The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, has held the inaugural Chief of the Defence Force Conference at the Australian Defence College in Canberra.
The conference entitled Beyond Asymmetry: Counterinsurgency and Stabilisation in the 21st Century focused on one of the most challenging issues facing Australia at the regional and international levels.
Air Chief Marshal Houston said the two-day conference would enable the regional security community to come together to analyse the complexity of the modern strategic security environment.
“Stabilisation interventions have occurred in our immediate region, in Timor-Leste in 1999 and 2006 and the Solomon Islands in 2003.
“These nation-building missions remain ongoing for both the ADF and our various regional partners and other Government agency colleagues,” Air Chief Marshal Houston said.
“Beyond our region, we continue to contribute to military contingencies in areas such as the Middle East and Africa to uphold global security through missions that embrace peace operations, maritime security and counter-piracy.
“In Afghanistan, our aim is to prevent that nation from again being used by terrorists to plan, prepare and train to undertake attacks against Australians.
“We face a determined, skilled and very well supported insurgent group.”
One interesting point raised by the COIN case analysis of the South Asian region (covering Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand) highlighted the importance of an engaged government who let the military do what they needed to achieve the goals set by the government.
All three speakers argued that an engaged government was one of the keys to the success of the COIN programs in each of the nations examined.
A lesson for Afghanistan perhaps?
The biennial conference allows military, civilian and academic professionals who work in the security environment to exchange ideas and learn from field experience and academic analysis.
The conference has been internationally supported with presenters from India, Pakistan, Singapore, the UK and the US, as well as several special representatives from Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.