Katherine Ziesing | Brisbane
Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison made a number of speeches at a series of events throughout the Land Forces gatherings.
Perhaps the one that sets the tone of the conference though was his opening address to the Chief of Army Exercise.
“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.
He also covered the role of DSTO in how Army is preparing for the future.
LTGEN Morrison acknowledged that Army has a lot of work to do on many fronts and they will be relying on a number of outside organisations to help them in their efforts.
“There will be challenges: our new medium weight army must be deployable by air and sea rather than just by air.
"We must also strive to enhance interoperability with our coalition partners.
"We will need a dependable energy source and to be able to fight over a contested or even denied electromagnetic spectrum.
"The list goes on.
“In short we need our land forces to be able to fight and win the future war.
"To do this we have reinvigorated our modernisation processes as well.
"We stratify the problems by seven themes or Army Modernisation Lines of Effort.
In Army Headquarters there are now dedicated staff officers who lead the planning and execution of activities for each of these lines of effort.
DSTO, in partnership with Army, has also appointed scientific leads who oversee the R&D within each line of effort.
The seven Army Modernisation Line of Effort which will better align and focus S&T / R&D activities are—Human Performance, Force Protection, Land Combat, Situational Awareness, C3, Force Design and Logistics.
“I believe this renewed modernisation process will reap rewards for the future land force.
"Australia’s defence community – the armed forces, industry and its research establishments - have a robust tradition of academic study, practical expertise and industry innovation that goes back over a century.”
LTGEN Morrison also took the opportunity to launch two new papers; Land Warfare Doctrine 1 – The Fundamentals of Land Power (LWD-1), which remains Army’s capstone doctrinal publication and the Future Land Warfare Report (FLWR), Army’s assessment of the future land operational environment and a key document in a concept led, capability based approach. Both documents are available on the Army website.