum. This aims to focus on harnessing the
knowledge and skills of the widest audience to inform our modernisation
process.
Where to then next for the Australian Army? Army’s Plan Beersheba has
changed Army’s force structure to provide a wider range of ready, sustainable
land force capabilities. It has enhanced the efficiency of the Army Force
Generation Cycle, and better integrated the regular-reserve-civilian total force
in the generation and deployment of land force capabilities.
While this has set the conditions for the transition from an analogue to an
information age Army, further development is necessary to continue
modernising the Army. Building on Beersheba requires us to confront a range
of challenges. These challenges are grouped under four major themes:
A revolution in the training and education of the Army. Recent
breakthroughs in understanding how the brain operates, learns and repairs
itself, and the related field of how humans learn and adapt, will provide those
who invest wisely in human sciences with a significant cognitive edge in the
future.
A more strategic approach to Army's collective training. The Army needs
to embed the training of the landing force for amphibious capability into its
force generation system. This will require better inter-service collaboration in
training and assessing land forces.
Developing a digital Army. The digital environment is changing how the
world interacts and learns. Warfare will continue to be influenced profoundly
by global digital connectivity. Army must view digitisation beyond the realms
of networking and communications. It will also demand assurance of access
to the digital commons, data assurance and integrity and the capacity to fight
for a threshold level of access where required.
Becoming a truly joint Army. Army will need to develop updated command
and control, operating and logistics concepts to enable the full exploitation of
the range of Army and joint enabler capabilities. These changes are not just a
function of changes to Army’s hardware; they will derive from how Army thinks
about its operations and structures within a joint force. This will be a key to
increasing the strategic utility and tactical effectiveness of land force.
This exercise represents the culmination of a series of high level Seminars
and supporting activities that have occurred in 2014. We have sought to
broaden the audience that discusses the role of land forces, as well as
providing intellectual rigour to the future modernisation requirements. At the
end of the day we must deliver effective land power in support of
government's national security agenda.
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At this point in my address we have arrived back at where we began. A
genuine welcome, a heartfelt thanks for your attendance and a sincere wish
that we turn from spectators into participants. Because of one thing I am sure
and that is that although war's enduring nature is chaotic, violent and
uncertain; its character is constantly evolving. Our Land Forces must also
evolve and our participation in this exercise can only aide them in doing so.
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