Adapting all-domain forces to changes in land warfare

Many elements of 21st-century warfare echo those of the 20th century. The nature of war as a brutal and fundamentally human endeavour has endured despite the introduction of stealth aircraft, precision missiles, drones, satellites and cyber capabilities to contemporary battlefields. Making sense of this context is just one of many challenges confronting the Australian Army and how it best contributes to the joint force.

Transitioning to an Australian Defence Force that can generate decisive battlefield effects in all domains in Australia’s immediate region is no trivial task. The role of land forces in deterrence and war is being reshaped by emerging technologies and social circumstances for warfare, the growing connection between forces on the land and at sea, the tendency for wars to be prolonged and the relative merits of heavy ground units in the Indo-Pacific.

These are among the developments I explore in a new ASPI report, The implications of emerging changes in land warfare for the focused all-domain defence force.

The report is presented in good faith for the sake of further discussion and the contest of ideas. It derives from a strong personal sense of obligation for senior leaders of the profession of arms to lead and encourage professional discourse on the ever-changing features of warfare.

Current strategic guidance makes clear that strike capability is viewed as an essential and dominant feature of future warfare and a core part of a diverse joint or all-domain mix. That mix includes carefully designed and prepared conventional ground forces that are capable of long-range strike and of defence from enemy missiles and drones. But it also includes capabilities and forces designed and postured for conventional attack and defence from and through fortified positions on land at close quarters. Australia’s National Defence Strategy provides for this with an amphibious-capable combined-arms land system.

This is important, as the increasing range of emerging land-based strike systems will make the sea a very dangerous place for warships, including ships carrying units of the combined-arms land system. As an Australian force crossed the water to make a landing, it and friendly forces could try to suppress some of the enemy’s ability to attack it. Entirely suppressing that ability may be impossible, however.

One underexplored and perhaps less palatable option to overcoming enemy anti-access and area-denial capabilities is to use large numbers of small, inexpensive, fast and somewhat protected land vehicles and watercraft that overwhelm defensive systems. They would be mixed with autonomous decoys and using technologies to spoof sensors and remain undetected. This idea of small, cheap and many may be an answer to cover no-man’s-lands.

Indeed, the US Marine Corps is already testing low-profile vessels to resupply distant outposts in contested spaces. While seemingly inefficient, the large numbers of small and relatively inexpensive craft could absorb enough of the enemy’s fire to enable a decisive number of troops and materiel to get into the fray to carry the day.

To keep costs down and to ensure the defence industrial base can produce large enough quantities to rapidly reconstitute combat losses, the vessels would need to have minimal defensive capabilities. A premium could be placed on the ability to carry or instantly access command and control, computing, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capabilities. The intention would be to degrade an adversary’s ability to sense and target small watercraft or personnel carriers to enable a landing.

Rather than dismiss or ignore the problem of transportation, critics and advocates should turn their attention to resolving how to manoeuvre naval and land forces and all their supplies and other logistical needs across no-man’s-lands encompassing both sea and land. It’s an all-domain problem and solving it would go a long way towards building confidence that the ADF and potential partners can manoeuvre in the Indo-Pacific at all.

While this report sketches some rough ideas for how land forces might contribute to Australia’s all-domain defence in various scenarios, there’s still a lot of imagination and creativity required. A lack of circumspection about the problems of contemporary warfare will only serve to inhibit that imagination and creativity.

The challenge now is to work out how best to use those ground forces in concert with forces in other domains to create a truly maritime ADF.