Tag Archive for: Chief of Army

Australian Army chief diagnoses three key challenges to the army profession

In the 19 months since the Defence Strategic Review, the Australian Army has prioritised the development of littoral warfighting concepts, positioned the division as the main unit of action in its command and control arrangements, and adopted a capability-first approach to training and tactics. Yet, it still faces important historical, cultural and institutional challenges that constrain its ability to adapt.

In a speech at the Australian National University National Security College on 25 November, Chief of Army Lieutenant General Simon Stuart provided an update on how the army was confronting these challenges and transforming for an era of uncertainty.

Stuart framed issues of jurisdiction, expertise and self-regulation as core challenges to the modern army profession. This problem set indicates a welcome return of discussions around traditional notions of war and peace.

Professional jurisdiction defines the space within which the military’s unique expert knowledge is applied. The diffusion of the role and responsibilities of armed forces as the military element of national power influences the social contract between a state, its military and the public.

While service members will continue to assume ‘unlimited liability’ to willingly sacrifice themselves in defence of the nation, the degree of ‘limited liability’ extended to soldiers taking life in the nation’s interest is in constant flux. This is because of the growth of irregular state forces, the proliferation of off-the-shelf lethal technologies, the employment of military contractors and the recognition of the cyber and space domains of warfare have diminished the monopoly on the ethical application of violence that armed forces have traditionally held.

Given that an army cannot self-select its jurisdiction, Stuart advocates for increased good-faith collaboration between the Australian government, the wider public and the military to promote healthy civil-military relations. This directs the army to evolve its image beyond that of a First World War paradigm and to embrace civic virtues and service in ways that generate solutions for military recruitment and retention. For example, it may undertake community outreach to increase awareness about what the army does and how service contributes to nation-building and belonging.

The army’s capacity to apply expertise in land warfare to deter potential adversaries and protect Australia’s interests depends on its training and education systems. These systems, according to Stuart, must be enough to ‘win the battle of adaptation in the face of a major war in our region’. If not, the army may struggle to bring in new equipment, tactics and doctrine in a timely manner or be intellectually ready to adapt in war.

Army leadership is looking to address its professional development opportunities. At present, personnel progressing through the army’s command and leadership pathways are awarded merit based on ‘attendance and participation rather than grading’. Not only is this insufficient to meet the future testing requirements of modern large-scale operations; it’s also unlikely to instil in every soldier the belief that they’re an exemplar of the army profession. To bridge this gap, Stuart flagged the possibility of the army adopting an education and training system that incorporates annual assessment.

For Stuart, the final and most pressing challenge is the army’s ability to self-regulate in order to uphold professional standards on battlefields. This ability is essential to maintaining public trust and ensuring that army personnel act in accordance with ethical principles. Accordingly, Stuart sees a more robust system of oversight and command accountability as part of the solution to prevent misconduct and maintain public confidence once deployed.

The recorded instances of unlawful conduct in Afghanistan involving Australian special forces—which were systematic, deliberate and occurred through multiple generations of forces—show how the army must improve its capacity to self-regulate. Stuart’s own reflections on how to prepare for land warfare focused on command accountability and culture.

Command is a component of unlimited liability: it requires the army to explicitly articulate a commander’s responsibilities and then provide commanders with the resources needed to achieve success. This is the only way that future commanders can fully accept the burden of command and accountability for the outcomes of their decisions. Culture is fundamental to command accountability as it helps ensure that soldiers are physically, mentally and morally resilient in combat. Together, these concepts work to save the lives and humanity of Australian soldiers.

Solving the challenges associated with jurisdiction, expertise and self-regulation will take a concerted effort. The scale of the task can’t be overstated, particularly at a time when the army is progressing a major equipment recapitalisation program and falling short of set workforce targets.

Success in this will support the army’s broader initiatives to build authenticity, credibility and transparency in the ADF and with partner forces in the region. While much remains to be done, the Chief of Army’s speech has enhanced discussions around the cultivation of the army profession—this is a good start.

Talking to the chiefs: Rick Burr (part 2)

The training and intelligence support the ADF provided to help Philippine forces drive the Islamic State terror group out of the city of Marawi demonstrated how Australia can back its regional allies, says the new chief of army, Lieutenant General Rick Burr.

General Burr tells The Strategist that the region boasts some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, bringing prosperity and better lives to billions of people. But, he warns, growing threats, including those presented by non-state actors, mean the demand for defence technology to safeguard the region’s prosperity and security has never been greater. Australia is strategically positioned to bridge the Pacific and Indian Oceans, he says.

‘The appearance of IS in our region was of great concern to everyone and the opportunity for us to work with the Philippines armed forces was obviously welcomed by them. We weren’t involved in any of the fighting in Marawi but we certainly gave what assistance we could in support,’ he said. A key role was the sort of training the ADF were able to give their counterparts in the Philippines.

Since then, the army has sent mobile training teams to help Philippine troops develop capabilities they need. That’s covered counter-IED techniques, urban operations, medical support and urban combat skills.

He believes that dynamic and responsive model is very effective. The teams run a course and then come home, or Filipino contingents are brought to Australia for training which they can pass on when they return.

‘I think it’s a very mature model, appropriate for the region. It’s a great opportunity for us to be able to work together, build strong partnerships in the region, generate a shared understanding of the problem, and work cooperatively to solve them.’

From Vietnam, every part of Australia’s military history has had a training team component to it, General Burr says. ‘It’s an enduring and recurring feature of our contribution to peace and stability in the region, and we are continually refining each approach to the particular circumstance at the time. So the Philippines model has been quite different from what we’ve done in Iraq, and appropriately so.

‘I think Australians are well regarded for their ability to interact, and to provide whatever tailored assistance is needed in a way that’s helpful to the requesting nation. The way we approach it is uniquely Australian, and we should be very proud of our approach.’

Are more such operations in the region likely and will Australia take part again?

They are, says General Burr. ‘And if we’re asked, I think that’s certainly something that provides options to government. But we already do a lot of engagement on any one day. We have people all around the region providing training teams, doing exercises and working together. I’ve recently been in East Timor where we have a fantastic cooperation program with the F-FDTL (Defence Forces of Timor-Leste). We deal with many countries as part of our defence cooperation program. We don’t make a big fuss of it. It’s very important for us all to have a strong, cooperative partnership approach to our region.’

General Burr’s record is formidable. Before his promotion to chief of army, he’d been deputy chief of army since January 2015. Before that, the Americans appointed him deputy commander of the US Army in the Pacific. He was the first foreign officer to hold such a position and he was no random selection. The Americans knew him well as a graduate, with distinction, of the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting.

General Burr says the opportunity to serve in a command role inside the US Army of the Pacific was quite unique and a real demonstration of trust and the maturity of the alliance.

For me, it was the ultimate diverse team. The strength and diversity, with different perspectives, different views, help make a team stronger. And I felt that adding other perspectives into the command chain, was very beneficial to the decision process. It was a wonderful opportunity to grow and to see the world through a different set of eyes, and highlighted to me the importance of partnerships and doing things together. In an ever-changing world, the more we can engage, understand each other, build a shared understanding, build on common ground, is vitally important.

His time at the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College with other international students was a wonderful learning opportunity which gave a young major the chance to see the world through American eyes. It had an unexpected bonus built in to it in the shape of the amphibious operations the marines excel at.

‘It was very helpful because here we are today with an amphibious capability which has grown quickly in its modern form. It’s advanced and we’ve got there quite quickly. I think what we have today is greatly appreciated by many countries in the region as a model to admire.’

While Australia is not looking at replicating the marines, the navy’s two giant landing vessels give it the ability to project forces and operate from the sea. ‘We are very clear about what the limits of that are and, by operating with the three services, we can, and have, generated quite a mature joint amphibious capability.’

That involves an embarked element of permanent army specialists to provide the core amphibious functions and a landing force as part of the army’s readiness system. ‘You can add and subtract from that core capability as you need to. For a defence force of our size, it’s a very versatile and capable force. As part of a broader suite of capabilities across our air, navy, and land forces, it’s enormously versatile, from humanitarian disaster relief through to security operations as it might be needed.’

General Burr commanded Australia’s special forces task group in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003. He then commanded all international special forces in Afghanistan in 2008. In 2007 he was seconded as a senior adviser to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

He says he can’t comment on the ongoing investigation into allegations against some special forces in Afghanistan. ‘We need to let it do its work and it will make its findings known to the CDF. It’s an independent investigation and that’s important. And, in terms of our special forces now, I have absolute confidence in them delivering the capabilities that we might ask of them at a moment’s notice, and they have my full confidence.’

So are the special forces deployable if they’re needed now?

‘Absolutely. We are.’

Talking to the chiefs: Rick Burr (part 1)

New army chief Rick Burr encourages his troops to embrace a new sport with a deadly serious purpose: drone racing. Various types of small ‘copters and fixed-wing aircraft blast around obstacle courses and through rugged terrain as the men and women controlling them build up skills they’ll need on the modern battlefield.

Lieutenant General Burr sees the activity as a key part of preparing personnel for what he calls ‘accelerated warfare’—the rapidly changing nature and lethality of combat and the need to prepare troops and equipment to ensure the army’s sustained readiness for war.

He notes that the army is Australia’s biggest user of drones. Some are helicopters tiny enough to fit in the palm of a soldier’s hand that can be deployed to scout ahead of a patrol or around a base to search for enemies. ‘We’re encouraging our young soldiers to embrace this, and they are.’

Burr says that adapting in time to the high-tech threats likely to emerge over the next 10 to 20 years is the biggest challenge the Australian Defence Force faces.

‘The threats against us are accelerating in terms of the speed of cyber, the lethality of the weaponry, and the way in which information space is being exploited, and therefore we need to accelerate our response to these threats. We can’t just continue along the way we’ve always done business.’

This concept is intended to get the army thinking about what it must start doing now to inform the Defence Department’s strategic review process and to tailor future investment.

The accelerated warfare concept is designed to deal with the rapidly increasing pace of change that’s being driven by both the development of technology and its use in innovative ways for military purposes.

Burr says there’s a very clear need to use the army’s future investments to harness these technological possibilities. ‘These will be reflected in our future requirements to deliver those capabilities. We already have things like our unmanned aerial systems, so our drones are in some ways an early step into this area. But in a more mature sense, it’s absolutely imperative to make robotic and autonomous systems part of our broader capability suite.

‘Army, and the entire joint force, needs to embrace that, and our future concepts will very clearly articulate those requirements and how we can leverage that technology.’

So how feasible is a thoroughly networked system that allows a soldier in a hostile environment to see immediately what a joint strike fighter sees?

‘Essentially, we can do that now’, Burr says. ‘We can connect what an airborne sensor can see to an operator on the ground. And the art in that, obviously, is in the fidelity of the picture and the lag factor of what they’re seeing, to make it as real-time as possible. The key is to make it more connected, more networked to more people at once.’

An issue, he says, it to avoid overloading the soldier on the ground. Information must be tailored and prioritised. ‘It’s the business we need to be in as we think about a more connected battlefield architecture, from air defence and missile defence through to joint fires from the joint force.’

The army must exploit the opportunity it has to explore new ways to use emerging technology, Burr says. It’s important for industry and academia to share ideas and help get equipment into the hands of operators so that they can experiment with it and innovate.

True innovation is new technology plus new ways of doing business, he says. ‘That’s where we want to be. This is a time full of opportunity, so our innovation days, our open days, and our focus on partnerships are a key part of our innovation platform to make sure that we can share each other’s ideas and needs, and explore this.

‘As a modest-sized defence force, harnessing these opportunities is critical for us.’

Burr says he’s very happy with the army’s new Steyr rifle. ‘In fact, all of our individual soldier kit delivered under the LAND 125 equipment project is tremendous. I think our soldiers’ personal, individual equipment is probably the best in the world. Our people give us a competitive advantage and I think the decision some years ago to invest in the soldier as a priority was crucial. We are reaping the dividends of that now and our job is to continue to deliver on that, and modernise off that base.’

A big focus is robotics and autonomous systems, and how soldiers partner with them. ‘With manned and unmanned teaming, we can generate more capacity to do more things at scale, and, where possible, we can reduce risk and be safer in the way we prosecute our operations.’

Unmanned ground vehicles with sensor and communications suites will, for example, be used to search high-risk areas. ‘That will obviously be a critical part of our understanding and seeing the battlefield, and helping to secure other assets.’ Such vehicles could rescue wounded soldiers in very dangerous situations and robotics could help soldiers carry heavier loads with ease.

‘Army is more than just the ground force’, says Burr. ‘We’re into all domains today—cyber, space, maritime and air—and that will become more so as we introduce more capabilities.’ Already in the current investment program are air-defence systems, long-range and precision weapons, and anti-ship missiles. ‘As army brings all that together, we need to be much more robust in the way we can employ those capabilities, as well as our traditional army role. So there’s an exciting future ahead. We need to intellectually and conceptually think about how we can make the most of these capabilities to create advantage.’

So does he have particular goals, as Chief of Army and the officer responsible for providing ready land forces as part of the nation’s joint force?

‘Like every new Chief of Army, I really focus on readiness, modernisation and people. Those three pillars certainly are my focus. They’re the ones I’m accountable for. To always invest intellectually in our modernisation, and to deliver that modernisation to keep the army relevant and capable for an ever-changing context. And delivering that through our people, acknowledging them as our competitive advantage.’

Burr has distilled that into his initial commander’s philosophy, called ‘an army in motion’. It covers four command themes: preparedness, people, profession and potential.

Future acquisitions, he says, will be vital to ensuring the army has ready and capable forces in an ever-changing world and that they’re able to deal with a full range of scenarios.

‘That’s vital for the nation, and our modernisation priorities need to reflect that.’

Talking to the chiefs: Angus Campbell (part 2)

Australia’s soldiers must prepare to face a widening range of threats, says Chief of Army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell. ‘Conflict is deeply, deeply competitive and human beings are imaginative in the ways they will find to resist or to compete in that environment’, Campbell tells The Strategist.

Campbell has ordered the establishment of a new army research centre to identify problems soldiers may face due to the evolving nature of joint land combat, doctrine and training. The centre will identify innovations that can improve army capability, leadership and ethics, and help the army understand how to support the ‘joint’ ADF in current and emerging strategic circumstances.

‘The army as an institution should generate ideas about where we are and where we’re going as a combat capability’, he says. ‘It must, as a profession, think and be, on occasions, a leader in discussions on developing its support for the ADF and the nation.’

The new centre will be highly networked and connected with other areas focused on Australia’s strategic and security interests, especially the evolution of joint land combat.

So, will that give troops on the battlefield an advantage? ‘You’d like to think so’, Campbell says.

Any organisation that isn’t actively trying to think about its future is liable to be surprised by that future. There are always going to be emerging issues we are aware of that we incorporate into how we train for operations. If we are not aware of such issues they can surprise us, and surprise in the military is usually accompanied by a great loss of life.

A crucial goal now is to boost the effectiveness of the three services in operating together, says the army chief. ‘Each operation will have different needs and a different solution, but if it’s approached from the perspective of the total effect we can generate from the ADF, and the most appropriate effect, we will get more from each component.’

Campbell says taking full advantage of the amphibious capability that comes with the commissioning of the two landing helicopter docks, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide, requires substantial contributions from the army, navy and air force, along with the wider intelligence and technological support needed in any military organisation.

The LHDs provide greater flexibility and more options for the government and the ADF, not just at the high end of conflict but also for support in disaster relief and humanitarian activity, and they provide an opportunity to build training and capability relationships with regional partners, says the army chief. ‘It must be acknowledged that they have a war-fighting effect, and the Chief of Navy has been very clear about that. They are warships and they can do many other things.’

It will take five to 10 years to fully realise the ships’ capability, says Campbell.

What we are able to generate as we progressively learn and build this skill is the capacity for manoeuvre in a littoral environment where the ADF can choose where to lodge and can avoid those defended positions which generate no advantage for an amphibious element.

‘This won’t be an amphibious capability of large scale or great sustainability’, he says.

If you wish to employ it in an operation, you are looking at a battalion group, three ships—the two LHDs and HMAS Choules—the helicopter support that enables mobility and vehicles and equipment that can be moved from ship to shore.

He observes that the plan is not to train part of the army as marines.

Australia’s army is not of a scale where that kind of specialisation’s appropriate. But 2RAR will focus on the skills required in amphibious support. And we’ll see it progressively develop over a number of years with the rotation of our battalion groups, the knowledge and skills of those personnel being embarked, operating on and training for operations from those LHDs.

Campbell says that, as the army’s forerunner in the maritime space, 2RAR will be a wellspring of deep institutional knowledge. It won’t function in isolation but will be a point the rest of the army can connect with.

Those giant ships will operate ‘wherever our government sees interests requiring their use’, Campbell says. And ‘in whatever scale or nature of operation is appropriate at the time’.

In terms of potential enemies, the ADF has to be able to fight a conventional state, Campbell says. But there’s a simultaneous threat from individuals or small groups using readily available surplus military technology or civil technology.

‘Everyone’s trying to identify their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses’, he says. The strength of terrorist groups or insurgents may be their capacity to disperse throughout a population to engage and influence at times and places of their choosing. Their weakness may be an inability to coordinate and layer their efforts to maintain their impact.

A state’s military organisation may have mass and organisational skill, but it must be able to respond and adapt to the adversary it’s fighting.

On the increasing effectiveness of the joint ADF, Campbell notes a young infantry officer’s comment that his favourite weapon is a JDAM—a very effective guided bomb dropped by the RAAF’s strike jets.

That says to me that from the very basis of our development of officers from army, navy and air force, particularly through the efforts of ADFA but also through other development experiences, we are building people who are thinking about the system as a whole and how the ADF works together.

The army chief says he’s very pleased with what he sees. ‘I reflect on my time as a young officer, which was much more strongly focused on the army in comparison with the experience of young officers today.’ That’s the result of 30 years of hard work by many people and it’s a continuing story, he says.

Angus Campbell: turning a 3rd generation Army into a 5th generation force

Future wars will be won by innovative thinkers able to see opportunities in an intensely competitive world, says Army Chief Angus Campbell.

In his address to the ASPI–Boeing National Security Dinner last night, Lieutenant General Campbell said that the people who would win the important fights of the 21st century weren’t those who’d mastered the processes and concepts of last century, or even of today. ‘They are the people who will be able to look into the intense competition already occurring in our world, and in future wars, and see things in them we cannot see,’ Campbell said.

‘We need people to think in new ways and see new chances; who seize opportunities to innovate and create winning edges.’

The work of the Australian Army was ‘going on quietly in every corner of the country and across the globe. ‘Success in this disruptive world will require an Army of high quality people, equipment and ideas. I’m quietly confident but there is much to do.’

The Army chief noted that by mid-2015 the force was entering an unprecedented 16th year of operational activity—globally, regionally and at home.

‘The performance of our people on all these operations has been overwhelmingly professional and impressive, sometimes coming at great cost to physical and psychological well-being. The work to address this legacy of war is a national effort and I greatly appreciate the continued attention it receives from many good, committed people.’

Since the 1990s, a lot of work had gone into mapping out how the Army would be modernised and networked to make it a much more effective fighting force, Campbell said. ‘But big ideas are only as valuable as the effort made to deliver them; delivered through hard work over long years of consistent effort.

‘As I recently said at ASPI’s Joint Integration Conference, we haven’t always been as focused on delivery as we need to be. And much of this design agenda remains unfinished. To give you a sense of this, (former Army commander) Peter Leahy started the thinking about the “Hardened and Networked Army” 15 years ago, yet we are still not a networked Army today,’ Campbell said.

‘We have spent the last two years very deliberately trying to progress the delivery of that Army design. With plenty of newly minted Defence policy and an incomplete Army design, it has been a season to consolidate and deliver. Jack Welch, the iconic CEO of General Electric, captures my thinking, when he said that in real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell!

‘We are implementing like hell!’

The Army chief said he’d set four framework priorities to focus thinking, planning and action:

  1. Support to operations: this is why our Army exists.
  2. Assist our wounded, injured and ill: to rebuild capability and respect our people’s sacrifice.
  3. Modernise the force: to give our people the best opportunity to achieve their missions and come home safely.
  4. Ongoing cultural reform and renewal: to ensure our Army reflects the highest expectations of the Nation we serve.

Modernisation included a 15-year effort to move the Army from an analogue to a digital-by-design force, Campbell said. ‘This is grindingly hard work at the core of generating and sustaining a joint land effect on the modern battlefield.

‘Our armoured manoeuvre capability, our headquarters and our soldiers will all be sensor-decision-shooter ‘nodes’ on this combat system. A resilient, secure and signature managed system; a system from which we gain advantage but avoid dependency.’

In the people space, efforts to improve recruiting were clearly bearing fruit, for both full and part time personnel, Campbell said. Increasing the number of women in the Army was a task driven by a capability need. ‘Quite simply, we cannot have the best possible Army if we are not getting our fair share of the human talent our nation offers. Women represent over 50% of that talent pool. We’ve steadily been attracting more women. This is an ongoing, low-key journey, but an unstoppable one.’

The Army chief said there’d been a dramatic increase in recruitment of Indigenous Australians. ‘As the Chief of one mob of Australians, I welcome citizens from every mob to serve, as they have with honour, albeit not always recognition, since Federation.’

Some questioned whether quality, toughness or competence suffered through this so called ‘social engineering’, Campbell said. ‘I vehemently disagree with both that characterisation and the suggestion that our work is doing anything but strengthening Army capability.’

Army had highlighted family and domestic violence, Campbell said. ‘The ill-disciplined use of violence domestically is criminal, while the ill-disciplined use of violence on operations is a war crime. One begets the other: neither is tolerable. The appropriate, legal, ethical and disciplined use of violence is a core skill for soldiers. Domestic violence is the antithesis of this.

‘Addressing Domestic Violence is specifically about the effectiveness of our capability, and it’s the right thing to do,’ the Army chief said.

ADF women are already ‘in combat’

This article is part of a series on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ that The Strategist is publishing in recognition of International Women’s Day 2017.

Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, the first Special Forces officer to command the Australian Army, wants more women in his combat units in order to make those units smarter.

‘To me it’s all about talent,’ Campbell tells The Strategist. ‘I don’t have enough of it and I want more. I am not drawing on the full potential of the population. I can’t possibly imagine, therefore, that the Army is as smart as it could be and as it needs to be.’

That army, he says, is modestly sized, with 30,000 full-time and 15,000 part-time soldiers. ‘If you’re small, you need to be smart. If you’re drawing on the talents and skills and energy of the breadth of the Australian population, you’ve got your best chance of being as smart as you possibly can be.’ Women make up 12.4% of the full-time Army and 13.5% of the part-time force.

Campbell says the experience of the infantry in Western armies indicates that Australia could in time have about 80 women in combat roles in infantry units. ‘That’s 80 women dispersed over seven infantry battalions. I’m very comfortable with that. I don’t mind how many women join the infantry other than that they pass the physical employment standard (developed by the Defence Science and Technology Group) and that they are volunteers,’ Campbell says.

‘And I don’t mind how many women join any other part of the force because I know the more competition there is for employment, the more I have to choose from and the greater will be the talent and skills and abilities of the Army.’

On a visit to an infantry company in Afghanistan, Campbell asked the young Australian men how many local women they’d spoken to. ‘The answer, of course, was none.’ That’s a practical disadvantage, he says, of having all-male combat forces there.

Male and female soldiers operating together worked more effectively with local communities and the Army found other ways to bring women into that environment. ‘But it’s easier when you don’t have to think about doing something extra because inherently your force is designed to have the most powerful effect that the Australian people, through its army and its defence force, can generate.’

Female soldiers were deployed deliberately to balance the all-male composition of the infantry companies and there was much more engagement with women in the villages, Campbell says. There would be either no engagement or the most cursory engagement otherwise. ‘I think on occasions we got information that was of value to us and that was the very point of deliberately designing women into our scheme of manoeuvre.’

It’s crucial to put the most effective force into the field, he says. ‘In a culture where it’s routinely forbidden for women to have interaction with males not of their family, having women involved in your operations has a very powerful effect.’

The Canadian Army in Afghanistan found local women were much more likely to approach a patrol if it contained female soldiers and on occasions they warned the Canadian women about bombs or ambushes on the road ahead.

Until 2013, 93% of ADF tasks were open to women, but they weren’t allowed to serve as ‘front-line’ infantry or in Special Forces, where they might be involved in close combat, in armoured or artillery units or in some areas where materials toxic to unborn children were used. Nor could they serve as Navy mine clearance divers or as RAAF airfield defence guards.

That changed in January 2013, when all of those positions were opened up to women who could meet the physical standards.

In the wars the ADF is now involved in, anywhere can become the ‘front lines’ and the many Australian women who’ve served on dangerous operations must be bemused by occasional suggestions that they aren’t already ‘in combat’.

Warfare in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq can bring death or injury from any direction and it doesn’t discriminate. In August 2006, a female Australian soldier was wounded by a rocket which hit her base in Baghdad.

And when the Army’s big Chinook helicopters blasted through Afghan valleys carrying Special Forces to attack an insurgent base, their pilots included women.

The combat medic crouching over a wounded soldier 100m behind a firefight involving coalition troops could well have been an Australian woman. Armoured troop-carrying vehicles in operational areas have long been driven by women who are as vulnerable to bombs as any other soldier. In Afghanistan and Iraq, any routine road convoy could become a serious military operation.

Female crew on the Australian frigates in the 55C heat of the Persian Gulf or on counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa regularly go on boarding parties to search suspect ships. Sailors in their fast, rigid inflatable boats are heavily armed and alert for an ambush. In 2004, three US sailors were killed during such an operation when terrorists blew up a vessel. The Americans were under Australian command and the boarding party could easily have come from an Australian ship. Women also serve in the Navy’s submarines on intelligence-gathering operations.

And when the RAAF’s twin-seat Super Hornet strike aircraft fly missions in Iraq, some of their crew members are women. Soon, RAAF fast jets will be piloted by women.

‘But we’re not there yet,’ says Campbell of the Army, ‘there’s more work to be done.’