Speech by Lt. Gen. Frank Hickling, commander of the Australian army,
to the (Australian) National Press Club.
Canberra, 14th April, 1999
 
Source : Australian Defence Organisation
 
 
Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I speak, the greatest forced refugee exodus in Europe since the Second World War is unfolding nightly before our eyes on our television screens.
As I speak, pictures and news stories are coming in, portraying violent conflict and disorder, death and destruction in our own region, in communities that we had previously thought to be calm and stable.
As I speak, Australians are involved in peacekeeping duties around the world in places such as Bougainville, the Middle East, Cambodia, Mozambique and Bosnia. Over 400 Australian soldiers are committed to these operations.
The world seems to be entering a new phase of conflict; yet, somehow Australia remains a secure nation, one of the very few that can regard itself as such in a turbulent world.
But we would be very foolish to take our security for granted. We can only remain secure if we work at it; and that means that we have to be prepared to change as our environment changes.
The Australian army understands that very well, and today I want to touch on a few of the initiatives that we are taking to help ensure that we remain secure:
- firstly, we are getting to grips with the revolution in military affairs (RMA) becoming a force for the information age; and
- secondly, we have reviewed our strategy to embrace a maritime concept of defence, so that we remain relevant to the nation’s security needs and aligned with government’s direction of strategic policy; and
- thirdly, we are taking on the challenges of increasing our force readiness, in the face of tight budgets.

I will take each of these developments in turn to share with you where the Australian army - this force for the information age - is headed.

The RMA
Let me start with the challenges that we face in the information age.
The Australian army like armies the world over is a creation of the industrial age. The revolution in military affairs can be regarded as nothing more than the manifestation in military terms of the larger revolution that is sweeping mankind the advent of the information age. This audience, of course, is living this revolution: you have seen the transition from Remington typewriter to the Internet; and you have all seen how fast this has happened.
The RMA brings with it many new challenges, both for society and for the army. And our survival on the information age battlefield will depend on how well we manage those challenges; for example:
- new technologies are offering us capabilities unheard of in past wars, or even a decade ago.
- the night is no longer a guarantee of concealment, from friend or foe. as a result, we have to learn to live and fight on the 24 hour battlefield, even though humans can only operate effectively for a very short time without rest. this will change the way we do business.
- commanders will be forced to deal with volumes of information that are beyond human comprehension. we must make sure that we help them understand their environment, rather than being confused by it.
- other new opportunities and new threats arise from technology. For example, you can see already that NATO's web sites are under attack from smart hackers. This is one facet of information warfare that goes way beyond the propaganda and deception that we have traditionally thought of in this context; and we have to learn how to master it.
That is why it is vital that the army and our colleagues in the other services understand the challenges of the revolution in military affairs; and why we have to achieve mastery of warfare in the information age.
There are many other challenges in this new age. In every case, however, the impact of new technologies will have a human face. Conflict and war are uniquely human activities; and the decisive battleground is still the human mind. Romantic notions of humans being replaced by ‘smart’ weapons are just that; at the end of the day, it is the quality of our people and our leadership that will decide the issue.
And that is why, in addition to technology and maybe of even greater importance is our need to invest in the other basic component of the knowledge edge; and that is the development of the army’s intellectual capital.
History tells us that it is dangerous to go to war with outdated technology. It also tells us that it is fatal to go to war with outdated ideas.
Intellectual capital is a well-established concept in industry; and it explains how some companies can out perform much larger and more wealthy competitors through the smart application of their employees’ brain-power and their intellectual property. The same applies to armies; and military history is full of examples of where well-led, well organised troops have won through against the odds. That is the effect that the army wants to achieve, by developing and exploiting our intellectual capital.
One of the key components of this approach is the philosophy that the army uses to guide its thinking our doctrine. The army’s doctrine goes to the heart of what we are about. it is the key to our culture: it provides the basis for our organisations; it drives our training systems; it helps us make decisions about what technology we buy to give us maximum combat power.
Doctrine is not dogma! It is intended to guide, rather than rule; and it must constantly evolve, if we are not to be guilty of preparing for the last war, rather than the next.
This year, we have released a new keystone publication, land warfare doctrine the fundamentals (lwd-1). This book contains our latest thinking on how we prepare to do our job. It is only one of the several hundred books, videos and CDs that make up army’s doctrine library; but it is the keystone document; and it will drive the review and updating of all the others. It is freely available; it has already provoked a lot of comment which we welcome and I commend it to you.

Education and training
The other key to developing the army’s intellectual capital is in the training and education of our officers and our soldiers. We are in the midst of a review of how we need to develop our leaders from the time they join the army to ensure that they are properly prepared for the most difficult challenge they will ever face; command in combat.
The quality of our doctrine, our training systems and our leadership can only be truly tested in combat. That is not a test any of us wants; but in the meantime we have to rely on benchmarking our performance in peacekeeping operations and in combined exercises with other defence forces. Both of these present vital opportunities for us to gain experience and to test ourselves; and we must take advantage of them, wherever we can.

Army’s maritime strategy
I mentioned earlier that the army had committed itself to a maritime concept of strategy for defence. This represents a significant change in the approach which we have been following since our withdrawal from Vietnam; and it responds to the government’s strategic policy enunciated in late 1997.
A maritime strategy recognises that Australia’s maritime approaches are an environment in which the battlefield effects of sea, land and air power are interwoven. It demands that the three services must be able to operate smoothly as a team; and it demands that the army must be able to operate offshore of the continental landmass, as well as onshore in Australian territory.
A maritime strategy also recognises the need to defend Australia’s interests in the region and globally, as well as direct defence of our sovereignty. And it also means that we must be able to exert influence, by adding weight to diplomacy, particularly in our region.
The army’s view of the roles and tasks for land forces in support of a maritime strategy is outlined in our new doctrine; and it underpins all of our decision-making about our force structure and our new capabilities, like battlefield helicopters that we so graphically recall from the gulf war. New Australian-made wheeled armoured vehicles that we provide our infantry with enhanced mobility and firepower.

Force development strategy
So it is the army’s response to the twin challenges of the revolution in military affairs and the maritime concept of strategy that is driving our thinking about the future. But there are other issues that we also have to confront; and some are immediate and urgent.

Readiness
The most immediate of these is meeting the government’s requirement to increase readiness levels across more of the land force. This represents another significant change in emphasis, not only for the army, but also for the defence organisation as a whole.
For the last two or three decades, Australia has enjoyed a stable and benign strategic environment. With the end of the Cold War, there was hope that we would enter a new age, one in which the so-called ‘peace dividend’ would allow us to direct funds for defence into other causes.
This stability also meant that we in defence could emphasise investment in future capabilities, at the expense of current operational training and readiness. That has allowed us to buy a range of new technologies for all three services, at a time when spending on defence has been tightly constrained.
As you have all seen, the strategic environment is no longer stable; and it may not be benign. None of the turbulence in our region or further afield represents a direct threat to Australia; and I’m not trying to say that it does. But the speed of the deterioration in our strategic environment, and the unpredictability of the course of global and regional events cannot be ignored; and as a result, we’ve responded to government’s demand for higher readiness.
You can imagine how this has galvanised our units in Darwin. I was there last week and saw for myself in increased tempo of training and the sense of purpose and commitment that was there.
While that creates a challenge of balance for us, it is possible to continue investment in future capability and, at the same time, maintain high readiness. But these two activities compete for the same resources so now we have to ensure that we reach a new balance between the two that meets our immediate needs, without cutting off the flow of resources into future capability.
Right now, we are confident that we can meet the levels of readiness required by the government by the end of June. There will be impact across the whole of the army.
One of the immediate impacts will be on units that are not required at higher readiness. This is because we do not have time to recruit and train all the people we need to fill out our high readiness units; and because we cannot instantly buy all the additional equipment they need. As a result, we’ll have to borrow both people and equipment from the others.
The units most affected in the short term only will be in our reserve component.

Reserves
This is a tough decision but it is unavoidable. It is very important to emphasise though that this does not denigrate the importance of the reserve, which will continue to play a vital role in army’s future.
The reserve provides us with access to a range of skills and specialisations that would be impossible to replace.
The reserve provides a link to the community that is vital, particularly in the southern population centres of the country, where the reserve is the public face of the army.
The reserve gives us the basis from which we can expand in a time of threat and the potential to field a much larger army than we could otherwise hope to afford. Reservists already play a key role in some of our overseas deployments, and we would be calling on them to help us to sustain any long term, large scale operation.
However, because of changing economic and strategic factors, we need to fundamentally rethink what we should and can ask the reserve to do. And we have to find better ways of protecting the individual reservist and his employer from the demands that we place on his time.
The government has directed that we prepare a paper on the future of the reserve, including those issues. I see this as such an important matter that I have dedicated a team working full time on this; and I expect to be in a position to contribute to recommendations to government later this year on how to progress them.
In the meantime, the reserve has been, it is and it always will be central to the army’s ability to meet the nation’s needs. I am committed to fostering its development.

Funding
At the outset, I mentioned three broad challenges that the army faces in aligning ourselves with government’s policy and the nation’s needs. There are plenty of others; but essentially it comes down to ensuring that we meet the demands of the next conflict we have to face, not the last.
I have emphasised the importance of developing our intellectual capital as an army, because I’m convinced that it is the ‘knowledge edge’ that will make the difference in the next conflict.
But these conceptual bases, vital though they are are not enough. We must also have enough people and materiel if we are to do the job the nation needs us to do.
The defence reform program is delivering efficiencies in our administration; and it is essential that we complete this process. That is because we have to demonstrate to the taxpayer that we are delivering value for money in defence.
It is not up to me or anyone else in the defence organisation - to set the level of funding for defence. That is a matter as it is in all democracies for the people and the government to decide. But my advice is that it is becoming more and more difficult for us to do everything that needs to be done, in a deteriorating strategic environment, with current funding.

Warfighting focus
I would like to add a comment or two about our focus as an army. I want to address this because there are plenty of commentators around the edges of defence who are calling for a variety of reforms, ranging from the use of the ADF as a social engineering laboratory, through to reorganising us to be peacekeepers.
There should be no doubt about this: our focus is and must remain the delivery of warfighting capabilities that are international best practice. To aim for anything less would be an insult to our people in uniform; and a betrayal of the nation. I have seen the results of a peacekeeping culture in several armies in recent years. Those are not the kind of army that this country needs. They are not the kind of army that will earn the respect that is the foundation of successful peacekeeping. And they are not the kind of army that I want to be part of.

Conclusion
Over the next few years, the army is involved in a broad canvas:
 - we are committed to supporting the Olympics and the centenary of federation;
 - we will expand our readiness rapidly, and quickly remedy the impact that will have on the rest of the army.
 - we will find better ways of utilising the enormous contribution that the reserves make; and we have to give them better support in meeting our needs.
 - we are about to take part in exercise Crocodile 99, one of the most demanding exercises we have ever undertaken, and one of great importance to developing our joint warfighting capabilities at the operational level.

All of this has to take place against a strategic background of growing turbulence and uncertainty.
and in the midst of it all, we are forging a force of the information age, by emphasising a maritime strategy and by investing in modern technology, and in producing smarter soldiers and more capable leaders.
At the end of the day, it is our people who will make the difference; it is our soldiers, along with the sailors and the airmen who make up the defence force, who, when our security is tested will determine whether Australia can remain one of the most secure nations on this earth.
These are the men and women that I have the privilege to command; and they live amongst you as your neighbours. I would ask you to consider the responsibilities they have for you to put their lives on the line in times of crisis, whether these are natural disasters or challenges to our security, created by the times of uncertainty that we live in.
Defence of this country is a serious matter. it is not a game; it is not a hobby; and it is not a business enterprise. Nor is it exclusively the concern of those of us in uniform. It requires commitment commitment from me, commitment from my people; and commitment from you, as citizens of Australia.
Perhaps it is time that more people thought about our security in those terms, instead of taking it for granted.

 Thank you.

-ends-
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