Tag Archive for: ADF

On the value of military service

In January, I crossed the milestone of 24 years of service in two militaries—the British and Australian armies. It is fair to say that I am a professional soldier. Soldiering has consumed the whole of my adult life. Indeed, it has been a focus since I first put on an army cadet uniform at the age of twelve.

It is also fair to say that the reputation of my profession is under pressure, particularly since the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars have challenged the moral foundation of modern soldiering, combining with a sense that the military suffers from a toxic culture, a moral vacuum and poor leadership.

A belief has developed from those campaigns that military service is inherently damaging. This is not unique in history. A similar perspective grew during and after the Vietnam War, one that took a generation to work through.

There is some truth to this negative image of service. I fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have written of my own concerns about the morality of the two campaigns. I have seen toxicity in culture and have experienced poor leadership. I have also, at times, likely been guilty of being a poor leader myself.

But this hard truth can exist at the same time as another truth: that I am undoubtedly a better person for my military service. Soldiering has not somehow suppressed my compassion and humanity; it has sharpened them. It has not diluted my values; it has constructed them. It has not fractured my family; it has strengthened us.

Put simply, I wouldn’t be the human I am today without the British and Australian armies.

So, I believe there is deep value in military service. Sometimes this gets lost. My aim in this article is to reflect on and remind of this value. This is not an article about certainty of employment, subsidised housing, or money (although all those certainly helped my family and me to weather wars, the global financial crisis and a pandemic). Instead, I want to talk about the intangibles. The things that really matter. The things that have made me who I am today.

A life of service and purpose

The name ‘military service’ is the right one. ‘Service’ has a dictionary definition of ‘the action of helping or doing work for someone’, and, in military terms, that ‘someone’ is the nation.

The idea of service as being at the core of the military profession is well embedded in history and culture. The rank of sergeant, for example, dates to the 13th century and is traced back to the Latin word serviens, meaning the ‘one who serves’. The motto of the Australian Army is ‘Serving the nation’. The idea of service is at the core of the oath of allegiance of the Australian Army. The mantra of Britain’s Royal Military Academy is famously ‘Serve to lead’.

This is no minor commitment. In 1962, the Australian-born General Sir John Hackett introduced the idea that military service involves a ‘contract of unlimited liability’. Soldiers agree to commit everything to the nation, up to and including sacrificing their own lives and deliberately taking the lives of others. Arguably, there is no profession that matches such a level of commitment. Few soldiers realise the scale of this when they join: it takes a few years, and often a few operations, for it to sink in.

That contract, however, is not a one-way street. You get something remarkable in return: a sense of purpose. There is something special in waking up each morning knowing that my work that day—however hard—will support the defence of the nation and the future security of my children. I have always been paid well as a soldier, but that has never been the point. And I have certainly never worked to make someone else money. I may only nudge the defence of the nation forward an inch on a given day, adding only one more brick to the ramparts, but I will have served, and that has purpose.

Is this worth my death? That is a good question. I have had to ask it several times. So far, the answer has always been ‘yes’. But I am clear that the day it is not, the day I am not willing to accept unlimited liability, is the day I should hang up the uniform. But such a day seems a very long way off, given how much the military has given me so far in terms of service and purpose.

Australian soldiers establish a position after disembarking from a US Army Chinook with Afghan National Security Force partners in Afghanistan, 2012: Department of Defence.

A life guided by values

The second gift of my service has been a life guided by values. Armies have now shaped my values and behaviour for more than 30 years, without doubt the biggest influence on my sense of morality other than my parents. The language used has been pretty consistent. Service. Courage. Excellence. Compassion. Loyalty. Integrity.

None of this has been performative. Far from these ideas being some sort of corporate banner, I have understood from day one that both armies have expected me to live and display the values, tangibly, every day. Nor has this ever been a matter of being in or out of uniform; it is with me 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Perhaps not everyone sees it that way, but I always have.

Aristotle once said, ‘we are what we repeatedly do’—that we are our habits. So, it’s not surprising that those values are now deeply set. In fact, they reflect from top to bottom, most noticeably in the small things. I find myself being unfailingly polite. I open doors and always let others go first. I find it exceptionally difficult to lie or deceive, at least outside of very necessary deception in combat. I tend to look after others. Leaders eat last, always. Some might consider this all to be just old-fashioned. It certainly makes me a terrible businessman. But I am far happier this way, guided as I am by a clear set of values.

How does this work with violence, which sits at the centre of my profession? It helps square the circle. I have always been scared of becoming inured or desensitised to the violence, comfortable with killing. The values reinforced into me by the army have made sure that never happens.

Yes, it is my job to take life if required, in defence of the nation. But every life has value, and the cost of taking it must always be recognised. As Nietzsche wrote, ‘he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.’ The British and Australian armies taught me this. It is not something I can forget.

The camaraderie of leading and following

Armies are hierarchical creatures, so for the past 24 years I have led, and I have followed, in many teams. Being part of this relationship is the best day-to-day aspect of the profession. I have followed some remarkable people. Tank officers and cavalrymen who took me to war with style. Special forces officers who dared, and won. Fiery frigate captains bringing force from the sea. And, most recently, remarkable senior leaders who have given as much as four decades of their lives to service: almost a third of the history of the Commonwealth of Australia.

I have also led soldiers, sailors and aviators, in both war and peace: teams from as small as 11 to as large as 400. Leading has been the greatest privilege of my life. In his excellent book War in Human Civilisation, Azar Gat describes military groups as primary or fraternal groups. They are as close to family as you can get, without being biological family. Gat is entirely right; my service has allowed me to be part of many families, all of them rich and full of characters.

It is true that military command can be a lonely task. One of the joys, however, is that you never do it alone. As an officer you always do it as a team, paired with a senior soldier of suitable experience and character. The accountabilities of command are rightly all yours, but the burdens of command are shared. This is a wonderful model, born of hundreds of years of tradition and experience: one that also leads to lifelong relationships.

Those connections of leading and following go deep. In September last year, I travelled more than 26,000 kilometres from Australia back to Britain for a 10-year reunion of a particularly lively tour of Afghanistan, where I had been the officer in charge of a 130-strong unit for a nine-month stint. I was in Britain for less than 50 hours. I landed, borrowed my father’s car and by lunchtime was hugging and swapping stories in Warwickshire with the best of men and women.

Sitting in the late autumn sunshine, in a 16th-century English pub in Shakespeare’s county, I couldn’t help but think of how well the Bard captured the feeling of military camaraderie in Henry V; a bond born of shared hardship. Life somehow shone brighter in those nine months in Helmand Province, surrounded by violence and death. As King Henry put it in the play, those days would ‘na’er go by from this day to the ending of the world’ without us remembering them, or each other. We truly were a ‘band of brothers’—and sisters. And, as Shakespeare’s Henry said, ‘He who fought with me that day shall be my brother.’ This was my brotherhood—my family—of Afghanistan veterans.

Three of the family are no longer with us. One was lost on the tour, two in the decade since. But they were there at the reunion, in spirit if not in body. Their photos were carefully laid out on a pub table, resting on our squadron flag. Drinks were bought for them, and glasses raised throughout. Ours is a family for which the phrase ‘we will remember them’ is a promise, not a slogan. Such camaraderie is hard-earned. To be part of it is a privilege.

Tom McDermott in Afghanistan: British Ministry of Defence via author.

Visceral emotions and a true sense of perspective

Over the years, I have thought a lot about visceral emotions, the deep-set, intuitive and powerful ones that strike to your very core. Everyone experiences them at some time: the dual feeling of joy and terror at the birth of your first child, or the feeling of uncertainty and grief when you find that a loved one has died. But true visceral emotions are much rarer than people think.

My service has led to me experiencing many visceral emotions. You might think those were bad, and some were. The terror of hearing a burst of enemy machine-gun fire, followed by a ‘Man down!’ call on the radio. The eviscerating grief of hearing that a comrade is dead. Over the years, I have come to accept those moments as a reality of the profession, just as a doctor must learn to manage death. General William Sherman once said that ‘War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.’ He is right. One thing I have learned is that two emotions are more dangerous than others: hatred, and disgust. Those are the gateways to revenge, an urge that must be guarded against at all costs.

But those difficult visceral emotions are genuinely offset by the positive ones. The first hug from my wife and then four-year-old daughter after nine months fighting in Afghanistan reached a scale of joy that is difficult to express. The feeling of collective achievement walking out of the back of a Chinook helicopter after a successful operation, the heat of the engines singeing the hairs on the back of my neck. The surge of pride watching one of my brother officers receive a medal from the Queen. Perhaps oddly, those positive emotions include the affirmation of actual combat. Winston Churchill once wrote, ‘nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.’ That is true. The battlefield is the most challenging of human arenas. My experience is that one values life more having endured it.

Those emotions—the good, the bad and the ugly—have had an overall net positive effect. Above all, they have given me perspective. I tend to view life differently now. I have less interest in material things, in the trappings of wealth or success. I am not bothered by the small problems: the traffic, not being able to find a parking space, a lack of phone signal. I am very slow to anger. I am not religious, but I am more spiritual … as the saying goes, ‘There are no atheists in foxholes.’ My use of language has changed. I very rarely use the word ‘hate’; I have felt the glimmers of true hatred, and I know what it really means.

Overall, the idea of a bad day has different context, when you’ve experienced days that are really bad. War has taught me that the Stoics were right, there really are only two things in your control: your thoughts and your actions. War asks you to have the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. These are lessons you carry for life.

Service, identity and citizenship

The passages above outline (however inadequately) what I have gained from service. The obvious final question though is, ‘Why do you still do it?’ Surely after 24 years, you’ve paid your dues and could do something a little more relaxing? Something a little less burdensome? A little easier on the family?

The simplest answer is that military service is my identity, and has been for more than half my life. I’m not sure how I would go without it. Writing in a different age, Samuel Johnson said, ‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier.’ I don’t think that is the case today, but I know I certainly feel better for being one. I think identity is the reason why many soldiers find life hard after they leave the military: the niggling loss of the service motive that has underpinned each day in uniform.

But that simple answer isn’t enough. The second and better answer is because I am needed. The world is clearly a more dangerous place than at any time since I started serving in 2001—indeed, perhaps since my grandfather was in uniform in the Second World War. The return of great-power competition heralds a period of tension that could well lead to armed confrontation or war in the Indo-Pacific.

History tells us that we must prepare for the worst, and that a strong and capable military is a vital part of that preparation. I migrated to Australia to secure a better future for my children, and I believe that future is now under threat. My service in 2025 has more meaning than it did when I arrived in 2015. It is my contribution to securing my children’s future.

This brings me to my final answer: ‘I serve because I am Australian.’ This is a fine place to finish. Migrating to another nation in mid-life has been hard—a core change in identity that led me from being British to becoming Australian. I often reflect that, while I originally served to gain Australian citizenship, I have now become truly Australian due to my service.

My time in the Australian Army has fundamentally connected me to the nation. It has shown me all the different Australias: from Whyalla in the south to the red desert in the Northern Territory, from the beauty of Perth to the Atherton Tableland. I have been privileged to lead the oldest cavalry regiment in the Australian Army, with a history dating back to 1860. I have worn the Australian national flag on my sleeve every day for nearly a decade, a constant reminder of what the country has given my family and me. I would not be the Australian I am today without the Australian Army.

For me, this is one of the most under-recognised benefits of service: an appreciation of and connection to nation. The idea of patriotism is struggling in the modern age, but the definition remains clear: ‘the quality of being devoted to one’s country.’ I am far more devoted to Australia than I expected to be, just 10 years ago. Because I am an Australian soldier. Always.

Too slow and too picky: Defence recruiting isn’t fit for purpose

Australian Defence Force recruiting systems need to be overhauled if the ADF is to sustain and increase its size in the coming years. The ADF also needs to make changes to entry standards so it can take maximum advantage of the pool of applicants.

In early 2024, the ADF was around 4300 people below its authorised strength of 62,700 permanent members. This makes the 2040 target of 80,000 permanent personnel look increasingly difficult to achieve.

While the challenges of recruiting are usually framed in the context of competition with other industries—with the low unemployment rate cited as evidence of labour market tightness—other factors are at play. It is commonly argued that pay and conditions for ADF members need to rise to attract and retain personnel. However, they are already relatively generous: Australia’s median full-time pay is about $88,500 a year. The starting pay of a sergeant or fully qualified officer is higher. A private reaching pay grade 5 will also earn more than the national median. Further increases to pay grades are likely to have diminishing returns.

In 2024, 64,000 people applied to join the ADF. The average time it took to complete a recruitment process was 300 days. These are both surprising figures, in different ways. On one hand, taking just a fraction more of those applicants in a year would bring the ADF up to its authorised strength. On the other hand, the recruitment period shows just how cumbersome and inefficient the recruitment process currently is.

While spending 300 days to decide whether to recruit someone might not have mattered as much in the relatively peaceful era straight after the Cold War, it is unacceptable when geopolitical tensions are increasing and we need expand the ADF quickly. Also, according to both human resources theory and plentiful anecdotal evidence, many of the ADF’s best applicants probably have other job opportunities. The longer the ADF takes to finish the recruitment process, the more likely a high-performing candidate will be frustrated by the bureaucratic delays and go elsewhere.

For those keeping score, some of those 64,000 applicants were successfully recruited and some withdrew their applications partway through. The rest would have been deemed unsuitable and had their application rejected. But could none of those applicants have been able to safely and competently do any of the 4,300 positions that remain unfilled in the ADF? Almost certainly not.

This is where the ADF needs to change its attitude towards recruitment standards: it needs to become less choosy. It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth that many Australian servicepeople who fought and died in World War I and World War II would have been rejected by today’s ADF. At the height of World War II, around one in eight Australians was deemed suitable to serve.

Defence needs to take a less risk-averse attitude towards health issues. There are many stories of potential ADF recruits being rejected for minor or historical physical and mental health reasons. ADF attitudes towards mental health are particularly outdated. Mental health issues are now better recognised and understood by health professionals and the public, increasing diagnosis rates. Despite improvements in the treatment and management of mental conditions, the ADF’s overly conservative attitude towards mental illness is excluding an increasingly large demographic from the recruiting pool. Recruiting from that pool will require improved mental health support both during service and after discharge.

The ADF will have to make changes to improve its recruitment process, starting with greater resource allocation to increase recruiting capacity. Identifying and prioritising high-performing applicants early would further optimise the recruitment process and increase Defence’s chances of securing these candidates. The ADF should also streamline bureaucracy where possible, particularly around document provision and follow-up medical examinations. Managing the contract with Defence’s recruiting service provider, Adecco, will further improve performance.

Defence would benefit from updated recruiting standards around minor or historical health issues. It should adopt a less risk-averse approach centred on an applicant’s ability to do their job at the time of recruitment. In the longer term, Defence should conduct a review into its recruitment processes with the aim of designing a recruiting system that can deliver the personnel needed for the ADF’s future.

Despite perceptions, there is a large pool of applicants who want to join the ADF. With appropriate changes to recruiting systems and standards, that pool should be able to fill the ADF’s expanding requirements. This will help the ADF meet its target of 80,000 permanent personnel by 2040.

The ADF needs more specialists. To get them, it needs more flexibility

The Australian Defence Force needs a new way to recruit and retain hard-to-find experts, such as specialist engineers. Current systems do not allow for the flexibility that the 21st century demands, nor do they match industry salary standards.

These shortcomings were highlighted by the Strategic Review of the Australian Defence Force Reserves, which identifies the need to adopt a Total Workforce System that supports more innovative and flexible workforce arrangements.​

The problem has been worsening as tasks within the ADF have become more complex. But maybe the solution has been right in front of us all along.

We could adapt the existing Specialist Services Officer (SSO) system through which the army currently engages people in fields such a healthcare, finance, law, chaplaincy, management, public affairs, aviation, engineering or education, without necessarily requiring the full military training of standard army service. The SSO arrangement needs to be more flexible: rather than limited to pre-defined fields, it must be open to whatever roles the ADF requires.

It would thereby enable the ADF to employ a much wider range of specialists, and it would apply to people with particularly valuable skills who could already be in the ADF under a different role.

The adaption, renamed Specialist Service Person (SSP), could also replace the Specialist Service Soldier scheme, which the army is trialling for enlisted personnel and which is focused on specific trades.

For example, the army may need someone with specialist sanitation knowledge for an operation, but ‘sanitation engineer’ isn’t on the Specialist Services Officer list or a job in the ADF. The review of the reserves advocates creating pathways that allow a broader range of specialists to enter the ADF, ensuring operational requirements guide employment rather than rigid role categories.

Instead, operational needs should guide employment, and a system unconstrained by pre-defined employment categories and open to negotiable pay should ensure that ever-changing service demands are met.

Other examples of skills that the ADF can acquire with far more flexibility are artificial intelligence experts, automation engineers, naval architects, procurement specialists and unknown future roles we haven’t thought up yet.

The SSP system, like the SSO, would apply to civilians entering the ADF or to reservists with specialised skills. This gives the ADF options to move people into roles where there is an operational need and move them out when it is over.

A continuous full-time service (CFTS) contract, as already used for upgrading reservists to full-time employment, could be used. Under the SSP model, the ADF could call upon specialists when needed, similar to the reserves, rather than keeping people permanently on contract but underemployed.

Additionally, ADF also relies on a contracted external civilian workforce for niche expertise. They are often employed by companies that they work for directly, adding complexity, cost and conflicts of interest. Instead, such skills should be available from service members under SSP CFTS contracts.

Offering realistic market salaries under the SSP system would also improve the chance of keeping highly skilled ADF members who have grown beyond their standard employment model.

This proposal takes inspiration from the US Warrant Officer system and Singapore’s military expert system.

The US Army pays more for its technical experts through its Warrant Officer ranks. These members are specialists in specific fields rather than generalist leaders, enabling them to focus on their core skills. This system allows the military to retain and access the expertise of its best specialists.

The Singapore Armed Forces directly recruit specialists from the civilian sector, tapping into a wider talent pool to meet evolving defence needs. These specialists, known as military experts, can then develop their skills through the Military Domain Experts Scheme.

Like the US model, the proposed SSP system would recognise and promote expertise from within the ranks. Like Singapore’s approach, it would acknowledge the need to bring in external expertise when required. This hybrid model ensures seamless integration of both internal and external specialists, optimising the ADF’s capabilities.

The SSP system could also be used to keep the skills of people who would otherwise leave the ADF—for example, because medical conditions make them unfit for standard duties. If they hold the right in need skillsets the ADF in the SSP model would have the flexibility to reengage them under a CFTS contract with defined duties, salary and outcomes.

Currently, specialists often face pay cuts when they move from private companies into ADF roles. This concern is echoed in the review of the reserves, which emphasises the need to modernise conditions of service and adopt a more competitive pay structure to improve retention and recruitment outcomes.

The key word is ‘flexibility’. That’s what the ADF must have as it tries to employ and keep people with the ever-enlarging range of skills that it needs.

How drone racing promotes battlefield FPV capability

The Australian Defence Force is a global leader in first-person view (FPV) drone racing, a sport that has attracted public attention and gone viral on social media. The ADF’s success in the field demonstrates how competitive military sport can be used to advance dual-use technology and nurture technological skills in the next generation.

Military capability and military sport have been linked for millennia, with soldiers competing in events such as the Olympic Pentathlon and the Military World Games to develop their skills in peacetime. Today, militaries use sports to forge international relationships, a key application of soft power.

FPV drone racing, one of the most recent examples of military sports, has emerged as a form of honing skills for a disruptive battlefield technology that can quickly enhance the situational awareness and firepower of individual soldiers and small combat elements. The little aircraft are cheaper and require less training than do more complex military-specification precision-guided weapons and autonomous systems.

Commercial camera drones and FPV drone racing were at first adapted for the battlefield by the Ukrainian military in response to shortage of precision-guided munitions and artillery rounds. The affordability, accessibility and ease of designing, building and flying drones have proliferated their use in conventional battlefield applications. They are effective as tools for disruption and provide opportunities for innovation to maintain combat advantage.

The Australian Army and British Army collaborated to assemble the first military drone racing teams in 2017 and 2018, and the inaugural Military International Drone Racing Tournament was held in Sydney in 2018. Since then, the ADF’s FPV drone racing pilots have remained undefeated, with consecutive wins in 2018, 2023 and 2024. The tournament brings together military FPV drone practitioners from around the world with the highest skills in designing, building and flying FPV racing drones. They compete in drone design, technology, pilot skills and teamwork. Most participating nations now have full-time pilots developing their military tactics, techniques and procedures; some of them are involved in the racing.

The ADF’s commitment to promoting FPV drone racing is enthusiastic, with its hashtag #SendIt! going viral across the movement. Its initiation of the international tournament in 2018 and the establishment of the ADF Drone Racing Association in 2023 are clear demonstrations of this commitment.

These initiatives illustrate how military sports programs can support the evolution of warfighting techniques and technology. They help ensure that ADF personnel remain competitive in drone racing, and have opportunities to learn and practise designing, building, flying, and repairing drones.

Racing tournaments encourage pilots to innovate in the quest for a drone design that delivers a winning performance. In many ways, the technology involved in FPV drone racing is an innovative application of the technology made affordable by commercial smartphones. Smartphone technology includes miniaturised batteries, microprocessors, high-definition cameras, small monitors, network communications and gyro-stabilised gravimeters. FPV racing drones are assembled from micro electric motors, electronic speed controllers, radio receivers, video transmitters, cameras and a flight controller integrated into a carbon fibre quadcopter frame. Thanks to the diversity of available components, racing pilots can hone their preferences for the most effective brands, software and technologies.

Drone racing tournaments also help pilots develop their flying skills. During a race, pilots control their custom-built FPV racing drones around a 3D obstacle racetrack. They wear FPV goggles to see the live video from the drone’s forward-facing camera and remotely manoeuvre the drone using electronic and radiofrequency systems. The video gives pilots an immersive experience so that they can see and understand where the drone needs to go. They decide on the flight control actions required to complete the race, sometimes recovering from unplanned mid-air collisions with other drones, the race gates and the ground.

Through its creation of FPV drone racing associations, the ADF is also highlighting the importance of building drones as a key skill that future generations should learn through science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programs. The pilots and teams visit schools, demonstrate at science festivals, career expos and airshows, and run drone racing boot camps for the ADF’s cadet and training organisations. Their message is clear: all STEM skills are required across the entire ADF, not just in drone operations.

While the ADF’s drone racing champions appear to simply relish winning at the sport, the main mission of the team lies in the innovation of drone technology and its application to the battlefield. The pilots’ success demonstrates how competitive military sports can be utilised to advance dual-use technology and promote STEM within the next generation, fostering innovation and disruptive thinking in current and future drone experts. #SendIt!

Faster, please: the ADF needs to catch up on uncrewed-aircraft technologies

The rapidly deteriorating strategic environment necessitates a shift in defence strategies and capabilities. The Australian Defence Force (ADF), like many military forces globally, must acknowledge that uncrewed systems will play an important role in future conflicts. It must accelerate its processes for developing their capability.

Russia’s war against Ukraine and fighting in the Red Sea have demonstrated a rapid proliferation of high volume, low-cost technologies that are now indispensable on the battlefield. In light of this, the ADF should further develop and implement strategies for uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) and counter-uncrewed aerial systems (C-UASs).

These strategies should provide clear guidelines on accelerating ADF access to UASs across air, land and sea; investments in and collaboration with the UAS industry; defining roles of civil and military authorities; and ways to counter drone threats.

The 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS) and associated spending plan, the Integrated Investment Program, recognise the importance of enhancing Australia’s drone and counter-drone capabilities. The Defence Department does include UASs in ‘robotics, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence’, one of its sovereign industrial capability priorities, but this covers only limited aspects of UASs, not the technology’s full breadth of capability and the need for large-scale manufacturing. Moreover, there is no evidence of recently developed or released strategies specifically addressing UASs and C-UASs.

By contrast, Australia’s allies, including the United States, Britain, France and South Korea, have already developed or revised their strategies. These are based in part on observations of the use of drones in Ukraine and understanding the need to protect against them. For example, the US released a C-UAS strategy in early December. Britain launched a new UAS strategy in February 2024 highlighting clear directions for enhancing UAS capabilities and for spending for the next decade. The ADF can similarly provide clear directions to accelerate access to UASs and C-UAS across air, land and sea by developing its own strategies.

The NDS calls for integrating existing and emerging technologies and for boosting military-industrial capacity with secure supply chains. The war in Ukraine has shown that a country needs to develop its own supply chain, manufacturing capabilities and stocks. The Australian industry is highly skilled and capable of doing this, but it needs direction through clear policy guidelines.

The ADF must recognise the need to balance between investing in complex, highly capable systems and high-volume, low-cost technologies that can provide quick and simple solutions for a range of security challenges.

The Integrated Investment Program includes spending on a range of uncrewed and autonomous systems. The ADF plans to spend more than $10 billion on drones, with at least $4.3 billion on uncrewed aerial systems and $690 million on uncrewed tactical systems for the army.

So far, Australia’s spending on UASs has focused on complex aircraft, such as the Boeing MQ-28A Ghost Bat, designed to operate alongside crewed aircraft or to independently increase aircraft numbers in combat. The air force has begun receiving MQ-4C Tritons, an unarmed, high-altitude and long-endurance uncrewed aircraft.

The ADF will spend more than $100 million on 110 drones from the Australian manufacturers SYPAQ and Quantum-Systems. While it considers the delivery of the limited number of systems in 2025 to express ‘an intent to enhance at speed’, other nations spend far more on ensuring that warfighters have such systems and, most importantly, are protected against them.

It must also acknowledge that UASs with high-end capabilities are highly vulnerable and must be protected. The conflict in Ukraine demonstrates that large UAS have become targets that are easy to detect and destroy. For example, TB2 Bayraktars, celebrated in 2022 for their performance, are no longer frequently used. Similarly, the Russian fleet has had to relocate from parts of the Black Sea due to drone threats, such as the one in November when Ukrainian drone boats motored over 1000km and blasted three Russian warships in one blow.

Furthermore, the government must better understand the relationship between civil and military authorities and their roles and responsibilities in counteracting UAS threats.

In peacetime, civil law enforcement agencies are responsible for defence against UAS, but responsibilities may overlap in relation to military installations and critical infrastructure. Moreover, civil agencies may require military support since only the armed forces have the equipment to detect, identify and engage UAS. The government must encourage close cooperation between civil and military organisations in order to maintain an effective level of interoperability.

Regardless of how the ADF develops its own UAS, it must prepare to defend against them. Every soldier must be aware of UAS threats, learn how to use a UAS, how to counter them for self-defence and to protect others and costly equipment. As UAS technologies evolve, so do C-UAS capabilities.

As evident from Russia’s war against Ukraine, the UAS are already threats, and they are here to stay. Australia must keep up with the rapid pace of innovation in this field. It needs to demonstrate commitment to stay ahead in the development of drone technology and ensure that its armed forces are prepared in the fast-changing security landscape.

Unlocking the full potential of the ADF’s northern ranges and training areas

The Northern Territory (NT) is one of the world’s most exceptional military training environments, offering vast and rugged landscapes ideally suited for large-scale exercises, live-fire drills and complex operations. Defence-owned areas such as Bradshaw Field Training Area and Mount Bundey Training Area have earned global recognition for their ability to support high-intensity training.

Yet the Australian Defence Force is not fully exploiting the potential of these assets. It is underutilising critical resources that could enhance the ADF’s operational capabilities and Australia’s broader defence posture.

The NT’s training areas have been integral to the ADF’s operational readiness, providing an ideal environment for training in conventional and irregular warfare. They have long supported complex exercises, testing of diverse military equipment and joint training with allied forces.

However, in recent years, there has been a noticeable reduction in the scale and frequency of ADF exercises in the NT. This decline, compounded by the army’s shrinking presence in the NT and competing demands on Defence, has limited the ADF’s ability to fully exploit these ranges for high-intensity, combined-arms training, leaving a significant gap in defence readiness.

The underutilisation of the NT’s training grounds is particularly clear when compared with the heavy involvement of the US military. Under the US Force Posture Initiatives, the United States has made significant spending in these areas and regularly conducted exercises on them. This engagement reinforces the strategic importance of the NT’s ranges, highlighting the gap in the ADF’s use of them. Other international partners, particularly Japan, also recognise the value of the ranges. As regional tensions rise, training alongside allies in a location as strategically situated as the NT enhances interoperability and military readiness.

Despite the NT’s exceptional training environment and the US forces’ frequent use of this advantage, the ADF’s commitment to high-intensity exercises in the region has waned. As the Indo-Pacific becomes more geopolitically significant, the NT’s ranges should be central to Australia’s defence strategy, not secondary assets used infrequently or for limited purposes.

The Australian government and the ADF must act to maximise the utility of the NT’s training areas. The ADF must significantly ramp up its commitment to large-scale, complex training exercises in the NT.

To optimise use of the ranges, Australia must increase large-scale exercises in the NT that integrate multiple military services and allies. These exercises should reflect Australia’s strategic challenges, such as maritime security, territorial defence and regional stability. A focus on rapid deployment and modern warfare scenarios will ensure that the ADF is prepared to address a broad spectrum of threats, from conventional military conflicts to humanitarian crises and natural disasters.

Equally important is fostering closer collaboration between the Australian government, the ADF and the NT government. As the ADF ramps up its training activities in the region, the NT government must actively support the expansion. The NT’s vast, sparsely populated landscape provides a unique opportunity for the ADF to collaborate with local communities and businesses, creating mutually beneficial partnerships.

Expanding military exercises can generate jobs, boost local economies and improve infrastructure, all of which will help sustain the NT’s growing role in Australia’s defence strategy. It can also stress-test the region’s transport and logistics infrastructure and industry base, while providing economic opportunities for local businesses and communities. The increased ADF activity will also enhance the region’s security and emergency response capabilities, providing direct benefits to the local population.

Australia can unlock the full potential of these invaluable resources by revitalising its commitment to these ranges, increasing international cooperation and fostering stronger partnerships with the NT government and local communities. A comprehensive policy approach, focused on increased training activity and stronger collaboration with both domestic and international partners, will ensure that the NT remains central to Australia’s defence strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. This will enhance the ADF’s operational readiness, strengthen relationships with key allies, and solidify Australia’s role as an important player in regional security.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘A PNG view on recruitment for the ADF: yes, please’

Originally published on 12 August 2024.

Papua New Guineans should serve in the Australian Defence Force. As a Papua New Guinean, I believe this would instill Western values of democracy and freedom in our young people, who must be made to realise that these principles are under threat as China expands its influence in the region.

Australian military service would also provide employment for young people from PNG and other Pacific island countries, giving them real life skills.

As Australia considers the possibility of Pacific recruitment, it must understand that this would not just be a way to make up the ADF personnel shortfall. It would also help the countries from which service personnel were drawn, demonstrating good will towards the Pacific and going well beyond mere words in promoting their alignment with the West.

In general, the Pacific islands would prefer to align with Australia and the United States rather than China, but this view is predominantly held by older people, especially those who remember what they call the good times of the colonial era. In contrast, the younger people do not care greatly whether their countries are aligned to the West or not.

Service in the ADF would do more than bind many young people in PNG and other Pacific island countries to Australia. It would also teach them the moral values that come with military service, values that are lacking among far too many of them, especially in PNG. And they would take those values back home after completing their ADF service, to the gratification of their fellow citizens, not least their extended families.

Serving in the armed forces of a sturdily democratic country such as Australia would also reinforce democratic values that are fast eroding in the Pacific islands.

Terms of service for Pacific island people should require them to return home after, say, nine years in the ADF. If they later wanted to apply for Australian citizenship, they could be given preferential treatment, but only after at least five years serving in the armed forces of their home countries.

This should be an important feature of Pacific recruitment. Pacific defence and security forces are short on skills and suffer declining disciplinary and ethical standards. The infusion of ex-ADF people would address both problems. For the PNG Defence Force, the skills transfer would be particularly effective, because almost all its equipment has been donated by Australia.

If Pacific islanders did not shift from the ADF to their home countries’ forces, their skills would still benefit their countries in non-military employment.

In return for giving Pacific islands these benefits, Australia would gain from their labour availability. Pacific island countries, such as PNG, have economies that are not growing much but populations that have exploded, leaving many well educated young people unemployed.

The $600 million that Canberra plans to spend on establishing a team from PNG in the Australian Rugby League competition would be far better spent on ADF recruitment in the country. It would employ far more PNG people if it were. And rugby league does not teach life skills, whereas ADF service would provide that and other much deeper benefits.

Crucially, Pacific countries must be treated as equal partners in defence of democracy and freedom. It is not their politicians but their people who must realise that Western values that they enjoy, such as democracy and freedom of speech, are not guaranteed.

They must also be reassured that the Pacific islands are not merely a military buffer against a threat to Australia. Young Papua New Guineans, who have a better grasp of geopolitics than their parents, are increasingly of the view that PNG must not be treated as useful cannon fodder in a possible war. If they think that that is Australia’s attitude, any sense of loyalty or partnership will vanish.

They can see what China is doing to enlarge its influence and what the US is doing in response. In my experience, they are not clear about what Australia is doing, as distinct from what it is merely saying, to demonstrate commitment to the region.

In the spirit of equal partnership, the ADF should avoid creating a Pacific Regiment, one composed entirely of Pacific recruits, as that would give rise to criticisms of colonialism and second-class status. Instead, as recommended by former British Army officer Ross Thompson, it should follow the model that Britain uses for Fijian recruits: it should spread Pacific islanders across a range of units.

Australia needs to demonstrate its commitment to Pacific island countries. The best way it can do so is by giving Pacific islanders the benefits of service in the ADF.

Great progress and greater potential: Australia needs to accelerate programs for uncrewed naval vessels

Australia is doing well in developing uncrewed naval vessels. Now it needs to redouble efforts to get them into service faster. Application of asymmetric technology is a declared outcome of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) to generate deterrence by denial, so these systems should be moved to the front of the queue.

The Australian Defence Force has designs for three uncrewed vessels in development: the extra large uncrewed submarine Ghost Shark by Anduril Australia in Sydney, the smaller Speartooth submarine by Melbourne’s C2 Robotics, and the Bluebottle boat by Sydney’s Ocius Technology. Each craft is the result of navy-industry collaboration. When the three are operated together as a maritime system, they offer excellent combinations of capabilities and force multiplication, achieving outcomes that no single type could achieve alone.

The selection of the designs appears to be intended to provide effects over an expected future maritime battle space involving the extremely large distances and wide areas of the Indo-Pacific. Australia doesn’t have the workforce, the funding or the time to do that with only crewed platforms. Uncrewed craft are necessary to provide numbers and breadth of coverage in such a large area of operations, and they come with the triple bonus of being highly affordable, imposing low demands on the navy’s workforce, and prompt availability. Working together, the three systems are significantly greater than the sum of each individually.

The Bluebottle’s key advantages are low-cost persistence by use of environmental energy—wind, waves and sunlight for propulsion and electricity—its need for only a small support crew, little equipment and few spare parts ashore.

The Speartooth has long range, is inexpensive and can therefore be made in high volumes. Also, it has very low logistics footprint for storage, launching, recovering and operation.

The Ghost Shark’s key advantages are a large payload volume and very long range and endurance.

While details have not been released, the Speartooth and Ghost Shark presumably use battery-electric propulsion.

Importantly, these vessels are not for next decade in the DSR’s third epoch. The Bluebottle is mature and mission ready. Long-range maritime operations are standard everyday activities for Bluebottles that have already been delivered to the navy. The Speartooth is continuing intensive testing and trials, with more than two years in the water so far and a number of units operating frequently in a test environment. The Ghost Shark is also progressing rapidly, ahead of schedule, with in-water testing well underway.

For all three, testing is showing low workforce demands. Allocated personnel are operating many of these uncrewed systems concurrently. Humans assist and direct them but do not continuously control them.

Uses for the three designs range widely from augmenting contemporary maritime operations to extreme asymmetry—technological outmatching of the opponent. First, uncrewed submarines will probably be the most forward-deployed maritime units. The key advantage of any underwater system is in stealth, and uncrewed subs will use it to penetrate adversary defences and sea lines of communications, projecting capabilities at maximum ranges.

In a conventional operation, the Speartooth subs are likely to be the first line of engagement. Since they are inexpensive, they can be numerous, and losses could be easily afforded. Indeed, large numbers can be sent forward with the expectation that many (or most) won’t come back.

Their deployment in large numbers would raise the enemy’s challenge in looking for and eliminating them, tying up precious antisubmarine warfare resources on these relatively low-value targets. Being small, they can get to places that would be hard for crewed submarines to navigate, such as shallows or constricted waters where turns must be tight.

Speartooths’ payloads would probably also be made cheaply and in large volumes. We may imagine this as a whole host of tricks that could include a wide range of sensors (such as sonars and radio receivers for surveillance) and effectors (such as mines or small torpedoes, or the uncrewed submarine itself acting as a torpedo). A Speartooth could even be noisily present simply to confuse and disrupt an adversary network by acting as decoy by mimicking the sound, magnetic signature or even volume of another underwater object. With a simple mission update, a Speartooth could be tasked to a location to look like an AUKUS or Quad nation submarine, or to generate even greater confusion as a Chinese, Russian or North Korean submarine. The imagination goes wild with the possibilities.

During a period of competition short of war, Ghost Sharks will be forward, maintaining continuous and close surveillance. In war they would probably sit back somewhat, carrying higher-value payloads, but move forward to help outweigh an enemy’s strength in a particular area for a while. Speartooths can be a shield behind which the more-sophisticated Ghost Sharks could operate more effectively to activate or deploy larger and more elaborate payloads.

Ghost Sharks will have more payload space and much greater power reserves than Speartooths, for large, energy-intensive payloads and higher deployment speeds. Their price will put them above the range of expendable equipment, so we will want Ghost Sharks to come back most of the time. They may need protection and usually won’t be exposed to high risk of detection and destruction.

So the Speartooth and Ghost Shark designs appear to very neatly complement one another.

They will also be produced at scale here in Australia. These are two cards that the ADF can play when required to mobilise large numbers of craft. We can export them to allies and friends, too.

Bluebottles will probably sit further back, providing many support functions to forward deployed uncrewed submarines. As surface vessels, they can be detected and targeted much more readily than subsurface systems; However, they provide persistent presence in ways that can’t be provided from below the surface, thanks to their use of the wind and sun to keep them going. Plausible functions include surface surveillance, acting as a persistent communication relay, and potentially even recharging of uncrewed subs, using batteries or generators aboard the Bluebottles. They can also contribute to combat operations with radar, cameras and electronic warfare systems above the water and sonars below it, listening for and attempting to detect and track adversary submarines.

Supported by uncrewed boats and submarines, crewed ships and subs have more options in achieving operational tasks. Maritime autonomous systems are likely to be a critical element in the survival and employment of the small numbers of crewed vessels that the ADF has. The ADF really needs to protect crewed ships and submarines: the loss of any would be a national tragedy, taking lives and depriving the ADF of an extremely rare resource that would take years to replace. Risk reduction for crewed ships and subs is alone a reason for seeing accelerated investment in autonomous vessels providing extraordinarily high value-for-money.

The ADF looks in very good shape to bring serious maritime autonomous systems to fruition in the near term. The navy has chosen its designs carefully, so the three platforms working together will be far more effective than any platform on its own. Development of these world-leading systems in Australia, supported by our own industrial base, promises the great benefits of easy supportability and capability expansion.

The National Defence Strategy should accelerate these developments in any way possible. The ADF could and should be producing significant numbers of these uncrewed systems to contribute to the DSR’s demand to generate asymmetric effects from a focused force that deters by denial.

Australia’s army is suffering from a crisis of identity and confidence

The Australian Army does not have a social licence problem, it has self-confidence issue.

On balance, the community from which the Australian Army is drawn, and that it serves, values and implicitly permits the army’s existence. While we can argue the toss in terms of whether the army should be the first port of call for national disaster relief, it remains the fact Australian society looks to our army in times of peril.

But the army has not pushed back, and the list of society’s requirements continues to grow. We ask more and more of our army and, rightly or not, lash it when it stumbles. Truth is, the army has ceded too much territory in our national debate to woke politics. Our army has overcorrected on its course correction following the Brereton inquiry.

The army’s fundamental role is the application of lethal force in our name—to kill. The army does not go out of its way to remind Australians that this task is one we consciously place on its shoulders. So, we tend to forget about it.

Perhaps the army has an identity problem. Australian Bureau of Statistics data indicates the proportion of Australian citizens who were born overseas (first-generation Australians) or have a parent born overseas (second generation) has surpassed 50 per cent of our population. This has direct implications for the story our army tells. Anzac Day commemorations strike a chord with an ever-narrowing group. Society is shifting and our shared stories are no longer simply grandfather stories of World War II.

The new histories and composition of our community make it slightly more difficult to pinpoint an Australian brand of duty. The army must think differently about the society it serves and from which it draws.

The recruitment focus on school-leavers is too late. Given our cultural diversity, it is important to capture the interest of much younger children. The army might consider a primary school focus akin to the Constable Kenny Koala program, whereby Annie Army visits schools to spark early interest in a life of service.

Recent census data shows that in five years from 2016 the largest source of community growth was Nepal. Australia’s Nepalese community grew by 124 per cent. There is an opportunity for a real marriage of service, identity and cultural affinity here: a targeted recruitment effort to establish an Australian Army Gurkha Brigade.

The army continues to operate with a sense of restriction. Its recruitment efforts are tailored at fiscal benefits, social opportunities and travel. While these are commendable draw cards, the army is about so much more.

Our army needs to rediscover confidence before society to follow suit. It has owned mistakes made and committed to do better. Instead of cracking on, our army seems to find itself in a constant state of flight or fight, anxious to not make headlines. This reinforces challenges in recruitment and retention, too.

It is time for the army to reintroduce itself to Australia. We can easily capture army composition from headcounts or gender statistics, and from doctrine understand its mission, purpose and ethos. This tells us what the army is but not who. I think this is a significant distinction to overlook.

The Australian Army is a living, breathing entity. This is something Winston Churchill captured: ‘The army is not like a limited liability company, to be reconstructed, remodelled, liquidated, refloated from week to week as the money market fluctuates. It is not an inanimate thing, like a house, to be pulled down or enlarged or structurally altered at the caprice of the tenant or the owner; it is a living thing.’

It must act like one.

Of course, our army is both a profession and a bureaucracy. But in recent times the bureaucracy has outweighed profession. While both must feature, ideally in equilibrium, for a righteous and efficient Australian Army to exist we must rebalance the scales. The army should cultivate a sense of calling, of pride, of duty, among those who serve as well as the community served.

Instead, our army appears unconfident in its purpose—seeking too much direction from the society it serves, allowing its bureaucratic nature to take hold and frame service as a job. How odd it is to have such a stellar international reputation as a reliable and skilled boutique force respected by allies and enemies, only to be consumed by a crisis of confidence at home.

To return to Churchill, it is true that if an army ‘is bullied, it sulks; if it is unhappy, it pines; if it is harried, it gets feverish; if it is sufficiently disturbed, it will wither and dwindle and almost die; and when it comes to this last serious condition, it is only revived by lots of time and lots of money’.

Our army is sufficiently disturbed—disconnected—and lacks adequate self-confidence. Australia lacks time and money to throw at the problem but this does not excuse us from an honest discussion about our army. The army must be ready to respond with unashamed confidence in its vital purpose. A life of service and duty is to be celebrated, aspired to and revered for its contribution to the prosperity and security of our country.

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.