2019 Chief of Army History Conference

Serving Our Nation

Army

2019 Chief of Army HistoryConferenceAn Army of Influence: the Australian Army’sConnection with the Region

Australian Army History Unit

2019 Chief of Army HistoryConference

An Army of Influence: the Australian Army’sConnection with the Region

Army

© Copyright - Australian Army History UnitCP2-5-169 Campbell Park OfficesCAMPBELL PARK ACT 2612 AUSTRALIA(02) 6266 4248Copyright 2020 - Commonwealth of Australia

First published 2020This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study,research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission.

Title: 2019 Chief of Army History Conference - An Army of Influence: The AustralianArmy’s Connection with the Region.

ISBN 978-1-925890-25-9 (print vers)

Cover design, layout, typesetting, maps and editing by Major Conway Bown

2019 Chief of ArmyHistory Conference

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ForewordTim Gellel

Head Australian Army History Unit

The Australian Army History Unit (AAHU) has been protecting Army’sheritage and promoting Army’s history since 1998. One of AAHU’s firstresponsibilities was to assume responsibility for conducting the Chief ofArmy’s History Conference, commencing in 1994.

As with the previous twenty-one conferences, this 2019 conference—AnArmy of Influence: the Australian Army’s Connection with the Region—focussed on how successive generations of Army’s leaders have grappledwith the challenges of land warfare. While always ready to defend theAustralian continent, the Australian Army has mostly conducted its assignedcombat and non-combat overseas, in partnership with an increasingly wide-range of international counterparts. At the same time, technological changeshave increasingly brought Australia and its region much closer together thanwas historically the case.

An enduring feature that has not changed is the need for Army tounderstand the region in which it operates, and to develop connectionsacross both individual and institutional levels. Reflecting on Army’s history ofregional engagement demonstrates some of the constants thatcommanders at all levels have had to manage in order to maintain thoserelationships.

The Australian Army is fortunate to have so many capable scholarsdedicated to the study of its history. And the Chief of Army’s History


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Conference provides a forum to allow Army’s current and future decision-makers exposure to their views and analyses. By learning from Army’s past,we can become future ready.


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CONTENTS

Welcome

Chief of Army – Lieutenant General Rick Burr, AO, DSC, MVO.................... 1

Eighty Years of Regional Engagement

Emeritus Professor David Horner ................................................................ 5

Army’s Persistent Presence in South-East Asia

Professor John Blaxland........................................................................... 25

Fifty Years of the Australian Army and TNI Relationship

Dr Garth Pratten ....................................................................................... 47

Be Careful not to Over-egg the Pudding: the East Timor Crisis of 1999and the Limitations of Persistent Access

Dr Craig Stockings .................................................................................. 59

The Backroom Boys and General Blamey: Colonel Conlon and Army’sAdaptation and Access in the Pacific 1942-46

Colonel Graeme Sligo............................................................................... 81

Australia’s Papua New Guinea soldiers: The Army in PNG 1951-75

Dr Tristan Moss ....................................................................................... 95

From Desert Warfare to Storm Landings: Transforming the 2nd AIFDuring WWII

Professor Peter Dean ............................................................................ 109

Not Rich in Standing Armies or Immediately Available Resources:Plans, Realities and the Australian Regular Army’s Deployment toKorea, 1950

Lieutenant Colonel (Dr) Dayton McCarthy .............................................. 125

Closing Remarks

Brigadier Ian Langford, DSC and Bars .................................................... 141


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ILLUSTRATIONS

1. The Indo-Pacific Region......................................................................... vi

2. 2019 Chief of Army History Conference, ADFA ....................................... 4

3. 6”guns being mounted in Port Moresby ................................................. 6

4. 6”gun on New Caledonia........................................................................ 9

5. Australian troops advance towards Bogadjim ........................................11

6. 7 Div lands at Balikpapan during Operation OBOE ...............................12

7. National Servicemen homeward bound ................................................14

8. Australian troops being resupplied by RAAF in South Vietnam ...............16

9. Australian Army S-70 Black Hawk in Cambodia.....................................19

10. 3 RAR digger during INTERFET ...........................................................21

11. PM John Howard addresses troops in Iraq ..........................................22

12. RAAF CA-27 Avon Sabre fighter in Ubon, Thailand ..............................27

13. Exercise SUMAN WARRIOR being held in NZ......................................30

14. Aust Army and Malaysian Army on Ex DIAMOND WALK......................32

15. Australian and Singaporean Ministers for Defence ..............................34

16. Colonel Soe Win of the Myanmar Armed Forces..................................37

17. Members of the Armed Forces of the US, Australia and Philippines ....42

18. Australian soldiers working in Banda Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami ......44

19. Australian and Indonesian soldiers training...........................................46

20. KNIL troops march through Sydney during WWII .................................48

21. The world’s first UN Observers land in Indonesia ................................49

22. CA-27 Avon Sabre being gifted to Indonesia at RAAF Williamtown ......51

23. Australian and Indonesian paratroopers on exercise ............................54

24. Indonesian soldier exercising in Australia ............................................58

25. A patrol heads back to Dili by Black Hawk...........................................61

26. Australian Army and Indonesian soldiers in Dili.....................................64


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27. Dili burning after militia runs amok ..................................................... 66

28. ADM Barrie and LTGEN Cosgrove in Dili ............................................. 67

29. MAJGEN Cosgrove and MAJGEN Syahnakri ...................................... 70

30. White House security briefing of the Clinton Cabinet ........................... 74

31. PM John Howard addresses troops in East Timor .............................. 75

32. LTCOL Nick Welch ............................................................................ 76

33. TNI troops load a C-130 as they prepare to depart Dili ...................... 78

34. A meeting of IKAHAN ......................................................................... 79

35. A digger stands picquet near the Hotel Turismo, Dili ........................... 80

36. Members of the Australian Army Directorate of Research .................. 82

37. Alf Conlon in Sydney .......................................................................... 83

38. LT James McCauley ........................................................................... 84

39. GEN Blamey and MAJGEN Wooten .................................................. 85

40. COL Conlon and Min for External Affairs, Eddie Ward in NG ............... 87

41. MAJ Bill Stanner ................................................................................. 88

42. ASOPA Middle Head ......................................................................... 89

43. Alf Conlon in his later years................................................................. 93

44. A member of the Pacific Islands Regiment.......................................... 96

45. MAJGEN Sir Thomas Daly.................................................................. 99

46. PIR troops training near the Irian Jaya border, 1960s ........................ 100

47. Map of PIR battalion bases and outposts ......................................... 101

48. Married quarters for PIR troops, Vanimo ........................................... 102

49. National Servicemen ‘Chalkies’ of RAAEC ........................................ 104

50. PIR soldiers in class.......................................................................... 104

51. PIR barracks 1960s and PNGDF barracks 2010s ............................. 107

52. Ivor Hele’s painting The Battle of Bardia ............................................ 111

53. Captured Italian M13/40 tanks about to be used at Tobruk............... 112

54. MAJGEN Frank Berryman ............................................................... 114

55. Amphibious training at HMAS Assault............................................... 116

56. AIF and RAN Commando personnel as part of a beach party ........... 119

57. Beachhead logistics at Balikpapan .................................................. 122

58. 2RAR (Amphib) conduct training in North Queensland ...................... 124

59. LTGEN Sir Sydney Rowell................................................................. 127

60. Sir Percy Spender ............................................................................ 127

61. LTGEN Sir Horace Robertson ........................................................... 128


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62. Army Organisational Pressures ......................................................... 130

63. BCOF troops being inspected ......................................................... 131

64. 3RAR FORGEN/OPGEN................................................................... 132

65. 3RAR personnel await boarding for Korea ........................................ 134

66. FORGEN/OPGEN Scorecard............................................................ 137

67. LTCOL Charles Green with BRIG Coad............................................. 139

68. 2RAR soldiers man a picquet .......................................................... 140


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WelcomeChief of Army – Lieutenant General Rick Burr, AO,DSC, MVO

‘On behalf of the Australian ArmyI acknowledge the Ngunnawal

people, the traditional custodians ofthe land on which we are gatheredtoday and pay my respects to theirelders past, present and emerging.

‘I pay my respects to the Aboriginaland Torres Strait Islander men andwomen who have contributed to thedefence of Australia in times of peaceand war.

‘Welcome to this Chief of ArmyHistory Conference. It is indeed anhonour to lead our Army: a nationalinstitution and such an important partof our national story. An Army for the nation and an Army in the community.

‘As my predecessors have done, we must focus on more than just the nowand the future. We must also look back, understand, respect and honourour past and carry it forward into the future. To continuously build andstrengthen our institution in a fast-changing world and as we always have,we must continuously change, adapt and evolve.


Chief of ArmyWelcome

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‘We must be an Army in Motion that is ready now and future ready. And theintellectual component of this is key; to comprehend, to understand andfocus this effort. We need to be an organisation with a culture of continuouslearning and professional curiosity; an organisation comfortable with thecontest of ideas and with respect for others’ perspectives. The study andapplication of history is vital to this endeavour. We must be open to learningfrom our experiences and from those of others. We must have the courageto embrace it and act on it.

‘The art and science of command and leadership is to imagine the futureand know how to act in it. I am particularly pleased that so many juniorleaders are here. They know that in our Army they are empowered. The keyto being empowered is to be informed; to understand the context; toexercise good judgment; and knowing that our work never stops. So,leading and a passion for learning absolutely go together. I am pleased thatyou are here and I look forward to your contribution and your insights.

‘We have many great parts to our Army. One of the key organisations wehave in our Order of Battle is the Australian Army History Unit. You can seethat with this conference, with the displays in the foyer and indeed thestories in this brochure. Thank you for what you do. The Army History Unit isappropriately situated in our Future Land Warfare Branch reinforcing thepoint that looking back helps us to look forward. So, to Tim Gellel and yourteam: thank you for this Chief of Army History Conference and for bringingtogether the historians here today, their great minds and their great research.They offer their learning to us and help us to be intellectually stronger. Thankyou for being part of our Army team.

‘But we must be purposeful. We’re excited about this year’s theme:‘An Armyof Influence.’ It is essential to our Army now and will be of enduringrelevance in helping create and deliver strategic impact.

‘Today, and on any one day, we have many people and activities overseas,as well as hosting many regional partners here in Australia. They might besingle-service activities, joint activities, multi-national activities, multi-agencyactivities. They might be individual training or collective training; bi-lateral ormulti-lateral. They might be short-term activities or long-term projects. Wemight be working with old friends or we might be making new friends. Theyare different types of engagements in different places and contexts andperhaps different purposes. But what is the same and what is common is



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that to be effective and be credible—to have influence—we must win andsustain trust with all of our people in all of our relationships and buildingpartnerships, by being respectful and sincere and genuine and havingcommitment, patience and endurance.

‘I was just in Indonesia last week and reinforced these same points. It wasthe fourth visit I have had with my counterpart in the eighteen months sinceI’ve been the Chief: twice in Indonesia, once here in Australia and once in amulti-lateral forum in Thailand.

‘We have a very strong relationship which is growing stronger every day;broad-based, symbolised for the first time in our history by exchangeCaptain instructors at the Royal Military College – Duntroon and at theMilitary Academy in Magelang in Indonesia; a tremendous step forward andan indicator in the confidence in that relationship.

‘We visited Exercise WIRRA JAYA in Eastern Java, a company-levelcombined arms activity; the second time with KOSTRAD, the strategicreserve of the Indonesian Army—the TNI—and the first time with them inIndonesia. It was the first time we had deployed our Bushmasters overseason a training activity highlighting the increasing sophistication of the nature ofour combined activities.

‘Over the past 60 years Army personnel have also served with theirIndonesian counterparts. In 1941 and ‘42, Army committed units to thedefence of Java, Timor and Ambon in what was then the Netherlands EastIndies.

‘Through the next two days we’ll hear many great insights including how ourArmy has sought to balance regional relationships and global commitments.You’ll appreciate that since the end of the Second World War, Army hasmaintained a small but strategic presence in the region—first in Singaporeand later at Tarandak in Malaysia and since 1970 at Butterworth.

‘We’ll also learn about how the Australian Army has worked in the South-West Pacific and especially in Papua New Guinea. We should reflect thatArmy’s first major operation took place there more than six months beforethe first Anzacs landed at Gallipoli. Later, the Pacific Islands Regimenttransitioned from initially comprising one quarter of our Army’s infantrystrength into today’s PNG’s sovereign defence force.

‘In concluding, this conference has an agenda that will unpack many



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lessons. It will highlight the importance and power of studying the past toinform the future.

‘So I am pleased to open this year’s Chief of Army History Conference: AnArmy of Influence.’

Figure 2. The 2019 Chief of Army History Conference was held at Adams Auditorium,Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra.


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Eighty Years of RegionalEngagement

Emeritus Professor David Horner

On 20 March 1939, the BurnsPhilp ship, MV Macdhui,

docked at Port Moresby in theAustralian territory of Papua. Onboard was the 13th Heavy Battery ofthe Royal Australian Artillery. Thebattery had been raised frompermanent gunners in Sydney andhad the task of installing andoperating two 6-inch coast guns atPaga Point, Port Moresby. PortMoresby was being developed as ‘abase for mobile naval and air forces’.

It was the first time that an AustralianPermanent Army unit had been deployed overseas in peacetime, andmarked the beginning of the Australian Army’s engagement with the nearregion—an engagement that was to continue for the next eighty years.

Admittedly, at that time Papua was Australian territory, but to the soldiers itfelt like a foreign country. As Major General Tim Cape, who as a Lieutenantwas second-in-command of the battery recalled, there were just 600Europeans in Port Moresby and the soldiers insisted on unloading their


Eighty Years ofRegional Engagement

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artillery guns, not wanting to trust the task to the local Papuans. Learningabout a foreign culture was the first step in regional engagement.

Regional engagement was not a term used in 1939. From the time of theDefence Act 1903, it was not envisaged that units of the Australian Armywould be deployed overseas, and indeed the members of Australia’s largelypart-time army were not permitted to serve overseas. There were two viewsabout Australian defence policy. The Australianists, who supported therestrictive aspects of the Defence Act, were wary of sending forces overseason imperial adventures and believed the Army should be confined to thedefence of the continent. On the other hand, there were the Imperialists,who believed that Australia was best protected by contributing to thebroader defence of the British Empire, and they ensured that the Army’sstructure and doctrine would allow Australian units to fit smoothly into Britishformations if needed.

On the outbreak of the First World War, the British Government asked

Figure 3. Dragging one of the 6-inch guns onto temporary mounts - Paga Hill, PortMoresby, 1939. The photo shows one of the guns on skids and rollers with GemoIsland in the background. These breech loading 6-inch Mk XI coastal defence gunswere built ca. 1910 as a piece of the original HMAS Sydney's armament. Notice thepolice wearing pith helmets. They were most likely giving the gun transport truck anescort from the wharf to Paga Hill. (State Library of Queensland SLQ184734)



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Australia to seize the German base at Rabaul in German New Guinea.Constrained by the Defence Act, the Australian Army had to raise a specialforce for the operation. The operation was successful. German resistancewas minimal and the territory then came under Australian militaryadministration until after the war.

The Australian Government was in no doubt that it was in the nationalinterest to support the Imperial war effort, but because of the Defence Act,Australia had to raise another special force, the Australian Imperial Force(AIF), to serve overseas in Europe and the Middle East.

In 1920, after the war, a conference of senior Army officers concluded thatJapan was a possible threat to Australia. Their solution was to continue thepolicy of maintaining a large part-time army, the militia, to defend Australiaagainst a possible invasion. Meanwhile, Australia’s defence rested onBritain’s Royal Navy, supported by the small Royal Australian Navy.

In time of threat, the Royal Navy’s main fleet was to deploy to a new navalbase being constructed at Singapore. Closer to home, the League ofNations had assigned German New Guinea to Australia as a mandatedterritory, but under its terms the territory could not be militarised.

After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, theAustralian Government was faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, it waswary of Japan and was reluctant to send forces to support Britain in Europe.On the other hand, Britain applied strong pressure to Australia to provideforces, assuring Australia that there was minimal threat from Japan, and ifone arose, Britain would come to Australia’s aid.

Eventually, as in the First World War, Australia raised a special force, theSecond Australian Imperial Force, and by early 1941, three AIF divisions—the 6th, 7th and the 9th—were in the Middle East.

Before the end of the year, they would win renown in battles in Libya,Greece, Crete, Syria and Tobruk. However, well before then, events hadoccurred which brought a change to Australia’s strategic focus and causedthe AIF 8th Division, which had not gone to the Middle East, to be deployedmuch closer to Australia.



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The collapse of France in mid-1940 had ramifications for the Asia–Pacificregion. In September 1940, Japanese troops occupied bases in northernIndo-China—a French colony. If the Vichy French Government gainedcontrol of New Caledonia, it too might be vulnerable to Japan. In September,Free French forces, assisted by the presence of an Australian cruiser, tookcontrol of New Caledonia. The next month representatives from Britain,Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the Netherlands, meeting inSingapore, expressed concern about Japanese intentions and the securityof Singapore.

As a result, Australia decided to send a brigade from the 8th Division toMalaya to help defend Singapore, and it arrived in February 1941, along withthe division’s commander and his headquarters.

In addition, the War Cabinet sent Prime Minister Menzies to London to seekreinforcements for Malaya. Meanwhile, in February 1941 British andAmerican military leaders meeting in Washington agreed that in the event ofwar with Japan they would fight a ‘holding war’ in the Pacific andconcentrate their forces to defeat Germany. The Australian Government wasnot consulted, but when it learned about this ‘Beat Hitler First’ strategy, itwas shocked.

The Acting Prime Minister, Arthur Fadden, wrote later:

‘If Australia were to be abandoned by these two great powers until thewar in Europe was decided, we and our countrymen might well bepulling rickshaws before long’.

On 14 February 1941, the Australian Chiefs of Staff met the Advisory WarCouncil and the War Cabinet to consider the growing Japanese threat. TheChiefs advised that Australia’s area of responsibility should include Timor,Ambon, New Guinea and Nauru, and that the 8th Division should beretained for use in the Australian area and the Far East, rather thandeploying it to the Middle East. In accepting these recommendations, theCabinet endorsed a major change in Australia’s strategic focus. Australia’sdefence was now linked closely with the region.

Over the next few months small numbers of troops—all that wereavailable—were deployed across the near region. In response to German



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raiders shelling Nauru, the Army sent two 18-pounder guns with crews toeach of Nauru and Ocean Islands. A battalion (from the 8th Division) alongwith supporting artillery arrived in Rabaul, and a militia battalion fromBrisbane arrived in Port Moresby. Under the Defence Act, the militia couldnot be sent outside Australia, but Papua was Australian territory.

In July 1941 the 1st Independent Company, an AIF unit, went to NewIreland, with sections to other islands. At the same time, the 3rdIndependent Company and some gunners went to New Caledonia tosupport the Free French. A brigade of the 8th Division went to Malaya,

bringing the division there to a strength of two brigades. The division’sremaining brigade went to Darwin, from which its battalions could be sentforward to Ambon and Timor as soon as the Netherlands authorities agreed.

Figure 4. A group of gunners from Robin Force standing around one of two six-inchheavy coast artillery guns in a battery recently completed at Ouen Toro, a positionoverlooking Noumea. The two six-inch New Zealand-manufactured guns were partof the reinforcements sent by the Australian War Cabinet to bolster the Free Frenchforces defending New Caledonia. Robin Force consisted mainly of the 3rdIndependent (Commando) Company, but also included an artillery component. Thegunners and supporting engineers arrived in Noumea on 21 July 1941 andcommenced work on the two gun positions, assembled the guns with support fromlocal labour, and trained the Free French Militia in their use.(DoD via AWM P03308.001)



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In mid-December 1941, soon after the outbreak of the war with Japan, twoAIF battalions were deployed from Darwin to Ambon and Timor respectively,while the 2/2nd Independent Company went to Portuguese Timor. Thefollowing month two militia battalions went to Port Moresby, bringing theforce there to brigade strength, the limit of the force that Australia couldmaintain.

The two long-standing views about Australian defence policy had beenoverthrown. It was no longer sufficient to defend the Australian continent bydeploying army units within Australia. The approaches needed to besecured. By sending forces to the Middle East and Europe in support ofimperial defence, Australia had reduced its capacity to deploy forces to theregion in defence of Australia. In retrospect, Australia could have fullymobilised its militia in early 1941 rather than waiting until the outbreak of warwith Japan. Even then, however, Australia had insufficient naval and airforces to support units deployed to the region. Australia had made its firstforay into the region, but the troops were to become hostages to fortune.

They were not to be favoured by fate. Within just over two months, thetroops at Rabaul, New Ireland, Timor and Ambon were overwhelmed bysuperior Japanese forces and went into grim captivity. The 8th Division inMalaya fought hard, but it too succumbed with the surrender of Singaporeon 15 February. It got worse. A brigade-sized force from the 7th Divisionreturning from the Middle East landed in Java, and it too went into captivity.Only the independent company in Portuguese Timor fought on, conductinga guerrilla campaign.

In March 1942, the American General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australiaand he took command of a new Allied command, the South-West PacificArea, which included all the Australian forces in Australia. The AustralianArmy, headed by General Sir Thomas Blamey, was transformed. The 6thand 7th Divisions arrived back in Australia, while the militia was mobilisedand began training intensely. Numbering some 12 divisions, the Armyformed the largest part of MacArthur’s land forces.

The Army would now be closely engaged in the region. From July 1942 toJanuary 1943 the Army took part in the demanding Papuan campaign,which included the retreat over the Kokoda Trail, the Battle at Milne Bay, the



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counter-offensive over the Owen Stanley Range and the bitter fighting on thebeachheads of Papua and New Guinea.

The campaigns in New Guinea continued throughout 1943, with the battleat Wau, the advance to Salamaua, the amphibious and air landings to seizeLae, the advance up the Ramu Valley culminating in the capture of ShaggyRidge, the landing at Finschhafen, and the assault on Sattelberg. By the

time Australian troopscaptured Madang onthe north coast of NewGuinea in April 1944the Army had deployedtroops from sevendivisions. The 9thDivision had returnedfrom the Middle Eastearly in 1943.

The campaigns in NewGuinea placed newdemands on theAustralian Army. Forthe first time the Army

had to provide all the logistic and base support for its operations. In the FirstWorld War, and in the Middle East in the Second World War, much of thelogistic support had come from Britain. The Army had to learn thetechniques of fighting in the tropical jungle and mountains of New Guinea,where there was barely any modern infrastructure.

There were new challenges of operating as part of an allied force. The Armyalso learned to operate in a different human environment. The Army tookover the administration of New Guinea through the Australian New Guinea

Figure 5. Australiantroops rest after a hardclimb through theFinisterre Ranges on theway to attack JapaneseForces at Bogadjim(DoD via AWM 016722)



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Administrative Unit. From 1944 the US Army took over the main fighting inthe South-West Pacific Area, and landed in the Philippines in October 1944.Nonetheless, the Australian Army was still involved in major operations in theAitape-Wewak area of New Guinea, in New Britain, and in Bougainville. Abrigade of the 9th Division landed at Tarakan, and the remainder of thedivision landed in North Borneo. Finally, the 7th Division conducted a majoramphibious landing at Balikpapan in Borneo. The Australian Army includedtroops from the locally-raised Papuan and New Guinea Infantry Battalions.

In North Borneo, the Army helped administer the former British colony. Atthe end of the war, Australian Army units deployed to other Indonesianislands to accept the surrender of the Japanese and to deal with potentialconflicts as Dutch governors returned to their former colony.

The war with Japan exposed the Australian Army and its soldiers to thepeople and the geography of much of South-East Asia and the Pacific. The8th Division had trained in Malaya, and although the soldiers’ time ascaptives was extremely grim, and for vast numbers fatal, they learned muchabout the region. Some even went to Japan. Other soldiers served in Java,

Figure 6. Australian troops from the 7th Division land at Balikpapan as part ofOperation OBOE. The smoke in the background is from fires at the oil refinery,sabotaged by the Japanese. (US DoD)



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Timor, New Guinea, Bougainville, Merauke in Dutch New Guinea, Morotaiand Borneo. Smaller numbers served in the Philippines.

After the war regional engagement continued. Under the Defence Act, theArmy was to consist primarily of part-time soldiers who were not to serveoverseas. To provide forces for the British Commonwealth Occupation Force(BCOF) in Japan, the Army therefore established a new force called theInterim Army to allow soldiers to continue to serve full time. Three infantrybattalions, raised in Morotai from volunteers, began arriving in Japan inFebruary 1946. Over the next six years, 20 000 Australians, including somewho were too young to have served in the war, were exposed to Japaneselife and culture. Some even married Japanese women.

At the same time, Australian Army officers were engaged elsewhere in theregion. In September 1947, a team of one Navy, one Air Force and twoArmy officers arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia as the first peacekeepers in amulti-national observer force to monitor the ceasefire between the Dutchand Indonesian nationalists. The Army provided the majority of the 70Australian observers who served in Indonesia between 1947 and 1951.Australia’s support for Indonesia left a legacy of goodwill that lasted fordecades.

In July 1947, the Australian Government altered the Defence Act to allow forthe formation of the Australian Regular Army and the three infantry battalionsthat had been raised for BCOF became the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions ofthe Royal Australian Regiment. Hence, when the Australian Governmentcommitted troops to support the United Nations in South Korea after theinvasion by North Korea in June 1950, the 3rd Battalion (3 RAR) could bedeployed there from Japan.

The Australian Government committed forces to Korea primarily to supportthe alliance with the United States. The Australia, New Zealand, UnitedStates Security Treaty (ANZUS) was concluded in September 1951 andcame into force in April 1952.

3 RAR remained in Korea until after the armistice in July 1953, by which timeit had been joined by 1 RAR and later by 2 RAR. The soldiers were exposedto the people of yet another Asian country, and many of them trained in



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Japan before moving to Korea, so they saw Japan as well. With theoutbreak of the Korean War and the intensification of the Cold War, theMenzies Liberal-Country Party government believed that it needed toprepare for another global war.

Earlier, in 1948, the Citizen Military Forces (CMF) had been re-formed. TheMenzies government now went further and introduced national service.After initial full-time training the National Servicemen served in the CMF, butthe CMF could not serve overseas. By this time however, Britain was fightingan insurgency in Malaya, and the Australian Government gave greaterpriority to that area.

In October 1955, 2 RAR and support troops arrived in Penang, Malaya.Their stated role was to provide a deterrent and to be available to assist in

countering an attack by Communist China in South-East Asia. Theirsecondary role was to assist the British in their counter-insurgencycampaign within Malaya. The battalion served for two years, to be replacedby 3 RAR and then 1 RAR. When the Malayan Emergency formally ended in1960, the Australian battalion remained, and continued to hone its jungle

Figure 7. Unidentified men from C Company, 13th National Service Battalion, basedat Bardia Barracks, Ingleburn, waiting to go home after completing their period ofnational service. A chartered double decker bus is waiting in the background. (DoD)



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warfare techniques. In June 1961, 2 RAR replaced 1 RAR and went to anew base at Terendak, near Malacca, where it was part of the 28thCommonwealth Brigade.

Meanwhile, the National Service scheme had been wound back. In 1957 theAustralian Government decided to raise a regular army brigade that wouldbe suitable for operations in the region—what were called ‘Cold War’ tasks.For the first time the Regular Army was seen as the main part of the army.The CMF now existed to support the Regular Army, not vice versa. The oldidea of focusing on the continental defence of Australia had been put aside.Australian defence policy from 1950 was now one of forward defence, in thebelief that Australia was best defended by supporting allies at a distancefrom Australia.

For the soldiers on the ground however, it was more a case of regionalengagement. Soldiers and their families lived in Penang, and later Terendak,where they engaged with the local communities. It was a life of unexpectedluxury, with locally engaged staff to do the washing, cleaning and cooking.For the Army, with only three regular battalions, maintaining one of them inMalaya was a major commitment.

A somewhat similar situation existed in Papua New Guinea (PNG). In 1951,the Army had formed the Pacific Islands Regiment, initially with a strength ofone battalion, to assist with the defence of the island and, in turn, tocontribute to the defence of Australia. The Australian Army provided theofficers and some of the senior NCOs, and they became familiar with thepeople and culture of PNG.

In 1962 the Army starting sending officers and NCOs to South Vietnam toassist the army of South Vietnam in its fight against the Communist VietCong. The following year Indonesia began its ‘Confrontation’ against thenewly formed nation of Malaysia. With the third largest communist party inthe world, Indonesia seemed to be a major threat. The changing strategicsituation demanded a rethink of Australia’s defence policy.

In November 1964 the Australian Government announced the biggest everpeacetime expansion of the armed forces, and introduced selective nationalservice to enable the Regular Army to expand to eight, later nine infantry



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battalions. The Special Air Service (SAS) Company expanded to form theSAS Regiment. The main impetus was the threat from Indonesia, and asecond battalion of the Pacific Islands Regiment was formed to counter apossible Indonesian incursion across the border from West Irian (nowPapua).

In March 1965, 3 RAR deployed from Terendak for operations in Borneo.Earlier, in June 1964, an Australian Army engineer squadron had beendeployed to build roads in Sabah (North Borneo). In 1966, 4 RAR, whichhad relieved 3 RAR at Terendak, went to Borneo. Australian Army engineerand survey units also served in PNG engaged in nation building. Theexpansion allowed combat troops to be sent to Vietnam. Between June1965 and December 1971, 16 infantry battalions served in Vietnam (sevenhad two tours), and they were supported by SAS squadrons, tanks,armoured personnel carriers, artillery, engineers, and aviators, as well assupport units. The troops were committed as part of the forward defence

policy, but there was more to it. By deploying combat troops, the AustralianGovernment hoped to strengthen the alliance with the United States, and tokeep the United States engaged in the region. The soldiers in Phuoc TuyProvince, and particularly the members of the Training Team scattered

Figure 8. Australian infantrymen get resupplied by RAAF UH-1B Iroquois in the fieldduring operations in South Vietnam. (DoD via AWM EKN/67/01 36/VN)



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throughout the country, gained some understanding of Vietnamese society,but that was a by-product of the commitment.

Meanwhile, the Army maintained a battalion and support troops in Malaysia.In 1970 Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore negotiatedthe Five Power Defence Arrangements, and the three external powersformed a joint force known as ANZUK. In December 1969 1 RAR began tomove from Terendak to Singapore, where the ANZUK force was located.

The Australian Government had already largely withdrawn Australian forcesfrom Vietnam when the Whitlam Labor government was elected inDecember 1972. The new government’s defence policy was focusedprimarily on the defence of Australia, and it vowed not to send forcesoverseas again. National Service ended and the Army was reduced to sixinfantry battalions. The Army changed the name of the CMF to the ArmyReserve to emphasise that it was in a support role.

The two strands of Australian defence policy before the First World War, theAustralianists and the Imperialists, still existed, but with different names; nowthe tension was between the defence of Australia and supporting the US, ormore broadly, the Western Alliance. It was not a case of one or the other; itwas a matter of emphasis, but for a while the emphasis was on the defenceof Australia.

Regional engagement, however, could straddle both ideas, contributing tothe defence of Australia and to the Western Alliance. In November 1970, arifle company had been detached from the battalion in Singapore to helpprotect the airbase at Butterworth in northern Malaysia, where RoyalAustralian Air Force units were located. In December 1973 however, theAustralian Government withdrew the battalion in Singapore, leaving only aminimal Army presence in Singapore and Malaysia. After that, the battalionsin Australia provided the Butterworth rifle company on rotation.

PNG achieved independence in September 1975, and many of theAustralian officers and soldiers serving in PNG headed home, althoughsome remained for several years to assist the new PNG Defence Force. Aspart of the Defence Cooperation Program, Australian Army survey units andtechnical advisers served in Indonesia, Malaysia, PNG and seven other



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Pacific islands. The SAS trained throughout the region, establishing crucialties with regional counterparts.

The Fraser government, elected in December 1975, maintained broadly thesame defence policy. The only large group of soldiers to go overseas werethe members of the 150-strong Australian component of theCommonwealth Monitoring Force in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe betweenDecember 1979 and March 1980. Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wasopposed to racial discrimination and wanted to support the Commonwealthin ending the war in Rhodesia.

The Defence White Paper delivered by the Hawke Labor government in1987 re-affirmed the concentration on the defence of Australia. The priorityfor force development was ‘to prepare to meet low-level contingencies in thenorth of Australia’. Army units were now to be based in Darwin as well asTownsville. But the Australian Government recognised the need ‘to becapable of reacting positively to calls for military support further afield fromour allies and friends should we judge that our interest require it’. This newpolicy was soon to come under test.

In the decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the near region hadbecome more benign. Earlier, in 1966–67, the Sukarno regime in Indonesiahad been overthrown and the formation of the Association of South-EastAsian Nations had brought stability to the region. As this stability wasconfirmed, the Australian Government believed that if necessary, troopscould be deployed far distant from Australia without undermining Australia’ssecurity.

In the 13 years between 1988 and 2001, the Australian Army was involvedin more than 25 overseas operations ranging from emergency relief topeacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace building. Some operationswere far distant from Australia and others were in the near region. Somewere to support international peacekeeping efforts. Some were driven by adesire to support the US alliance. Others were to Australia’s region forhumanitarian reasons and to assist the security of the region and hence thesecurity of Australia. Often there was overlap between these motivations.

The period was the high point of Australia’s involvement in international



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peacekeeping. The Australian Army deployed 60 officers to the militaryobserver group in Iran, almost 640 engineers to the United Nations (UN)force in Namibia, more than 90 engineers to the mine clearance trainingteam in Pakistan, 75 medical and support troops to northern Iraq, a score ofofficers and NCOs to the UN weapons inspection program in Iraq, 225signallers to the UN mission in Western Sahara, more than a thousandsignallers and support troops to the UN Transition Authority in Cambodia, aninfantry battalion and other staff to UN missions in Somalia, more than 200officers and NCOs to the former Yugoslavia, 100 de-miners and trainers toCambodia, and 600 medical and support troops to Rwanda.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Australia sent ships to assist the UnitedStates with a UN-authorised maritime enforcement operation against Iraq,and also sent ships to take part in the subsequent 1991 Gulf War. Thesecommitments were made to support the peacekeeping efforts of the UnitedNations in the post-Cold War era, but also because of a desire to strengthenthe US alliance. Only a few Australian Army soldiers were involved in theseoperations.

The missions in Cambodia, beginning in 1991, were the first commitmentsto regional security for almost two decades. It was in Australia’s interest tohelp end the fighting in Cambodia, and Australia saw the security ofCambodia as important enough to keep mine clearance experts and other

Figure 9. An S-70A-9 Black Hawk of B Squadron, 5th Aviation Regiment inCambodia to support the UN-sponsored elections. (DoD)



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trainers in Cambodia beyond the 1993 election, only withdrawing them afterthe 1997 coup.

The tension between retaining forces to deal with regional threats anddeploying forces further afield was demonstrated over the commitment of aninfantry battalion to Somalia at the end of 1992. Most Australians supportedthe commitment because it would help alleviate the humanitarian crisis inSomalia, but for the Australian Government it had the added bonus that,because it was part of a US task force, it would demonstrate Australia’ssupport for the US alliance. However, some critics argued that large-scalepeacekeeping commitments would detract from defence at home. Onecommentator said that it was ‘absurd’ for Australia to send troops to join aconflict that has nothing to do with our interest’.

These tensions were played out in the government where the ForeignMinister, Gareth Evans, advocated Australia’s role as the ‘good internationalcitizen’, while the Defence Minister, Robert Ray, a strong supporter of the USalliance, always had the defence of Australia uppermost in his mind. Evansargued that contributing to peacekeeping missions far distant from Australiamade for a more peaceful world and hence strengthened Australian security.Ray wanted to see more obvious benefits.

By the mid-1990s, after the disasters in the former Yugoslavia, Somalia andRwanda, UN peacekeeping was becoming less attractive. Furthermore, theHoward Coalition government, elected in March 1996, was less enamouredof the United Nations. It was keen to rejuvenate the US alliance, asevidenced by its continuing support for the United States in the Middle Eastthat culminated in the deployment of the SAS and aircraft to Kuwait in 1998.

However, the Howard government appreciated the importance of promotingpeace and security in the near region. The first major regional commitmentwas to Bougainville in 1997. Along with the earlier mission to Bougainville in1994, Australian troops worked alongside those from Pacific countries suchas Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa.

An even larger commitment was to the International Force East Timor(INTERFET) in 1999 involving the deployment of 5500 troops. Led byAustralia, INTERFET included troops from 22 nations, including regional



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countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea andThailand.

The INTERFET Commander, Australia’s Major General Peter Cosgrove, hada deputy from Thailand. During the previous two decades, officers fromregional countries had attended courses in Australia, and Australia had sentofficers to staff colleges in the region. The value of these connections nowbecame apparent. As the Department of Defence commented, ‘Malaysia’swillingness and ability to operate with the ADF in East Timor under thecommand of the Australian Task Force Commander, was an example of the

benefits flowing from our close defence engagement’. INTERFET wasfollowed by the continuing commitment to the UN transition administrationthrough to 2004—a further 7500 troops.

Australia was able to sustain INTERFET and subsequent operations, butonly just, and INTERFET resulted in important changes to the Army’s forcestructure. Effectively, the Army raised two more battalions. Logistic units,that had not seemed necessary because Army units operating in Australiacould call on the local civilian infrastructure, now needed to be re-raised tosupport operations outside Australia.

Figure 10. A soldier from 3RAR involved in a cordon and search operation in Diliduring Operation STABILISE, the INTERFET peace enforcement operation in EastTimor, 1999. (DoD)



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The terror attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001 beganan era of heightened operational tempo for the Australian Army that was tolast until 2014. For Australia, the commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan wereprimarily wars of choice, while the commitments of the regional hotspotswere those of necessity. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Prime MinisterHoward invoked the ANZUS Treaty to justify supporting the US inAfghanistan. The operations in Afghanistan were endorsed by the UnitedNations and received support from a multitude of countries. Australia’scommitment received bipartisan support.

There was much less support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. For Australia,it was a case of bolstering the US alliance. The unforeseen outcome of thesedecisions was that the Australian Army was heavily committed in Iraq andAfghanistan, in the latter case for more than a decade.

During this time, the Australian Army was also heavily committed in the nearregion. The peacekeeping mission in Bougainville continued until July 2003.

Figure 11. The Prime Minister, John Howard, addresses the troops of the OverwatchBattle Group (West)-2, 2007. (DoD)



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Meanwhile, Australian battalions were still rotating through six-month tours inEast Timor providing security for the new nation, now known as TimorLeste. This commitment ended in May 2004. By that time, the Army wasinvolved in another regional mission. In July 2003, a large part of anAustralian battalion deployed to Solomon Islands as part of the RegionalAssistance Mission Solomon Islands (RAMSI). This commitment wasgradually reduced to company size.

Events in 2006 were to place the Australian Army under considerable strainwith a multitude of commitments. In April 2006, after riots in the SolomonIslands’ capital Honiara, the Australian Army cobbled together an infantrybattalion with companies from several battalions to deploy quickly toHoniara. A month later, the security situation in Timor Leste deteriorated,and an infantry battalion group was hurriedly deployed. Before the year wasout, Army elements were deployed in Navy ships off the coast of Fiji ready tohelp evacuate Australian citizens after a coup there if that proved necessary.In addition, an Australian infantry company was deployed to Tonga to helpprovide security after the capital had been wracked by riots and looting.

The Army was struggling to meet these commitments, and two morebattalions were reformed. Faced by an array of demanding commitments,the Army drew on the Army Reserve, which provided companies for servicein East Timor, Solomon Islands, and at Butterworth.

Because of these commitments, the Army had less capacity to promoteregional engagement. Nonetheless, the Army was still involved in the region.One area of major activity was in emergency relief after natural disasters. Inmost cases, the Navy and Air Force played a more prominent role.Nonetheless, the Army was involved significantly in assisting with transportfor drought relief in PNG and Indonesia in 1997-98, with medical supportafter the tsunami in PNG in 1998, with medical and engineer support afterthe earthquake and the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004-5, and with transportand medical support after the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005-06.

The Five Power Defence Arrangements continued to provide opportunities.While the initial focus was on air, and later naval exercises, the Army laterbecame involved. Elsewhere, the Army had revitalised its engagement withPNG and other Pacific countries.



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The Australian Army’s regional engagement has ebbed and flowed over the80 years since that heavy battery arrived in Port Moresby in March 1939. Inmany ways regional engagement has been reactive—not always a deliberatepolicy. In the Second World War, regional engagement was crucial to thedefence of Australia. In the later regional wars: Korea, the MalayanEmergency, Confrontation and Vietnam, there was an element of alliancemanagement, although the commitments in Malaya and Borneo helpedbring stability to the region. The peacetime engagement however, broughtreal benefits.

I hope that this brief outline has shown how, for 80 years, the Army hascontributed to Australia’s influence in the region. I look forward to the otherpresentations, which will put some more flesh on this bare bones story.


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Army’s Persistent Presence in South-East AsiaProfessor John Blaxland

A rmy’s fondness for all thingsSouth-East Asian has ebbed

and flowed both before and after itsinvolvement in the Vietnam War. Infact, there is a certain cavalierdisregard amongst security punditsfor South-East Asia, preferring todismiss the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a‘broken reed’. Many of them prefer tofocus on the great powers, on NorthAmerica, Europe and to a certainextent North-East Asia, or evenSouth Asia. Militarily, the focus for ageneration has been mostly on theMiddle East. Yet when Australia facedan existential threat, as it did in 1942, it was not in some distant sands but inthe steamy jungles to Australia’s north and north-east that Australia’s Army,together with the other Services and allies, made a direct andunprecedented difference to the security of the nation.

Yet barely monolingual Australians really do not feel comfortable mixing itwith the ASEAN ten. After all, there is no-one in charge; and which languageof the ten does one bother to learn? What’s more, they refuse to make


Army’s Persistent Presencein South-East Asia

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decisions the way Australians would like them to. Often enough, they do noteven have the word ‘no’ in their vocabulary, so getting a straight answerfrom them is devilishly difficult for many. How inconvenient andinconsiderate!

Yet for all its inconveniences, its insistence on form before function, onformalities and relationship building before getting down to business,Australia is overwhelmingly dependent on working in and with the countriesof ASEAN.

Not only do its 620 million people represent more than 15 per cent ofAustralia’s trade, but when aggregated, ASEAN is Australia’s third largesttrading partner. ASEAN and its member states are not something optionalwith which Australia can afford to have equivocal and loose ties. It isAustralia’s immediate front yard. Getting defence ties right is of fundamentalimportance to the nation.

This chapter examines the Australian Army’s persistent, if at timesambivalent, presence in South-East Asia (excluding Indonesia and EastTimor, addressed by my colleagues separately). The chapter reflects on theshared experience, challenges and opportunities. First, to the early days ofthe relationship.

Early DaysAustralia’s military engagement with South-East Asia stretches back to theyears prior to World War II. During that period Australia placed greatemphasis on Britain’s ‘Singapore Strategy’ of building up an apparentlyimpregnable island fortress as a security guarantee for Britain’s Empire in the‘Far East’ (Australia’s near north) against anticipated Japanese aggression.This was backed up with the commitment of the bulk of the 8th Division tothe fateful defence of Singapore in 1941 and early 1942. In the immediatepost-war years, Britain re-asserted itself in the region, but from the late1950s onwards, Malaysia (in 1957) and Singapore (in 1963) gainedindependence and thereafter Britain largely withdrew from east of Suez. As aresult, Australia’s direct engagement in the security arrangements for thesetwo countries became more prominent.

Meanwhile, the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation—known by its acronymSEATO—was established in 1954 following the end of the Korean War. Itserved as a convenient forum to bring together Australia’s principal securityguarantors, Britain and the United States, in the defence of Australia’s



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neighbourhood. To a certain extent, other powers participated includingFrance, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand. With its headquartersestablished in Bangkok, the Australian Army contributed staff officers toparticipate in US-led military contingency planning in the event of a war inAsia. From 1962 onwards, and for much of the Vietnam War, the RAAFbased a squadron of CA-27 Avon Sabre aircraft at the Ubon military airfieldin Thailand’s north-east. While useful for enabling the interchange of ideasand shared experiences, SEATO was flawed from the outset, with no robustmechanisms to ensure collaborative action and little resolve by any of theparticipants to see it develop the kind of muscular mechanisms found inNATO. With Britain, France and Pakistan unwilling to participate as part ofthe ‘Free World’ military assistance arrangements during the Vietnam War,SEATO became moribund, and was wound up by the mid-1970s. In themeantime, a generation of Australian officers experienced closecollaboration alongside American and South-East Asian counterparts.

Five Power Defence ArrangementsBeyond Indonesia, Australia’s second-most important strategic relationshipin South-East Asia is with Malaysia and Singapore (along with New Zealandand Britain) in the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA). As a primarysecurity role, Australia maintained air, land and naval forces in Singapore andMalaysia as part of the British Commonwealth Far Eastern Strategic Reservein the 1950s and 1960s, until the British presence diminished and the UK-dominated arrangements altered in the lead up to the establishment of theFPDA.

Figure 12. RAAF CA-27 Avon Sabres of No. 77 Squadron at RTAF Base Ubon innorth-eastern Thailand in 1962. (DoD)



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The FPDA came into force in 1971 as a loose consultative arrangement afterConfrontation with Indonesia had ended and following the announcement in1968 by Britain’s Labour government that it would withdraw its militaryforces from east of Suez by 1971. This incidental five power arrangementwould end up proving to be a remarkably enduring one, in which theAustralian Army, alongside the other Services, would play a prominent role.

Initially conceived as a transitional agreement until Malaysia and Singaporecould fend for themselves, the FPDA has since moved beyond its initial pre-occupation with the air defence of the Malaysian peninsula and Singapore toarea defence, and the scope of its remit has expanded commensurately toinclude combined (international) and joint (multi-service) exercises.Nowadays the FPDA routinely addresses asymmetric threats, maritimesecurity issues, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief(HADR). In sum, the FPDA has proven remarkably resilient, surviving the endof the Cold War and the rapprochement with Indonesia to become ‘the quietachiever’ in the region; even after the difficulties imposed by the East Timorintervention in 1999. The end-result is that the FPDA contributes to regionalsecurity, providing Australia with unparalleled access to, and trainingopportunities with, Malaysia and Singapore and beyond. No longer doesMalaysia or Singapore have cause for deep concerns about Indonesia'sintentions. To many Indonesians the FPDA evokes memories of the past, butthat has not stopped them sending liaison officers as observers to FPDAactivities, mindful that the raison d’être of the FPDA has changed and is nowmore in line with Indonesia’s own national interests.

Since the 1970s, Australia has scaled back its ongoing air force presence inMalaysia at the airbase at Butterworth from a squadron of Mirage IIIs, andsubsequently F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft in the 1980s and ‘90s torotational flights into and out of the same airbase today. The FPDA’sIntegrated Air Defence System (IADS) was modified after the end of the ColdWar to become the Integrated Area Defence System, including maritime andland components. Rotational ship visits continue, but on a reduced basis,primarily coinciding with major annual FPDA exercises. Operation GATEWAYis the maritime surveillance operation using the RAAF’s P-3C Orion and P-8Poseidon aircraft and conducted in conjunction with the Royal Malaysian AirForce (RMAF); it has made a significant contribution to the region’s maritimesafety and security, particularly in the Indian Ocean, the approaches to theMalacca Strait and in the South China Sea. At the same time, the GATEWAY



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flights have facilitated close collaboration between the RMAF and RAAF,thus bolstering bilateral ties.

For the Australian Army during much of the Cold War, its contribution tendedto revolve around an infantry battalion on rotation as part of the 28thCommonwealth Brigade supported with various other attached elements.The Australian Government scaled back Army’s presence after the VietnamWar to a rotational rifle company based at Butterworth. During the ‘leanyears’ of low operational tempo after Vietnam, the three-month rotation toButterworth was a highlight for many soldiers otherwise exposed only torotational training activities around one of the Army’s main bases inTownsville, Brisbane and Sydney, and from the early-to-mid 1990s, Darwinas well.

Five Power Defence Arrangement ExercisesExercising in Singapore and Malaysia provided excellent opportunities forjungle warfare training as well as the chance for soldiers to have a significantcross-cultural experience in South-East Asia. Exercises included a range ofair, land and maritime activities. Participants exercised in jungle terrain andalongside Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai troops, providing uniqueopportunities unavailable in Australia. Rotations often involved assisting withbase security, live firing on a variety of ranges, jungle training at theMalaysian Army’s Combat Training School and participating on exercises invarious parts of the peninsula including in Singapore (and Thailand, althoughorganised separately to the FPDA). The legacy of such activities is a widerange of multilateral formal and informal ties between the armed services ofthese five countries. Nowadays there are three annual FPDA exercises:

• Exercise BERSAMA SHIELD is a medium-sized exercise with totalparticipation in the order of 60 aircraft and four ships, normallyheld annually in April–May.

• Exercise BERSAMA LIMA is a larger exercise usually held inOctober with total participation in the order of 60–80 aircraft and10–15 ships, including submarines, utilising space in the SouthChina Sea. One example of Exercise BERSAMA LIMA was held inSingapore in 2004 and based on a ‘non-permissive environment’scenario (where deploying troops would be opposed by force) witha humanitarian situation. The exercise allowed Australian troops tounderstand the differing military cultures and the differences in



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planning processes that each nation has when trying to draw thatinto a common planning and operating environment. Theexperience also stood the participating nations in good stead forthe unexpected and devastating Indian Ocean tsunami.

• Exercise SUMAN WARRIOR is named after the five participatingcountries (Singapore, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia andNew Zealand). It is a medium-sized exercise for FPDA land forcesusually held in August. Hosted in turn by each of the five nations,SUMAN WARRIOR is the only FPDA exercise conducted outsideSingapore and Malaysia; this is usually a command post exercise,providing a regular opportunity to exercise and test proceduresalongside partner-nations’ armies. One example of ExerciseSUMAN WARRIOR took place in 2004 as an independent exercisewith a multinational brigade headquarters commanding fiveseparate national battle groups. With the Regular Army stretchedon operations elsewhere, the Army Reserve’s Brisbane-based25th/49th Battalion, the Royal Queensland Regiment (25/49 RQR),deployed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel DarrylCampbell. This SUMAN WARRIOR was ‘a four-day exercisecrammed into a 14-day deployment’, with plenty of opportunity forsoldiers to interact with one another. Given the prevalence ofcoalition operations, participation in exercises like this was prudentand relevant.

Figure 13. Exercise SUMAN WARRIOR being held at Linton Army Camp in NewZealand during 2014. (DoD)



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In addition, Exercise SUMAN PROTECTOR is a larger culminating exercise,conducted every five years (replacing BERSAMA LIMA for that year).

Other similar exercises have been conducted in the past. ExercisePLATYPUS for instance, was an FPDA activity with five company-sizedelements combining in a composite battalion group focused on infantry–armour cooperation, artillery fire control, airmobile operations and a fieldfiring exercise. In 1981 the exercise was held in Shoalwater Bay and in 1983it was held in Brisbane (without field firing).

Another one, Exercise SOUTHERN SAFARI, held in 1982, involved infantrycompany groups from the five nations exercising in the Lake Tekapo area ofNew Zealand’s South Island. The declared aim was to develop FPDAcapabilities to operate together in a land environment. In 1983, officers fromthe Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia were invited to attend as observersas well.

MalaysiaIn addition to the multilateral FPDA ties, Australia’s bilateral defencerelationship with Malaysia is managed under the Malaysia–Australia JointDefence Program (MAJDP). This is Australia’s most comprehensive programof defence engagement in South-East Asia and includes education andtraining, bilateral and multilateral exercises and strategic dialogue. Australiamaintains a wide-ranging education and training program. Each yearAustralia offers more than 200 individual training opportunities in Australia.The MAJDP also supports a Seconded Officer Program that providessignificant benefits in terms of improving officer education in the MalaysianArmed Forces (MAF). There are currently 12 MAF officers seconded to ADFunits and six ADF members seconded to MAF units, including a positionembedded within MAF Headquarters that coordinates Australia’s andMalaysia’s Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) activities. The bilateralrelationship is supported by dialogues including the Malaysia–Australia JointDefence Program Talks. An inaugural bilateral strategic dialogue wasconducted in October 2016.

In May 2016, Australia and Malaysia worked closely together on OperationREUNITE; the operation to repatriate the remains of 33 Australian servicepersonnel killed in the Vietnam War from Terendak War Cemetery.

Australia also conducts bilateral exercises with Malaysia apart from themultilateral exercises organised under the FPDA. One such ten-day activity



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in 1977, Exercise SCORPION, involved A Company, 3 RAR, and a battalionfrom the Royal Malay Regiment near the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia.A Company spent a period at the Malaysian Army’s Jungle Warfare School,having spent several weeks preparing at the Land Warfare Centre atCanungra before leaving Australia.

Another exercise, SOUTHERN TIGER, has been a popular exchangeexercise with Malaysia. In 2004 for instance, B Company, 9th Battalion,Royal Malay Regiment (Airborne) visited Australia to conduct the exercisewith 3 RAR. The Malaysian officer commanding observed ‘our camp inMalaysia we call Canberra lines … I think it is good our soldiers and officerscome here to get training together with Australian soldiers—very goodexposure for our military.’

During 2016, Australia also completed Exercise BERSAMA SAPPER. Thisactivity involved the remediation of training facilities at Guram and Puladaranges by Australian combat engineers of Rifle Company ButterworthRotation 114. The activity provided improved ‘Raise-Train-Sustain’

Figure 14. An Australian Army soldier scans for enemy while a Malaysian ArmedForces soldier conducts a magazine change during Exercise SOUTHERN TIGER /DIAMOND WALK. (DoD)



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outcomes for the ADF and good international engagement outcomes forAustralia by improving facilities on a Malaysian base to mutual benefit.

SingaporeSingapore is Australia’s most advanced defence partner in South-East Asiaand shares Australia’s interest in a secure maritime trading environment.Australia has a long history of defence engagement that predatesSingaporean independence, not the least of which concerned the fate of the8th Division, Australian Imperial Force, when British Empire forcessurrendered to the Japanese in 1942. Today, engagement includesdialogues, cooperation in multilateral fora, training and exchangeopportunities, exercises and cooperation on operations.

Defence strategic-level dialogues with Singapore nowadays include theDFAT-led Singapore–Australia Joint Ministerial Committee (involving Foreign,Defence and Trade ministers), Defence Policy talks and the ADF – SingaporeArmed Forces (SAF) annual staff talks. While Defence Ministers’ talks are notformally scheduled, opportunities to meet exist at the annual Shangri-LaDialogue in Singapore, other multilateral fora and during Singapore DefenceMinister visits to observe Singapore’s unilateral training activities in Australia.The working-level relationship includes Service-to-Service talks, the JointAustralia–Singapore Coordination Group (JASINCG), intelligence exchanges,a science and technology forum, and a regular program of senior andworking-level visits.

Singapore’s major annual unilateral training activity, Exercise WALLABY, is abrigade-level exercise involving approximately 4900 SAF personnel. This isfollowed immediately by Exercise TRIDENT, which is being developed into asignature joint bilateral training exercise. Other cooperation includes: bilateralexercises such as Navy Exercise SINGAROO, Army Exercises MATILDA andDRAGON BALL, and Air Force Exercise CHURINGA; participation inmultilateral exercises such as Exercise PITCH BLACK and regular FPDAexercises; personnel exchange programs; joint logistics cooperation; aprogram of education and training; and cooperative efforts in science,technology, capability, and intelligence.

The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) signed on 29 June 2015set out how Australia and Singapore planned to further strengthen therelationship, including economic, security, foreign policy and people-to-



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people links. Under the CSP, expanding defence cooperation is based onfive areas:

• enhanced training area access (consistent with ADF usage, needsand ownership)

• military and departmental exchange postings

• new training initiatives and greater collaboration

• greater intelligence sharing

• expanded science and technology cooperation.

In the meantime, the SAF has capitalised on Australia’s generosity,conducting frequent exercises in the Shoalwater Bay Training Area. TheDefence Minister at the time, Marise Payne, and her Singapore counterpart,Minister Ng, signed a memorandum of understanding covering militarytraining and training area development during a visit to Canberra on 13October 2016. This agreement has led to Singapore investing $2.25 billionto upgrade Australian training areas and receive up to 18 weeks access for

Figure 15. Then Minister for Defence, Marise Payne, with her Singapore counterpart,Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen, hold a press conference after signing a memorandum ofunderstanding covering military training and training area development in 2016.(DoD)



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14 000 SAF personnel per year. Beyond the FPDA-related exercises, theSingaporeans tended to keep to themselves, conducting their own exerciseslargely without Australian involvement.

BruneiAustralia shares a modest but positive defence relationship with Bruneiconsisting of exercises, strategic dialogue and training. One of the biggestlimitations to enhanced defence cooperation with Brunei is capacityrestrictions due to the small size of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF).

Australia conducts occasional bilateral military exercises with Bruneiincluding the light infantry Exercise MALLEE BULL (last held in 2010) andpatrol boat inter-operability Exercise PENGUIN (4-7 October 2016). Defencehas established a biennial student position (Service rotational) at Brunei’sCommand and Staff Course. Brunei has self-funded its attendance atAustralian military and training institutes. From 2015, Brunei’s Defencespending shrank significantly, partly due to reduced global oil prices. For thisreason, Australia agreed to establish a limited Defence Cooperation Programto fund existing activities with Brunei until 2019.

CambodiaAcross on the other side of the South China Sea, Australia has haddiplomatic relations with Cambodia for over sixty years; but it was not untilthe end of the Cold War, at the start of the 1990s, that Australia played aprominent role in finding resolution to the Cold War-era conflict. The forcecommander for the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) wasAustralian Army Lieutenant General John Sanderson. Australia played aprominent role because the matter concerned a neighbouring South-EastAsian state with which Australia had had extensive engagement fordecades. Australia provided communications personnel, Black Hawkhelicopters and crews and staff officers to work on the UNTACHeadquarters in Phnom Penh with Sanderson. Afterwards Australiaparticipated with development projects and support to the Cambodian MineAction Centre. Eventually however, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Senasserted himself extra-constitutionally. Since then Australia has played adiminishing role in the development of the country, particularly as China hasasserted itself and extended its influence in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

In recent times, only English language training has featured as the key tenetof the Defence Cooperation Program with Cambodia, supporting the Royal



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Cambodian Armed Forces’ (RCAF) participation in multilateral security fora(such as ASEAN), UN peacekeeping and Australia-based training. Of note,Defence has supported English language programs at the RCAF College ofSocial Sciences and Language (CSSL), run for over 20 years throughcurriculum development and teacher sponsorship, as well as infrastructureand material support. Over that time, Defence and the staff at CSSL built thecollege into the best English language school in the RCAF and arguably oneof the top English language programs in the country. In addition, Defencehas offered around 55 training places to Cambodian officers on Australia-based courses focused on professional development and governance. Therelationship has been strained in recent years, however.

LaosLaos retreated into virtual isolation following the communist victory in Indo-China in 1975 and only slowly emerged following the end of the Cold Warwhen it joined ASEAN in the mid-1990s. Today, Australia has a modestDefence relationship with Laos, aimed at assisting the Lao Defence Force toengage more broadly in the region. Activities are focused primarily onEnglish language assistance and training in Australia. Australia hassupported in-country English language training through the Vientiane Collegein Laos, including full-time and part-time English language developmentprograms. Additionally, Australia has offered Laos approximately 20 trainingpositions on its military courses per year.

MyanmarFollowing independence, Australia maintained defence relations with (then)Burma and assisted with the training of the Burmese Armed Forces for aperiod in the 1950s. With the accession to power of General Ne Win and theadoption of the ‘Burmese Road to Socialism’ ideology in the early 1960s,Australian advisers pulled out. They would remain away for virtually half acentury, with a limited, and (from the late 1980s) only occasional, militaryattaché presence in the interim. But with the significant changes insideBurma—renamed Myanmar in 1989—following the adoption of a newconstitution in 2011 and general elections for the majority ofparliamentarians, a new permanently-based defence attaché wasestablished in early 2014. Initial defence engagement remained modest asscoping work was undertaken to consider appropriate additionalengagement opportunities.

In recent years, Australia has implemented a modestly enhanced Defence



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engagement program with Myanmar as part of wider bilateral efforts.Following the general elections and the successful transition to a democraticgovernment, in mid-2016 the Minister for Defence, with agreement from theMinister for Foreign Affairs, agreed to expand cooperation in Englishlanguage training, officer education, humanitarian and disaster relief, andpeacekeeping training. That has been hamstrung, however, by theconsequences of the Rohingya crisis.

Defence’s current lines of engagement include training for approximately 40officers in Australia per year, including a Defence Cooperation Scholarshipfor postgraduate studies, engagement at multilateral fora and support toattend multilateral exercises. Of note, four Tatmadaw officers attended the

peacekeeping exercise, PIRAP JABIRU, in Thailand in May 2016 for the firsttime. The ADF’s Peace Operations Training Centre Mobile Training Teamdelivered peacekeeping training to approximately 50 Tatmadaw officers inMyanmar in August 2016.

PhilippinesThe Philippines is an important and longstanding Defence partner forAustralia. Australian defence ties with the Philippines stretch back to thelatter stages of World War II when over 4000 Australians fought alongside

Figure 16. Colonel Soe Win from the Myanmar Armed Forces (Tatmadaw)participates in question time during the border consortium brief on current issuesand future challenges during Exercise PIRAP JABIRU 2016 in Thailand. (DoD)



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US and Philippine forces to liberate their nation. Particularly since the end ofthe Cold War, and the significant reduction in US forces based therefollowing the closure of Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base, theAustralia-Philippines Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) has grownsignificantly.

In a similar vein to Thailand, the Philippines committed troops in support ofthe Australian-led intervention into East Timor in 1999. As was the case forThailand, this move reflected a strong and favourable disposition towardsAustralia.

The DCP’s focus has been primarily on counterterrorism, maritime securityand assistance to the Philippines Defence Reform Program. Over severalyears, the ADF undertook annual counter-hijack training in the Philippines,much like the kind of training undertaken with other regional countries suchas Thailand. A Status of Forces Agreement, signed in May 2007, provided amore comprehensive legal framework to support ADF and Philippinespersonnel engaged in Defence Cooperation activities in their respectivecountries. Defence worked with the Philippines to develop an Armywatercraft capability of up to thirty boats suitable for patrolling the riverineand marshland areas of Mindanao.

The bilateral relationship is supported by a solid program of dialoguesincluding the Joint Defence Cooperation Working Group, Joint DefenceCooperation Committee and an annual Strategic Dialogue.

Nowadays, each year, Australia offers at least 150 individual trainingopportunities in Australia. Defence also supports Philippine capabilitydevelopment in-country through targeted training delivered by MobileTraining Teams. In 2016, Australia has delivered Helicopter UnderwaterEscape Training (HUET) and Certificate IV in Training and Assessment,Command and Staff Operations Law Course and a Maritime SecurityStudies period (in conjunction with the University of Wollongong).

ADF contingents also have participated in Exercise BALIKATAN (whichmeans ‘should-to-shoulder’ in Tagalog)—the Philippines’ major annualexercise with the United States—contributing a commando element, ahealth contingent, a planning/command team and RAAF aircraft.

Following the May 2017 siege of Marawi in Mindanao, Australia launchedOperation AUGURY to assist. By November 2019 Australia’s contribution



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under Operation AUGURY-Philippines had provided counterterrorismcapacity training to over 10 000 members of the Armed Forces of thePhilippines.

On the margins of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus)in Bangkok in November 2019, Minister for Defence, Linda Reynolds, andPhilippines’ Secretary of National Defense, Delfin Lorenzana, announcedthat Australia would transition its support under Operation AUGURY-Philippines to an enhanced Defence cooperation program. This arrangementwas scheduled to begin in December 2019.

ThailandAs prisoners-of-war in the early 1940s, Australian soldiers had undergone adeeply traumatic experience working for the Japanese in constructing theinfamous Thai-Burma railway. As mentioned above, Australia subsequentlycontributed to the establishment of SEATO in Bangkok and the deploymentof fighter aircraft.

The first Thai graduate of Australian Army Staff College in 1959, SaiyudKerdphol retired after having become the Supreme Commander of the RoyalThai Armed Forces (RTArF) and after having led the successful counter-insurgency campaign against the Communist Party of Thailand in the 1980s.

Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralonkorn studied at Duntroon and underwentSpecial Forces training with Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment (SASR).Today the Thai alumni of Australian staff colleges, the ADF Academy andvarious other military courses number in the many hundreds.

RAAF ties with the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) have been strong and deepever since the deployment of CA-27 Sabres during the Vietnam War andtoday bilateral air exercises offer highly valued and realistic training, providingongoing validation for the utility of bilateral Defence ties.

In addition, Australia participates in an extensive series of bilateral andmultilateral exercises with Thailand, in the fields of land, counterterrorism,joint air defence, maritime, light infantry and air combat. Australia andThailand co-hosted the biennial multilateral desktop peacekeeping exercise,PIRAP JABIRU in May 2016 in Thailand. It involved over 100 participantsfrom military, policy and government organisations from 22 nations in theIndo-Pacific region, including participants from China and Myanmar whojoined the exercise for the first time.



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The Defence Cooperation Program engagement priorities with Thailandfocus on counterterrorism, peacekeeping, and counter-improvised explosivedevices cooperation. The DCP also offers extensive opportunities in Englishlanguage training, single-Service skills development, Defence CooperationScholarships and officer training. Around 120 positions are offered fortraining in Australia annually.

The ADF also tends to send two officers annually to the Royal Thai Army andRoyal Thai Navy’s Staff Colleges. Australia and Thailand conduct an annualstrategic dialogue and biennial navy-to-navy talks.

Thailand’s willingness to contribute forces in Australia’s hour of need in EastTimor in September 1999 points to the remarkable utility and significance ofinvesting in the bilateral military ties between Thailand and Australia. Thestrength of the bilateral relationship stretches beyond the security sector totrade and investment as well as tourism, with nearly a million Australiansvisiting Thailand annually.

VietnamRelations with erstwhile Cold War enemy Vietnam, have transformed inrecent years. Formal bilateral defence relations were established in February1998 and the Defence Attaché Office at the Australian Embassy in Hanoiopened in 1999 under Colonel Gary Hogan. Vietnam reciprocated,establishing its first defence attaché in Canberra in September 2000.

Since then the bilateral defence relationship has grown considerably andnow includes activities ranging from regular naval visits to Vietnam; trainingof Vietnamese military officers in Australia under the Defence CooperationProgram; and visits between Australian and Vietnamese senior Defenceofficials. At the inaugural ADMM-Plus meeting held in Hanoi in October2010, Australia and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding ondefence cooperation. Subsequently, in August 2012, Vietnam and Australiaagreed to enhance defence relations further through a range of bilateraldefence initiatives, including the establishment of an annual DefenceMinisters' Dialogue, with the first one held in Canberra in March 2013.Australia and Vietnam have also held a senior officials-level bilateral RegionalSecurity Dialogue since 1998. Ties were upgraded in February 2012, whenthe inaugural Joint Foreign Affairs/Defence Australia – Vietnam StrategicDialogue was held in Canberra at Deputy-Secretary/Vice-Minister level.Australia and Vietnam also conduct annual Australia–Vietnam Defence



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Cooperation Senior Officials’ talks. In addition to the Defence CooperationProgram, the Australian Federal Police maintain Law Enforcement LiaisonOffices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, much as is the case in Australia’sother South-East Asian embassies.

Australia’s defence relationship with Vietnam continues to grow under theDeclaration on Enhancing the Australia–Vietnam ComprehensivePartnership, signed during then-Prime Minister Dung’s visit to Australia inMarch 2015. The Defence Cooperation Program seeks to promote greateropenness and cooperation to address shared security challenges. Australiaoffered around 120 Australia-based training places to Vietnamese officers in2016, focused on English language proficiency, peacekeeping, governanceand professionalisation.

Australia has set out to strengthen maritime security cooperation throughnavy-to-navy training and annual ship visits. HMAS Success visited Ho ChiMinh City in mid-2016 and HMAS Canberra visited in May 2019, duringwhich the two navies conducted exercises and exchanges.

Australia also supports Vietnam’s aspirations to take on a greater role in UNpeacekeeping through the provision of specialist peacekeeping training.Australia signed a peacekeeping memorandum of understanding in March2015 allowing for information sharing and exchanges, and helpedVietnamese forces deploy on peacekeeping operations in Africa. Finally,Australia is increasing counterterrorism cooperation through biannual trainingserials between special forces units.

US Regional Collaborative EngagementBeyond bilateral DCP initiatives, Australia has sought to work in harmonywith US regional military engagement initiatives from the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) to avoid unnecessary duplication and tocapitalise on complementary offerings. The focus of US–Australiacooperation in South-East Asia is different from that in other areas. In thisregion, a majority of the cooperation is based on the personal relationshipsbetween the individuals posted there. For land forces, this cooperation isprimarily between Special Operations Command, Pacific (SOCPAC),INDOPACOM and the Australian Army. Cooperative engagements in South-East Asia include counterterrorism training, English language training,professional education, peacekeeping, and maritime security.

In the Philippines for instance, Australia has become a participant in what



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once was a fairly low-key bilateral activity with the United States, ExerciseBALIKATAN. In 2015 the exercise was beefed up, involving 12 000 troops,the bulk of them Filipino, but with substantial contributions from the UnitedStates and Australia.

East-Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional ForumThe ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is yet another international grouping, butthis one draws together 27 countries which have a stake in the security ofthe Asia–Pacific region. Established in 1994 with Australia as a foundingmember, it includes the participants in the East-Asia Summit (EAS) as wellas Canada, India, the European Union, Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, NorthKorea, East Timor, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. DFAT has responsibility forAustralia’s ARF policy, in consultation with the Department of Defence andother agencies. The expanded ARF grouping provides a unique forum forsecurity dialogue in Asia covering a wide range of topics. These range fromdisaster relief to counterterrorism, trans-national crime, non-proliferation anddisarmament and most recently, cyber confidence-building measures. TheARF is characterised by consensus decision making—a constraint whichmakes for glacial progress on many issues. Nonetheless, Australian Armypersonnel have made valid and valued contributions, participating in

Figure 17. Officers from the Australian Defence Force, the Armed Forces of thePhilippines and the United States Armed Forces conduct a planning activity duringExercise BALIKATAN 2018 in the Philippines. (DoD)



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working-level ARF Defence officials dialogues and meetings on maritimesecurity, counterterrorism and non-proliferation. In 2015, the Australian Civil-Military Centre conducted an EAS seminar on search and rescue in Sydney,involving seconded Army personnel.

Debate continues as to whether the ARF and EAS are able to achieve verymuch; but the fact that these countries meet at all facilitates cooperativemeasures to enhance peace and security in the region. To date the ARF, forinstance, has made only modest gains but it has helped build a sense ofstrategic community, which is widely recognised as making the effortworthwhile. In 2009 the first ARF field exercise, located in the Philippines,focused on disaster relief. The second was held in Manado, Indonesia in2011 and a third one, in Hua Hin, Thailand in 2013. Apart from fieldexercises, where Australia has been an active participant, inter-sessionalworking-group meetings and senior officials meetings provide the venue forattempts to make progress on these wide-ranging security issues.

ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus)The ADMM-Plus remains Australia’s top priority for defence engagementwith regional security architecture with the Minister of Defence normallyattending and the First Assistant Secretary for International Policy leadingthe delegation, which includes Australian Public Service civilians anduniformed ADF participants. Defence contributes to all ADMM-Plus Experts’Working Groups (EWGs), which oversee military cooperation in counter-terrorism, cyber security, peacekeeping operations, maritime security,humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, military medicine, andhumanitarian mine action. Defence subject matter experts attend the policy,planning and exercise activities of each EWG, which meet around twice ayear and hold major exercises every third year. Australia has co-chairedseveral of the EWGs with ASEAN member countries.

Sometimes this engagement bears fruit. In September 2016 for instance, aDefence contingent of 14 personnel participated in an ADMM-Pluscombined military medicine and HADR exercise in Chonburi Province,Thailand. In May 2016, Defence contributed approximately 20 ADFpersonnel, a frigate (HMAS Anzac), and a patrol boat (HMAS Bathurst) to theADMM-Plus combined maritime security and counter-terrorism exercise inSingapore and Brunei. In March 2016, 13 personnel participated in thecombined peacekeeping operations and humanitarian mine action exercisein India.



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Other Multilateral Strategic DialoguesAs part of the Defence team, Australian Army personnel also engage South-East Asian partners through multilateral strategic dialogues which also allowfor bilateral sideline meetings. In September 2016 for instance, the ViceChief of Defence Force attended the Pacific Chiefs of Defence Conference inManila on behalf of the Chief of Defence Force, meeting with a number ofregional military chiefs. In June 2016, the Chief of Defence Force and thekey departmental international policy adviser led participation in the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the region’s largest annual gathering of Defenceministers and military chiefs. In January 2016, other officials attended theFullerton Forum in Singapore, meeting regional officials that supportministers and military chiefs at the Shangri-La Dialogue.

Ideas have been generated beyond the ARF and EAS—official, first-trackinstitutions. Second-trackinstitutions (non-officialinstitutions including theCouncil for SecurityCooperation in the AsiaPacific (CSCAP) and theASEAN Institutes of Strategicand International Studies(ASEAN ISIS), have helpedformulate inputs for ARFdeliberation.

These ‘second-track’institutions, involvingacademics and securityofficials—including militaryofficers from participatingnations—conduct seminars

Figure 18. Amid a tropicalrainstorm, two engineers from theAustralian Army’s 21stConstruction Squadron,Brisbane, work on clearing mud-filled drains at the Anzac FieldHospital in Banda Aceh,Indonesia after the 2004 BoxingDay Tsunami (DoD)



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on regional security issues. These meetings are often held back-to-backwith the main ARF meetings.

Future Australian Regional EngagementAs the Afghanistan and Iraq commitments wind down, the ADF must re-focus on bolstering security and stability in Australia’s inner arc. Growingconcern about great power contestation, looming environmental challengesand a spectrum of governance challenges in Australia’s Indo-Pacificneighbourhood point to the need for a deep re-think about priorities for theAustralian Army, the Australian Defence Force and the wider community. Asoutlined in a geostrategic SWOT Analysis for Australia, the combined effectof these three sets of challenges are more pressing than ever and require aholistic response with multi-generational concerns in mind.

While the threat of conflict in the Indo-Pacific is greater than for many years,there also remain significant prospects of environmental catastropherequiring military intervention. The ADF therefore must prepare not just forthe long-term risks but also for short-notice HADR-related tasks. As ithappens, ever since the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, ASEAN and itsregional partners, including Australia, have recognised the remarkable utilityof HADR-related multilateral military engagement. Such engagement helpsprepare forces for likely contingencies, while also building trust,understanding and mutual respect. In the face of constrained funding,enhancing regional security and stability through HADR-related exercisesand planning activities needs to become a top priority.

Australia should closely engage its South-East Asian neighbours and theAustralian Army has a prominent role to play. ASEAN and the individualcountries that make up this grouping will be of enduring significance toAustralia’s strategic calculus. As experience in INTERFET has demonstrated,there is enduring utility in remaining closely engaged with ASEAN member-states as well. The investment in the relationship provides a range of mutualbenefits. The FPDA helps facilitate a wide range of annual air, sea and landexercises that help build trust and a common understanding of militaryproficiency that can be called on in an emergency, such as the search forthe missing Malaysian Airlines plane, MH370. Where possible, Thailand andthe Philippines should also be included aligned with scheduled FPDAevents. Even Myanmar should be engaged to encourage consolidation andextension of reform initiatives and to bolster ASEAN’s role. Much of thiscould be done alongside Australia’s principal ally, the United States. But the



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most important country for Australia to engage with in South-East Asia isunquestionably Indonesia.

A sober reflection on the geostrategic realities should be the maindeterminant for funding. With so many contingencies to be prepared for,Australia still needs to maintain a balanced joint force adaptable to a widerange of possible eventualities, with sufficient air, sea and ground forces torespond to the challenges expected in modern conflict. A visionary,comprehensive and co-ordinated regional engagement plan is needed tomitigate some of the security and environmental concerns now faced. Withso many challenges, Australia, as a middle power, must rise above its smallpower pretensions, and work to build the regional stability in South-EastAsia on which its future security will depend.

Figure 19. A digger of 5RAR confers with three TNI soldiers on a training exercise inAustralia. (DoD)


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Fifty Years of the Australian Army andTNI RelationshipDr Garth Pratten

I n the first week of October 1960,Captains Hutomo Nastap and Harjo

Sutarmo arrived in Australia toundertake Air Support and JuniorOfficers Tactical Courses atAustralian Army schools. As the firstmembers of the Indonesian Army totrain in Australia, their arrival markedthe formal commencement of acooperative relationship between thearmies of Indonesia and Australia,which has endured to the presentday.

That relationship has proved diverseand adaptable. Much of this diversitywill unfold in the remarks that follow but, in summary, it has includedindividual and collective training, capability development, surveying andmapping programs, and key leader engagement and dialogue in a variety offora. Operational cooperation has also occurred in pursuit of regionalstability—with the United Nations in Cambodia—and in response to multiplenatural disasters that have ravaged Indonesia. This diversity has stemmedfrom the fact that cooperation between the armies of Indonesia and Australiahas always occurred within a broader program of engagement between the


Fifty Years of the Australian Armyand TNI Relationship

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armed services of the two nations. Such engagement has responded tonational and shared security imperatives, development goals, and thechanging tenor of the overarching bilateral relationship.

Turning to the themes of the conference, the Australian Army has enjoyedmuch access to its Indonesian counterpart in the past 59 years but influencehas not necessarily flowed from it. Indeed, what the history of therelationship reveals is that different political and strategic cultures andnational aspirations render it fragile and these need to be understood andmanaged; overt efforts at influence are likely to fail. Despite thesecharacteristics, the relationship has proved remarkably resilient. My latecolleague Des Ball observed in 1994 that the development of defencecooperation between Indonesia and Australia is an ‘exercise inpracticability’; ‘it has progressed fastest and furthest where there areimportant common concerns and needs and where the practical means arereadily available’. With an extra 25 years of perspective I argue that thisassessment still holds true.

The first cooperation between Australian and Indonesian soldiers precededthe establishment of formal programs and even the declaration of theIndonesian Republic on 17 August 1945. During the Japanese offensivethrough Indonesia (then known as the Netherlands East Indies) in early1942, members of Australian Imperial Force and Indonesian soldiers of theRoyal Netherlands Indies Army fought in defence of Java, Ambon and Timor.After the Allied defeat, around 10 000 of these Indonesian soldiers found

Figure 20. KNIL troops of the Netherlands East Indies march through Sydney’sstreets after training in Australia. KNIL troops were locally recruited soldiers from theNEI. (Source Unk)



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refuge in Australia. Here they received English language, technical and junglewarfare training in Australian Army establishments.

Australians and Indonesians served side-by-side as the Allies took theoffensive against Japan. They operated together in Allied Intelligence Bureaufield parties that infiltrated Japanese-occupied territory. When Australianconventional forces landed at Tarakan and Balikpapan in May and July 1945they were accompanied in each instance by a company of Indonesiansoldiers. These troops played important roles as scouts and guides for theAustralians, as well as patrolling and fighting small actions in their own right.

Official contact between Australia and Indonesia dates back to the first yearsof the republic. Australia’s foreign minister at the time, Herbert Evatt,advocated for Indonesian independence in the newly-formed UnitedNations, and in late-1945 even proposed an Australian peacekeeping forceto separate the forces of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, andIndonesia to facilitate Australian-brokered negotiations. This initiative wasnever implemented, but Australians later served in Indonesia from 1947 to1951 as military observers in several UN missions and, in addition, Indonesianominated Australia as its diplomatic representative as the withdrawal of theDutch was negotiated.

Some of the new republic’s officers hoped that Australia could helpconsolidate the forces of the revolution into a national army. One senior

Figure 21. Three of the first four Australian peacekeepers arrive in Batavia, nowJakarta, Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia). The Australians were the first to arrive ofa group of military observers requested by the Consular Commission, a body set upby the United Nations to report on the observance of a ceasefire between Dutch andIndonesian Republican forces. (DoD via AWM P03531.002)



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officer of the People’s Peace Preservation Army (Tentara Keaman Rakjat –TKR), told an Australian correspondent there were roles for retired Australianofficers in Indonesian army training establishments. ‘Australians are excellentguerrillas’ he stated, and further observed ‘They are also gay, lively spirits,perhaps because they drink so much beer.’

Despite this history, it took some time for the leadership of both nations toestablish the basis for a bilateral defence relationship, especially in theturbulent years of the late 1950s and 1960s. During this period, defenceengagement was exploratory and limited. Some early requests for support,such as an informal approach for an Australian training mission of over 200personnel in early 1953 and requests for places on training courses, werenot met. The principal obstacle was not the willingness of the two armies toengage but rather opposition from fretful Australian governmentbackbenchers and a shrill press observing the leftist leanings of PresidentSukarno in Jakarta, and Department of External Affairs concerns about thereaction of the Netherlands government. Formal defence cooperation onlycommenced after a policy shift to bolster the Indonesian military as abulwark against communism and a visit to Jakarta by Australian PrimeMinister Robert Menzies in 1959. The importance of training, which theAustralian Government hoped would be reciprocal, was agreed to and thefirst military training for Indonesians in Australia since the Second World Warcommenced with the arrival of Captains Nastap and Sutarmo in October1960.

One of the earliest training exchanges—the movement of students betweenthe respective staff colleges—became one of the most enduring acts ofcooperation. The first Indonesian students to attend the Australian ArmyStaff College, Lieutenant Colonels Edward Tambunan and A. J. WitonoSarsono joined the 1961–1962 course. Australia reciprocated by sendingLieutenant Colonel East to join the 1964 course at the Indonesian ArmyCommand and General Staff College in Bandung. Demonstrating theresilience that would become a hallmark of the army-to-army relationship,East’s time in Bandung coincided with a period of heightened tensionsbetween Indonesia and Australia due to President Sukarno’s policy ofKonfrontasi with Malaysia.

By the late 1960s Indonesia and Australia experienced a confluence ofnational interest at a critical time in regional security affairs. Fears ofChinese-backed insurgency remained and the longevity of the British and



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American presence in South-East Asia was uncertain. Australia wanted topromote security from within the region. The Australian Government soughtways to contribute to Indonesia’s development and security, and tostrengthen and broaden ties between the two neighbours. Around the sametime, the New Order of President Suharto sought to redefine Indonesia as aconstructive actor in regional affairs. Having ended Konfrontasi and withcommunism no longer a domestic political force, President Suharto activelysought investment and aid from Western nations and Japan. Defenceassistance to Indonesia was seen as a way to build capacity in theIndonesian military allowing President Suharto’s government to focus onrebuilding the Indonesian economy.

These regional strategic dynamics provided the impetus for the first planneddefence cooperation program between Indonesia and Australia. Formulatedin 1968, and built on the foundations of existing engagement, the programwas modest and low key. This design reflected two important imperatives:the demands of Australia’s ongoing military commitments elsewhere inSouth-East Asia and the ‘bebas dan aktif’ (free and active) philosophyunderpinning Indonesian foreign policy. Training opportunities were the mainemphasis. Between 1968 and 1971, 143 Indonesians, including 80 Army

personnel, completed courses in Australia. The largest activity featuringarmy-to-army cooperation, however, was a joint project to map outlyingareas of Indonesia, which began as a separate endeavour in 1969 and was

Figure 22. A CA-27 Avon Sabres painted in Indonesian TNI-AU colours, await theirdeparture for Indonesia from their base at Williamtown, NSW. Former RAAF Sabrefighters were gifted to Malaysia and Indonesia. (DoD)



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subsumed into the program in 1970. The project would continue until 1984,and involve hundreds of Australian and Indonesian personnel.

By the early 1970s the trust underpinning the Indonesia–Australia defencerelationship was growing. Following an Indonesian request, in January 1972Australia gifted the Indonesian Air Force 18 Sabre fighters, and all itsremaining stocks of spare parts. The program’s expanding size and scopemotivated the Australian Government to renew it as a centrally-controlledand funded whole, explicitly provided for in the Defence Estimates.Indonesia now had sufficient confidence in Australia’s understanding of itsforeign policy position and also of its southern neighbour’s potential tocontribute to regional security, stability and economic development, toassent to a formal program of defence cooperation.

After reciprocal visits to national capitals by President Suharto in February1972 and Prime Minister William McMahon in June, a formal three-year$A20 million Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) was announced. Inaddition to existing training and technical assistance, the DCP addressedthree priorities nominated by Indonesia: rehabilitation of its air force, defenceresearch and development, and the expansion of its coastal surveillancecapacity. The program thus emphasised capability development, and theprovision of equipment, in a way that the informal program had not.

The 1972–1975 DCP set the tone of Australia-Indonesia defence co-operation for the next decade. A new three-year DCP followed for 1975–1978 to which A$25 million was committed, and thereafter an annually-budgeted program was introduced. In 1974–1975 Australian defenceassistance exceeded that to all other ASEAN nations combined, and by1983–1984 funding had doubled. Capability was the continuing emphasiswith major ongoing projects including patrol boats and Nomad aircraft forthe Indonesian Navy, Sioux helicopters for the Indonesian Air Force, andcommunications equipment and maintenance facilities for the IndonesianArmy.

It would be wrong, however, to characterise this period of cooperation asbeing solely concerned with the one-way movement of materiel. Technicaltraining incorporated into the materiel projects became a focus of army-to-army interaction and the period is notable for featuring the largest prolongeddeployment of Australian Army personnel to Indonesia in the form of severaltraining teams that lived and worked beside their Indonesian counterparts,



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as well as the instruction of several large groups of Indonesians in Australia.Training for individual Indonesian officers and soldiers continued in Australiaand was complemented by a new exchange visit between the cadets of therespective officer training institutions.

Advances were also made in the field of combined collective training in thisperiod. The first combined naval exercise occurred in 1972 and the followingyear a large party of Indonesian Army observers joined the Australian Army’sExercise TEMPLE TOWER in 1973. Australia’s aspiration for a combinedsub-unit exercise was not realised, although visits of Indonesian observerscontinued—the Indonesian Army was keen to learn from the experience ofthe Australians in Vietnam—and, later, in 1982, a program for the training ofIndonesian junior officers in jungle warfare instructional techniques wasestablished.

Demonstrating the dual themes of fragility and resilience, the burgeoninglevels of defence cooperation were brought to a crashing halt in 1986 by aSydney Morning Herald article critical of President Suharto’s family and itsbusiness interests. But although Australia–Indonesia defence relationsremained in a state of deep freeze until 1988, modest engagementcontinued throughout the break with Australian students continuing toattend the Indonesian staff colleges.

It would, however, take a concerted policy of re-engagement with Indonesiaadvanced by Australia’s Labor government as part of a broader Asia-focused foreign policy, and several remarkable personal relationships, torekindle defence cooperation. Foremost among these were friendshipsformed by the respective senior military leaders—Generals Try Sutrisno andPeter Gration; foreign ministers—Ali Alitas and Gareth Evans; and, from1991, the Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and Indonesia’s PresidentSuhatro. These men facilitated a new defence relationship based onreciprocity and mutual benefit and moved away from what manyIndonesians regarded as dependence on Australian largesse. A multi-layeredframework for the discussion of defence issues was inaugurated in 1993,the landmark Australian-Indonesian Agreement on Maintaining Security(AMS) was signed in December 1995, and a set of long-term objectives fordefence cooperation was determined in November 1996.

For the two armies the burgeoning relationship meant an unprecedentedlevel of combined activity, regarded by many as the high point of



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cooperation. The numbers of Indonesians at Australian trainingestablishments increased; a series of joint special forces exercisescommenced in 1993; and in 1995 Indonesian paratroops participated inExercises SWIFT CANOPY and KANGAROO 95. Emphasising thereciprocity at the heart of the program, in 1998 Australian junior officersbegan travelling to Indonesia for a three-month in-depth familiarisation

Figure 23. Soldiers from the Australian Army and TNI prepare their weapons on theDrop Zone after an airborne insertion on Exercise SWIFT CANOPY. (DoD)



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known as Exercise KARTIKA EXCHANGE, and in March 1999 an Australianinfantry company deployed to Java for Exercise TRISETIA.

Demonstrating the practical utility of exchange activities to develop familiaritywith tactics, techniques and procedures as well as capabilities, the twoarmies were also operational partners during the 1990s. Indonesian infantryand Australian signallers served together in the United Nations TransitionalAuthority in Cambodia to facilitate a peace settlement and elections afterover a decade of war—a mission that arose largely from the advocacy ofIndonesian and Australian foreign ministers. Closer to home for both nations,Australian Army helicopters formed part of an aviation task force thatassisted Indonesian Army relief efforts during a drought in West Papua in1998.

From the high point of Australia–Indonesia army-to-army cooperation, it wasa long drop to its nadir following the East Timor crisis of 1999. CraigStockings will talk about East Timor in detail presently so I will not dwell toolong here but the events of 1999 demonstrate the very real limitations of theconcepts of access and influence. Armies are servants of state policy, andtheir relations with each other will never trump action in the national interest,or their perceptions of it. A decade of considered, purposeful cooperationbetween the armies of Indonesia and Australia did not prevent the descentof East Timor into chaos and the same troops from 3 RAR that hadexercised in the hills of Central Java in March 1999, found themselveslanding in Dili six months later.

The peaceful entry of INTERFET into Dili has frequently been portrayed as aproduct of the cooperation of the 1990s, but, again, we must keep in mindarmies are not autonomous entities. Major General Kiki Syahnakri, theIndonesian commander in East Timor was ordered by the Commander ofthe Indonesian National Armed Forces, General Wiranto, to cooperate withINTERFET. Syahnakri, however, has spoken of the role of Australia’s ArmyAttaché Ken Brownrigg in maintaining communications and managingtensions. It is in this example, and the way other Australians andIndonesians in East Timor were able to draw upon personal relationships,that we see the utility of access in a more nuanced context.

In the shadow of East Timor we can discern the pragmatic resilience of thedefence relationship. Despite Australia’s public suspension of defence tiesand Indonesia’s abrogation of the Agreement on Maintaining Security,



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defence engagement continued on a low-key basis after September 1999.The reciprocal staff college program continued and Australia maintained itstechnical and personnel support for the long-running Nomad maritimesurveillance program. The implicit message was both nations saw too muchvalue in the relationship to abandon it.

The role of shared concerns, resources and capabilities as catalysts to theAustralia–Indonesia defence relationship was again illustrated by thecircumstances of its resumption after the East Timor hiatus. Cautiousdiscussions commenced in 2001 but it was the shared challenge ofconfronting terrorism in the wake of several bombings throughout Indonesia(Bali: 2002 and 2005, Jakarta Marriott Hotel: 2003, Australian EmbassyJakarta: 2004) that prompted the renewal and expansion of several areas ofcooperation. Australian assistance following the 2004–2005 tsunami andearthquake is also considered to have returned some trust to therelationship. In 2006 the administrative architecture of the relationship wasrebuilt with the signing of the Lombok Treaty (Australia–IndonesiaFramework for Security Cooperation) in November and the Australia–Indonesia Joint Statement on Defence Cooperation followed in January2009, which detailed a number of ‘mutually determined priority areas ofcommon strategic interest’ to guide ‘beneficial practical cooperation’including dialogue, exercises, training, education and personnel exchanges.

Moving through the second decade of the 21st Century, the Australia–Indonesia army-to-army relationship has regained much of the diversity andvitality of previous years. Successive Defence Cooperation Agreements in2012 and 2018 further developed the framework of practical defencecooperation activities built around the Lombok Treaty. New exercises wereinitiated founded on the priority areas of common interest such aspeacekeeping, counterterrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,and protected mobility operations. This new exercise program returnedarmy-to-army activities to a scale and tempo not witnessed since the 1990s.The advent of Exercise WIRA JAYA in 2013 can be seen as a belatedrealisation of the goal of the early 1970s for a regular sub-unit exercise and,as the Chief of Army mentioned in his remarks, WIRA JAYA continues togrow in complexity each year.

The rekindled relationship, however, has not been without difficulties tonegotiate. Following the Snowden Controversy of 2013, seven combinedexercises, six of which were army-to-army, were suspended or postponed,



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although low-key activities such as the staff college exchanges and acounterterrorism subject matter exchange maintained working levelengagement. Tensions in early 2017 arising from a parody of Indonesia’sfounding values viewed by an Indonesian officer visiting the Special AirService Regiment (SASR) reinforced the critical utility of people-to-peoplelinks between the two armies to foster understanding of each other’s cultureand worldview, to avoid clumsy and needless offence, and to provide themeans to address misunderstandings when they occur.

The geography Australia and Indonesia share, as well as their mutual interestin the maintenance of a stable region, means that there will be a continuingimperative for the two armies to cooperate into the future. The character ofthe army-to-army relationship will be shaped by future security challenges,and new forms of collaboration—including combined operations—are likelyto emerge and continue to demonstrate both the diversity and adaptabilitythat have been themes of this presentation. Indonesia and Australia are bothproud nations with their own rich and varied cultural, political and strategictraditions, and their views will not always coincide; tensions and points ofdifference will inevitably arise in the future.

We need to realise the limitations of Army’s capacity for influence. Australiansoldiers have enjoyed ready access to their Indonesian counterpartsthroughout much of the post-Second World War era, but both nations havealways acted in accordance with their perceived national interest. Indeed, Iwould argue history counsels against the use of the idea of influence. It hasthe potential to conjure up the suspicions that have been recurring irritants inthe relationship. What history tells us is that the concepts of dialogue,consultation, and partnership are key. As the Chief of Army intimated earlier,access depends on patience and persistence. Such people-to-peopleengagement has proved, and will continue to be, critical to promote the trustand understanding necessary to navigate differences and maintain a clear-eyed focus on interests that Indonesia and Australia share.



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Figure 24. A member from the Indonesian TNI-AD wearing equipmentborrowed from 5 RAR, participates in an urban clearance training exerciseat the Combined Skills Development Area in Darwin during ExerciseKARTIKABURRA 2017. (DoD)


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Be Careful not to Over-egg thePudding: the East Timor Crisis of 1999and the Limitations of PersistentAccessDr Craig Stockings

Distinguished guests, ladies andgentlemen, I stand in front of you

today in the context of a conferenceon the concept of 'AcceleratedWarfare', with particular reference toits associated themes of persistenceand access. That is, Army ambitionto achieve a persistent presence inthe region and beyond throughaccess, endurance and people-to-people links. I also stand here with apresentation entitled: Be careful notto over-egg the pudding: the EastTimor crisis of 1999 and thelimitations of persistent access.

Now, from the outset let me make it clear I am not a naysayer. Within acontemporary international security system well-described as unending'competition', where the boundary lines that delineate this state of affairsfrom actual 'conflict' is increasingly blurred—most obviously but not solely inthe cyber domain for example—the notion of applying influence throughrelationships to achieve competitive outcomes is as appealing as the logic


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behind it is axiomatic. After all, 'the supreme art of war', one probablyfictitious but prominent Chinese and East Asian historical and military figuresuggested, 'is to subdue the enemy without fighting'. Or one step further:that 'supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistancewithout fighting'. Influence and advantage through access is not a newconcept. It has been a long-standing, useful, sensible, logical, and well-regarded tool in the diplomatic and military arsenal. Even a cursory read ofthe history or historiography of the Cold War shows this to be the case. Noris such a notion new in an Australian context. Long have such ideas formedpart of the mission of defence attachés across the globe. The departmentdoes not have an International Policy Division for nothing.

What is new however, as I understand it to be enunciated within the broaderconcept of 'Accelerated Warfare', is the prominence that Army wishes toplace on this particular policy. My purpose then is not to gainsay thisprerogative—rather I wish to offer counsel to pause and reflect on thelimitations, and perhaps even some of the drawbacks, that a greateremphasis on access brings with it. There are no global panaceas for thechallenges facing Army in the short or long term future; there are no silverbullets. Moreover, if Army's policy capital is viewed as a finite resource, thenthe more it spends on 'access', the less is spent elsewhere. If Army choosesthis pathway—this focus—then let it do so with eyes wide open. There mustbe a predictable and tangible return on investment.

Now I am a historian, not a scholar of public policy or contemporarystrategic affairs. This means I will look to the past to find insight into thequestion at hand. It also means I will argue from a basis of demonstrableevidence, using real examples. Opinions, in my experience, are easy tocome by. The historical record however, provides a rigour not present in therealm of the hypothetical. Thus I will use examples of the notion of 'access'in practice from the East Timor Crisis of 1999. Not all of these examples willcome from Army—but the tool of access is not used exclusively by Army,and the points are universally valid.

Let us cast our minds back then some 20 years and remember the criticalpolitical and strategic circumstances of the crisis in East Timor that led tothe deployment of the INTERFET coalition. At its peak, INTERFET was madeup of contributions from 23 countries and numbered close to 11 000 militarypersonnel—all under the leadership of an Australian commander, the thenMajor General Peter Cosgrove, and what equated, more or less, to an


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Australian headquarters. The ADF provided more than 9300 personnel tothis coalition, with as many as 5500 in East Timor at any given moment. Themajority of this force came from Army. Indeed, it was the single largestdeployment of Army personnel since the Second World War, larger than thecommitment to the Vietnam War at its peak in 1967. Critically, it was alsoone that was not nested within a larger or lead nation's logistics and

administrative infrastructure. It was also the first time Australia had led sucha large multinational force; and all from a standing start. In short, INTERFETwas the most complex strategic challenge Australia had faced—and wasaccountable for—at least since the 1940s. Moreover, the operation provedto be one of the most successful United Nations (UN)-sanctionedpeacemaking missions ever seen. For all that has happened since, I can tellyou first-hand that politicians and ADF officers at the very highest levels in1999 worried more about what might unfold as INTERFET deployed to Dilithan over any other issue at any other time in their careers beforehand, orafterwards. This was our backyard, and it involved our most importantnorthern neighbour. It was also our show. If it all went badly—and this was

Figure 25. A Black Hawk returns to Dili, East Timor, after an extraction of anAustralian patrol from the mountains near the border with West Timor. A local villagerwith an ill child made himself known to the patrol commander and he and the childwere evacuated to the 1st Australian Field Hospital in Dili for impromptu treatment.One of the Diggers is shielding the man and child from the wind blast comingthrough the open doors. During INTERFET, over 5500 Australian troops weredeployed to the country at one stage. (DoD)




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perceived at the time as a real risk—the consequences were potentiallydisastrous.

It will come as no surprise to those of you who may have been serving in1999, or even if you were not, that from the time of the IndonesianPresident's announcement that a vote was to be held in East Timor todecide the province's political fate—as an independent nation or to continueas a province of the Republic—that Australian and ADF policymaking was incatch-up mode. Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that 25years of carefully crafted policy in support of the continuing territorial integrityof Indonesia was turned upside down by a confluence of circumstances andforces well beyond Canberra's control.

Within this tumultuous, and sometimes desperate, milieu between Januaryand September 1999, Defence quite reasonably sought to make use of the'access' it had carefully and assiduously fostered with the Indonesian militaryforces, or TNI. The idea was to make use of these persistent and valuablepersonal and institutional linkages to steer events in directions perceived asmost suitable to Australian interests. And when I say assiduously fosteredlinkages I cannot stress enough how much value (and effort) Defence placedupon them. Long-term Australian policy regarding East Timor was aimed atJakarta, not Dili. The idea that there would be some return on decades ofengagement and access to TNI if a moment of crisis ever came was deeplyentrenched. From 1969 the ADF provided patrol boats, fighter aircraft, andlight transport and maritime patrol aircraft to Indonesia, and morecontemporary incantations of a Defence Cooperation Program ranthereafter, So too, bi- and multilateral exercises, tours, personnel exchanges,and a myriad of other gestures designed to build bridges between the twoorganisations. Such activities reinforced the common refrain in the Australianstrategic community that Indonesia is our 'most important' regional securitypartner. They culminated in the 1995 'Agreement to Maintain Security', thefirst formalised defence agreement between the two countries. Defence andArmy stressed the need for access. It was persistent. We valued it. Weexpected a return if one was ever required. We expected influence.

As it happened however, what many policymakers received amidst the crisisof 1999 was a reality check. The relevance of all the countless BBQs andkaraoke nights, it seemed, all the handshakes and back-slapping, all theconferences, all the plaques on mess walls, all the material investments,seemed to fade as the hard-edged realities of a military crisis took hold.



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There were limits to Australian influence. The return was disappointingly lessthan many thought the investment warranted.

Such statements require justification and I will provide them though anumber of real-life examples from the East Timor crisis of 1999.

On 11 June 1999, the UN Security Council formally established the UnitedNations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) under Resolution 1246. Thepurpose of UNAMET, which included 50 Australian Federal Police (AFP)officers and half a dozen ADF officers, was to help implement and supervisea ballot in East Timor which more-or-less equated to a vote as to whetherthe province remained a part of the unitary Republic of Indonesia, or elsegained political independence from it. The single biggest surprise forUNAMET however, and most difficult hurdle for it to overcome, was ongoingpro-integration militia violence and what appeared to be Indonesian military(or TNI) support for such organisations and activities. Indeed, the relentlessmendacity shown by their TNI counterparts when questions were raised orprotests registered about collusion with the militias was eye-watering. TheTNI responded to early UNAMET complaints with its familiar trope:continuing violence in the province was a 'horizontal conflict' between localfactions over which it stood as a neutral force trying to maintain security. Orelse it was driven by pro-independence groups and supporters who wantedto delay the ballot because they knew they were going to lose. A new twistto this narrative from June was a suggestion that UNAMET itself was biasedagainst anti-independence groups.

A possible solution to this impasse was soon hatched in Canberra. That is,the long-standing access and departmental links between the Departmentof Defence and its Indonesian equivalent might be used to influence theIndonesians away from such a counter-productive stance. All that wasneeded was a frank heart-to-heart between partners. Much gold and muchtime had been invested in this relationship for decades for just such anoccasion. Subsequently, the Vice Chief of the Defence Force (VCDF), AirMarshal Doug Riding, was dispatched to Jakarta on 21 June 1999. The ideaof this meeting had been pushed by the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer,in mid-June, with Defence Minister John Moore's consent. John Howardreadily agreed. The idea was to let the TNI know that Canberra was well-aware of TNI involvement in the violence in East Timor, and to encourageaction to stop it.




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In response to Riding's expressed concerns about TNI collusion with themilitias, the TNI Chief of Territorial Affairs, was politely dismissive. If there wasa problem, he argued, it was not the TNI, but rather unbalanced mediareporting, pro-independence-inspired violence, and the 'unfair' and biasedbehaviour of UNAMET. The TNI was in fact, he countered, 'neutral in thepolitical process ... [and] working very hard to maintain law and order'. It wasan interesting response, given that a month earlier this senior officer haddiscussed with Australian diplomats the difficulty the TNI faced in remainingneutral given the personal links between TNI soldiers and individual pro-integrationists, forged over 23 years. His deadpan response was mirrored bythe TNI Chief of the General Staff, who also stressed the counter-productiverole of pro-independence forces in the ongoing violence and questioned theUN's neutrality. 'I hope Australia, as a good friend', this officer urged, 'canhelp others see what is happening.' That such representations were made—perhaps to save face, if not entirely in good faith—was seemingly confinedwhen at the conclusion of proceedings, the Chief of Territorial Affairs tookone member of the Australian party aside and told him: 'they simply are not

Figure 26. Epitomising the often incongruous relationship between the two militaries, asoldier of the Australian Army remains watchful of Dili’s streets along with two TNI-ADsoldiers during the INTERFET deployment in 1999. (DoD)



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under command'. 'They', in this instance, being the Indonesian Army'sSpecial Forces. Three days after Riding's visit Brigadier Jim Molan, Head ofthe Australian Defence Staff to Indonesia, met with the Intelligence Assistantto the TNI Chief of the General Staff. This officer reinforced the messagesgiven to the VCDF and implored Molan 'as an old friend', that 'he mustunderstand that there was no policy in the TNI to act inappropriately in EastTimor'. If there were incidents that led Australia to make conclusions to thecontrary then they were committed by soldiers acting on their own initiative.To what degree might these senior Indonesian officers have been trying tocapitalise on their own access to influence their 'friends'? In any case, thescript was maintained. Officially the TNI was not responsible; unofficiallywhat was happening was the product of rogue elements.

More to the point, when it mattered, the ADF’s access to the TNI gave uslittle. The violence continued, as did TNI involvement in it. We got anaudience and we got dismissed. Was this the return on investment that hadbeen anticipated? Was this what persistent access equated to? We gotaccess to a façade of a meeting. The real point, perhaps, was that access isone thing—but in itself perhaps not much. What was missing here was aninstrument of coercion. The two concepts ought not be confused. Whenpush came to shove this was an audience without a threat. It was a ‘talkfest’with no influence. Indeed, if anything, it represented an attempt to assertinfluence upon the ADF rather than the reverse. It is to the idea of therelationship between access and coercion that I now turn.

As the crisis in East Timor deepened from mid-1999, culminating in a waveof destruction that followed the announcement of an overwhelming EastTimorese vote for independence of 4 September, a host of internationaldiplomats and policymakers fought hard to secure Indonesian agreement forthe mounting of a multi-national UN-sanctioned intervention. Foremostamong them, under the choppy diplomatic surface, the AustralianPermanent Representative to the United Nations, Penny Wensley, and herstaff, worked tirelessly to progress the issue through an under-resourced UNDepartment of Peacekeeping, and to push past what felt like a steadfastrefusal by Wensley's Indonesian counterpart to acknowledge both the scaleof the crisis and the depth of Australia's concern. By 10 September,Australian UN Mission staff were joined in New York by Allan Behm ofDefence's International Policy Division. Behm set to work with the ADFAttaché to the UN, Colonel Gary Bornholt, preparing the ground for a UN




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framework for a multinational force for East Timor. 'That day, Australian time,the CDF, Admiral Chris Barrie, called Behm and told him that the PrimeMinister had asked him for advice on the best way to secure Indonesianassent for a UN mandate for such a force. Behm and Bornholt subsequentlyarrived at a three-step approach to this end. First was to use existingchannels of access—in this case the pre-existing relationship betweenBehm and the TNI's Intelligence Assistant to the Chief of General Staff tocommunicate the Australian perspective and argue the case for immediateIndonesian approval. If this got no traction, Barrie would deal directly with hisTNI equivalent. Failing this, the final option would be for Prime MinisterHoward to talk directly to the Indonesian President.

Behm and Bornholt received approval for this three-tiered approach andbegan forthwith. Having sourced the TNI Intelligence chief’s number fromBrigadier Molan, Behm rang the Indonesian officer at around 2.00 amJakarta time and convinced his butler to wake him up. Behm then laid outhis case. First, a UN mandate would soon be issued and Indonesia wouldlose an enormous amount of face if it ignored that mandate and theinternational support behind it. Second, Behm argued, there had been the

Figure 27. Dili burns as pro-integration militia set fire to buildings and commence theirrampage of looting and burning and killing. UN personnel sheltered in the UN compoundwhile terrified civilians begged for shelter. (AAP)



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beginning of a corridor-talk discussion in the UN that afternoon as towhether senior TNI officers should be indicted for crimes against humanity.The Indonesian, after a long pause, told Behm he was flying to Dili thatmorning with fellow senior officers and would raise the issues with him onthe plane. Heated discussion ensued in Jakarta in an urgent meeting withthe Cabinet and military leaders on the morning of 12 September. Thelingering resistance to approval for an intervention was at last overcome bythis officer's missive and continuing communications from the IndonesianMinister for the Economy, who relayed the pressure being applied byPresident Clinton at APEC.

Here then, was a poster child for the utility of access—on the surface that is.There is no question that Behm's relationship with the IndonesianIntelligence Chief facilitated an opportune phone call. But the key differencehere was the coercive effect. In effect, Behm made polite but meaningfulthreats on behalf of the international community against the Indonesian state

Figure 28. Admiral Chris Barrie (L) Chief of Defence Force, and (then) newlypromoted Lieutenant General Peter Cosgrove, Chief of Army, visit East Timor inOctober 2000, 13 months after the INTERFET deployment commenced. Ittransitioned from the Australian-led INTERFET to the UN mission UNTAET, UnitedNations Transitional Authority, East Timor, in February 2000. (DoD)




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and senior TNI officers. These threats were given credibility thanks tosimultaneous messaging emanating out of the ongoing APEC summit inAuckland that sang along similar tunes. Indeed, as President Clinton hadwalked out onto the White House lawn before heading to the APEC summitin Auckland he had taken care to fire a shot across Indonesian bows,announcing that 'if Indonesia does not end the violence it must invite, it mustinvite, the international community to assist in restoring security'. Once inAuckland, Clinton went on to issue further unambiguous threats: 'It wouldbe a pity if the Indonesian [economic] recovery were crashed by this, but',he warned, 'one way or the other, it will be crashed by this if they don't fix it.'Now here was naked coercion by a power with the means to use the stick itwaved about. Here's the rub: ADF access worked well in this case becauseit was combined with a real coercive intent—even if the threat did not comefrom Australia. The two concepts, access and coercion, work better inconcert than on their own. Access without a coercive effect risks talkwithout influence. Coercion without access risks megaphone diplomacy,brinkmanship and dangerous misunderstandings.

I'd like now to move the discussion from the politico–strategic level downinto the weeds. It is often said of the East Timor crisis in 1999 that personalrelationships at a tactical or working level saved the day. If this is so, then theconcept of access rises to one of central operational importance. But wasthis really so?

There can be no question at all of the sterling work done by all four ADFattachés to Indonesia throughout the East Timor crisis, up to and beyondthe deployment of the INTERFET coalition on 20 September 1999. Inparticular, the herculean efforts of Colonel Ken Brownrigg, the Army Attaché,deserve much more recognition than was perhaps given to this officer at thetime. The key relationship here was the personal connection betweenBrownrigg and the senior TNI officer in East Timor in September 1999.

It was Brownrigg who suggested to both Admiral Barrie and HeadquartersAustralian Theatre (HQAST) on 14 September that any lodgment ought to bepreceded by a visit from Major General Cosgrove to meet this officer. Such avisit would act as a sign of good faith; be in line with Indonesian militarycultural norms that focused upon personal relationships; and would allowthe two commanders to ease the tension by discussing any key TNI–ADFissues or requirements face-to-face. 'You don't just turn up on the day',Brownrigg argued. Brigadier Molan concurred, worried about the aggressive



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and 'conventional' nature of planning documents he had seen. Molan, likeBrownrigg, was convinced the initial deployment needed to be tactful and invisible cooperation with the TNI. Barrie approved the idea the following day.

Yet, here, an interesting problem began to emerge. That is, what good isaccess if institutional thinking does not like what it hears? How much can itbe trusted? The concept, of course, runs both ways. If access is real thenthe flow of influence must run in two directions. Surely we are not naïveenough to suggest 'access' is something we do to others but is not done tous?

As part of this liaison process, and in preparation for Cosgrove's visit,Brownrigg began to press for a date for the proposed INTERFET landingsfrom Canberra so that he could pass it on to the senior TNI officer in EastTimor to smooth the process. Brownrigg had already been assured by himthe landings would be uncontested, and that the TNI would cooperate, butthat he nonetheless required advance notice. Brownrigg was, however,taken aback when he met with a sharp rebuke from the Head, StrategicCommand Division. He was not to be told the date for fear of compromisingthe deployment.

In this respect there was a significant difference between opinions held in Dili—those on the ground with access placed specifically in location to nurtureand exploit that access—and various others in Canberra and in Brisbane.From Brownrigg's perspective, the TNI could be counted on to help with thelandings—but they needed to be 'brought into the tent'. The TNIcommander in Dili was particularly sensitive to avoid any potential clashbetween INTERFET and TNI soldiers in Dili, and provided Brownrigg with theTNI rules of engagement (ROE) to forward on to Australia. Senior planners inAustralia, on the other hand, well-aware of the TNI's orchestration of theviolence in East Timor, were far less trusting. Intelligence reporting andeyewitness testimony still spoke of militia roaming through Dili alongsideuniformed TNI personnel, looting, burning and carrying weapons withoutrestriction. These ongoing reports prompted debate in various headquartersin Australia about the extent to which Brownrigg's assurances could betrusted. Was he right? Had he been fed misinformation? Might he be beingused as a deception plan himself? Was he a victim of StockholmSyndrome? Amazingly, Colonel Brownrigg was not invited to be part of anylodgment planning. He was left to conclude that his reporting back toCanberra was viewed as 'tainted' by a view that he and his staff in East




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Timor were too close to the Indonesians and thus their opinions and inputwere less than completely reliable.

It got worse. Cosgrove's flying visit to see the senior TNI officer in theprovince was a success and he departed at dusk, leaving behind a smalldetachment to coordinate the lodgement with Brownrigg and TNI staff. Atno time prior to or during the day had Cosgrove confirmed to theIndonesians that the landings would, in fact, occur at dawn the next day.Nor had precise details of the lodgement been shared with the attachés.Only after Cosgrove's departure, when at around 10.00 pm the ADFdetachment arrived at the consulate to set up a secure line back toAustralia, did the attachés learn of INTERFET's planned arrival. Brownriggasked for details and was dismayed to hear of the plan to land SpecialForces troops at dawn at Komoro airport in helicopters. He asked whenSyahnakri was to be told and was told that the TNI would not be informed oftimings. Brownrigg was aghast. If no notice was given, he was certain, therewould be casualties on the airfield. Komoro was manned by Indonesianairfield defence troops whose sole job was to defend it from exactly the kindof 'threat' the Australian Special Forces would seem to pose. These troopswere heavily armed, suffering from malaria, and short of food and sleep.Moreover, the plan to rappel from helicopters into the port once Komoro

Figure 29. Major General Peter Cosgrove, Commander INTERFET, is welcomed byMajor General Syahnakri, Commander TNI-AU in East Timor on the first day of theINTERFET deployment. Colonel Ken Brownrigg is in the background wearing thedark blue beret. (DoD)



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was secure seemed incredible to Brownrigg. Information had already beenpassed by the attachés that the port was crammed with displaced people inmakeshift corrugated iron shelters that would have been blown intodangerous debris by the downwash.

At this point Brownrigg asked to use the secure link to speak directly withCosgrove. 'Ken put his case strongly', Cosgrove later recalled. 'If you do itthis way then they are going to shoot at you', he warned—and not withoutgood reason—'and if it goes bad on the first day it will go bad every dayafter that.' He urged Cosgrove to inform Syahnakri. Brownrigg was told towait for a return call. A short while later he received it, confirming the SpecialForces helicopter plan had been shelved and the C-130s would land in anadministrative, rather than a tactical, posture. Brownrigg, however, was topersonally ensure the airfield was 'secure' for the C-130s and that the TNImanning the perimeter knew who was arriving. Approval was also given toinform Syahnakri that lodgement would occur in the morning.

Immediately after this exchange Brownrigg went to the house of the TNIcommander in East Timor and got him out of bed to inform him, aremarkable example of the closeness of the relationship between theAustralian attaché and the local TNI commander, which paved the way for asmooth and safe insertion of INTERFET forces. Brownrigg told theIndonesian the force would arrive in the morning and once more asked forhelp. The Australian was immediately assigned the TNI Dili operations officerto coordinate the TNI's response to the landings. The Indonesian officerconfirmed INTERFET's sole use of the airfield for its initial lodgements,agreed to provide security, and to the use of all available TNI trucks to helpdeploy the force. For the remainder of the night Brownrigg and a small partytoured Komoro, dropping in on every TNI weapon pit, outpost andemplacement surrounding the airfield. Brownrigg woke them up, told themof the landings and attempted to defuse the situation. He asked the TNIpost on the hill south-west of the airfield (which held no anti-aircraft or heavyweapons as ADF planners had feared) to make sure they had coffee andcigarettes on hand to welcome the Australians. Brownrigg's teamcompleted their tour just before dawn.

So what was there to learn from such frantic activity on the eve of theINTERFET landings? Well, in the first instance here was clear andoutstanding access. Brownrigg's relationship with Syhanakri was very usefulin terms of tactical coordination. But let's be careful. By this stage TNI had




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already decided to facilitate INTERFET's arrival. Brownrigg did not influencethis decision—it was made in Jakarta. Access here was an enabler, not adecider of events. Second, the whole episode well-illustrates the problem ofaccess as a two-way street. In this case, Brownrigg's assessment was spoton—but what if he was wrong? If Brownrigg had good access to the seniorTNI officer in Dili, then the Indonesian had good access to Brownrigg andtherefore to Canberra. Some senior officers feared the worst; that Brownriggwas being used as part of an information operation. They were wrong—thistime. But the sword cuts both ways. When we open a conduit of access tosomewhere else we cannot forget we simultaneously open an avenue ofaccess to us. If this is what Army wants then so be it, but know that ourcompetitors, or adversaries, want the same return on investment that wedo.

Following the APEC forum in Auckland, Air Marshal Riding and a small staffwere dispatched on a whirlwind Asia–Pacific tour to further lobby forINTERFET coalition partners. This was a big deal for Australia. If we weregoing to lead this thing we needed the legitimacy of a truly international andregional effort. The place to start were those nations where our access hadbeen most persistent.

Unfortunately for the ADF however, disappointment ensued. Riding's firstday in Malaysia on 15 September (the day Resolution 1264 was authorised)involved a round of positive military discussions centred upon the provisionof a 900-strong Malaysian battalion group. The Australian delegation,however, was then kept waiting overnight while the Malaysian militaryconsulted its government. The next day the only feedback provided was'no'. The ADF had anticipated better. Expectations had been 'very high',Riding explained, not only about the provision of a Malaysian battaliongroup, but a brigade headquarters had also been anticipated. Such hopeswere now dashed. Any Malaysian involvement was drastically watered downto a token 30 troops. Despite years of fostering the relationship, personalexchanges, exercises and so on, the realpolitik of ASEAN linkages weighmuch heavier than ADF access in this critical moment.

Nor did the situation improve much during Riding's next stop, Singapore.Again, Riding expected a favourable response, particularly the offer of a landforce. The Singaporeans instead offered a medical team and two LSTs forsea-lift, far less than had been hoped for by the Australians. Like theMalaysians, the Singaporeans were sensitive to ASEAN politics, and did not



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want to appear to be a major player. Once more a deep and long-termmilitary-to-military relationship proved to be worth less than had been hopedfor when push came to shove. John Howard was personally and particularlydisappointed by this decision. The equation now stood at none from twoattempts, and from nations the ADF thought would be the mostaccommodating based on existing defence relationships. As it turned out,aside from the New Zealanders, the most significant contributions of troopscame from South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. These were notpoints of ADF access strength in 1999. These nations made their choicesbased on a combination of domestic politics and perceptions of their ownnational interests. Results were in fact greater where national interests wereless engaged, and where access was much weaker.

Perhaps the most interesting example of the limitations of access in 1999however, was with the armed forces of the nation that we had spent themost time, energy and treasure into gaining and maintaining access—andfrom our perspective commensurate influence. This, of course, was theUnited States. Now to be clear, the US did support the ADF in major ways,beyond Clinton's unequivocal stance and the weight of American diplomacy.Niche capabilities were deployed to East Timor, the coercive effect of anAegis-class cruiser and elements of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Forceafloat off the coast were not to be ignored. Nor, most importantly, theprovision of a military 'insurance policy' let's call it, if things all went wrong.INTERFET would not have unfolded as it did without the US. However, for asignificant amount of time leading up to 20 September, Australia wantedmore. We wanted boots—and we were refused.

Contrary to Australian hopes and indeed assumptions, in August the USSecretary of Defense, William Cohen, explained that US leaders 'wanted tobe responsive and supportive to the Australian-led mission', but, given thecircumstances, US troops were never going to take centre stage. SandyBerger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, made the situationclearer still. In making the case for keeping US combat troops out of EastTimor he told reporters at a briefing: 'You know, my daughter has a verymessy apartment up in college; maybe I shouldn't intervene to have thatcleaned up.' Downer was furious with the comment and its implications. On20 August the senior Australian diplomats accompanied by Doug Riding,called on General Ralston, Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and JamesBodner, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and were




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once again reminded of the Pentagon's distaste for any US involvement—particularly of combat troops—in a large peacekeeping operation.

By early September, as an ADF-Ied deployment became increasingly likely,the ongoing lack of a firm or specific US commitment began to frustrate andworry Australian politicians. After a disappointing meeting with DougBereuter, Chairman of the Congressional Committee on Asia–Pacific,Foreign Minister Alexander Downer complained of a 'very negative' attitudewith regards US troops in East Timor. The Americans were proving'resistant', he explained, much to Canberra's chagrin. The Pentagon, likeCongress, was decidedly unenthusiastic. The Australian Government wentas far as publicly expressing its hope for a US presence and its potentialdisappointment if this proved not to be the case—pointing explicitly to atradition of stalwart Australian support to the US in past conflicts. Suchfrustrations came to a head in a telephone conversation between Howardand Clinton immediately prior to the APEC meeting in Wellington on themorning of 9 September. The US President outlined his efforts to 'persuade'Indonesians to control the situation in East Timor, or to agree to an

Figure 30. Senior members of the Australian Government, including the PrimeMinister, were disappointed at the Clinton Administration’s lack of support forAustralia’s request for US military involvement to assist in East Timor during 1999. Inthis image of a US Government Defense security briefing in 1998, in the background,L to R, is Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Vice President Al Gore; PresidentClinton; Secretary of Defense William Cohen; National Security Council AdvisorSandy Berger; Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre. (US DoD)



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intervention force, but once more stopped short of a commitment of UStroops. For his part, a frustrated Howard made Clinton aware of the feelingof the 'Australian Government and Australian people' regarding the need forsubstantive US involvement.

The signals emanating from the US were in truth the product of the ClintonAdministration's attempt to solve its own policy dilemmas, themselves verysimilar to those facing the Howard government. Like Canberra, Washingtonsaw events in East Timor through the prism of its relationship with Indonesiaand the importance of the latter to regional stability and prosperity. Therewas a resultant tension between what Australia might require as one of theUnited States' most stalwart allies, and Indonesia as a very strategicallysignificant player in the region. The US President also faced significant

obstacles within the legislature to any military mission to East Timor. Asignificant weariness had crept into US thinking after years of costly post-Cold War peace operations across the globe, most recently the shoulderingof the vast majority of the burden of NATO actions in Kosovo from March toJune 1999. Clinton himself faced a strained relationship with Congress overUS peacekeeping commitments and broader Congressional hostility topeacekeeping in principle. This opposition combined with fears that such

Figure 31. Prime Minister John Howard visits the troops in East Timor on 29November, 1999. Even though his efforts of getting more involvement in INTERFETfrom the US and regional neighbours were thwarted, he did get unexpectedlysignificant support from the Philippines and South Korea. (DoD)




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operations risked descending into failed quagmires in which US lives werelost, as in Somalia. With US intentions clearly signalled, Australia did not, atany time, make a formal request for a contribution of combat troops fromthe US. The reality, John Howard subsequently explained, was 'that you donot formally request something which you know from earlier discussions, fora combination of reasons, is simply not going to be available'.

With regards to the process of building the INTERFET coalition—at least interms of combat boots on the ground—the message here is clear. Access isuseful. Relationships opened the door. But any meaningful influenceattached to that access melted away in the face of an extant crisis ofsignificant scale, and the dual imperative of domestic pressure andperceptions of the national interest. The ADF and the Australian Governmentwere deeply disappointed by the process. Such rejections were reported inthe media and discussed in Parliament. Were we right to expect more?

Were we realistic? Did we over-egg the access pudding?

Of course there are many, many more examples and instances of issuessurrounding the notion of access as it pertained to the crisis in East Timor in1999 I could speak of if I had the microphone for longer. Personal

Figure 32. Lieutenant Colonel Nick Welch, Commanding Officer of 3RAR, inspects histroops on his departure from command of the unit in East Timor in November 1999.LTCOL Welch’s personal relationship with the TNI Garrison Commander in Dili—a by-product of a combined exercise between their two units earlier in the year—provided alevel of trust and open dialogue during the tense first few days of INTERFET. (DoD)



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relationships at a tactical level, for example, is one that was often talkedabout.

The TNI Colonel in charge of the Dili Garrison, for instance, knew theCommanding Officer of 3RAR, Lieutenant Colonel Nick Welch, from hishosting of the visit of B Company, 3RAR, to Indonesia in early 1999 as partof Exercise TRISETIA. The Indonesian officer met with Welch each day.There is little doubt that their relationship helped smooth the way in Dili in thefirst tense week of INTERFET. Yet I would suggest this type of access wasonly ever tactically useful; they greased the wheels—they were notdeterminative. Had either man been operating under different orders theywould have been shooting at each other in the blink of an eye. That theywere not was a consequence of decisions made in Jakarta and Canberra—not on the streets of Dili.

Let me conclude by re-affirming my thesis. That is, I do not argue thatpersistent access by the ADF into the region and beyond is worthless—quitethe opposite. It is a logical and sensible undertaking. It is not a new line ofthinking. At the same time, if Army seeks to increase its intellectual andphysical investment in this strategy as a way to shape an environment ofinternational competition then I would counsel caution. I would suggest thatit do so with its eyes wide open to the limitations of the policy.

The value of access in terms of personal contacts and relationships,Brigadier Jim Molan, Head of ADF attaché staff in Jakarta explained, wasnever an influence that could be exerted on the TNI in 1999 to change howindividuals or the organisation might otherwise have acted. 'The only thingsyou can influence [directly]’, he concluded, ‘were inconsequential.' CertainlyMolan's predecessor, Brigadier Ernie Chamberlain, agreed. 'We deludeourselves', argued Chamberlain. 'We spend all this time in Jakarta, inAustralia, cozying up to these guys ... You've deluded yourself—they're notgoing to betray their country for a couple of beers!' In this context, the keypoint of such relationships was not as a mechanism of coercion, but ratherthat they provided access at critical moments—well-illustrated byBrownrigg's late-night call on the senior TNI officer in Dili on 19 September,which resulted in a friendly reception for INTERFET's arrival; sole use ofKomoro airfield; and the provision of TNI trucks for INTERFET's use.

Access in this case, however, was never a synonym for direct influence.This, of course, was to be expected. To approach the issue from another




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angle, the ADF would certainly not have considered itself open to influenceby the TNI regardless of how many nights spent singing karaoke or thedepth of the close personal relationships established. When crisis struck,both organisations acted entirely in accordance with the directions given tothem by their governments and in line with their own calculations of theirrespective national interests. Even on these terms, however, shadows were

cast over the faith previously placed in the value of relationships. AdmiralBarrie spoke of a view in Canberra encouraged in part by the Defencemission in Jakarta that the policy-makers understood Indonesia well andunderstood what was happening in 1999. This conclusion, for Barrie, turnedout not to be the case. It was further noteworthy that high-level ADF–TNIgoodwill created over the previous decade evaporated in the context of theunfolding crisis. From mid-August, senior Indonesian officials stopped takingphone calls from their senior Australian counterparts—up to and includingthe Prime Minister. On 21 September, the second day of the INTERFETmission, President Habibie spoke of 'the attitude and actions of Australia' ashaving broken a bilateral relationship 'based on mutual respect for nationalsovereignty, territorial integrity and equality, as well as principles of non‐interference in one another's internal affairs'. No one at all in Jakarta wouldtalk to Colonel Brownrigg in an official capacity in 2000.

Access is one ingredient, not the entire recipe. It is a policy plank, not a

Figure 33. TNI-AD troops load a TNI-AU Hercules with stores before they depart Dilias part of the handover of the country’s security to INTERFET. The long road to thewithdrawal of the Indonesian presence in East Timor was accompanied by significantmilitary and political manoeuvrings, many not reflecting the effort Australia had placedinto the Australia–Indonesia relationship over several years. (DoD)



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policy in and of itself. It is no silver bullet. It is also a double-edged sword.Effective access requires a two-way relationship, ideally with an alignment ofobjective and intent. Yet this is rarely the case. Access is not something wedo to someone else. Both parties influence each other according to theirpolicy wishes. Is that what Army wants? Nor does the concept do wellalone. Rather, it is best served as a side-order to old-fashioned coercion—ifand when those levers are available. It is important to understand thedifference between the two.

And with this I think my access to you is at an end, my influence upon you isfor you to judge according, perhaps, to your own enduring sovereigninterests.

Figure 34. A meeting of IKAHAN, an alumni of Australian and Indonesian defence personnelwho have studied in each other’s countries. Indicated left to right is (1) MAJGEN (Retd) nowSenator Jim Molan, (2) former INTERFET Commander and former Governor-General, HisExcellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd), (3) former Chief of Army,LTGEN (Retd) Peter Leahy, and (4) BRIG (Retd) Ken Brownrigg. (DoD)




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Figure 35. A Digger talks to some local East Timorese kids as he stands picquet near theHotel Tourismo in Dili on the first day of the INTERFET deployment. (DoD)


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The Backroom Boys and General Blamey: ColonelConlon and Army’s Adaptation and Access in thePacific 1942-46

Colonel Graeme Sligo

Distinguished Guests, Ladies andGentlemen, today I wish to discussthe Australian Army and its challengeof adapting to the Pacific Theatre inthe 1942 to 1946 period, andspecifically the role of GeneralBlamey, Colonel Alf Conlon andArmy’s Directorate of Research andCivil Affairs in adapting to that noveltropical environment of the Pacific,especially New Guinea and Papua.This encompasses the challenges ofthe different societies within thePacific—and how Army developednew ways of thinking about the people of the Pacific, and educating andtraining its military administrators—officers and non-commissioned officers—about the Pacific—for post-conflict operations and ‘winning the peace’.

On the slide (Fig. 36), you can see five members in 1945 of the ArmyDirectorate of Research. Colonel Alf Conlon is fourth from the left. The photois taken at the corner of what is now the Duntroon Medical Centre, near theback of the chapel, and we can see the start of the current heritage houses


The Backroom Boys and General Blamey:Colonel Conlon and Army’s Adaptation and

Access in the Pacific 1942-46

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down Harrison Road. It was on the cover of my book The Backroom Boys.Two of these Directorate members achieved post-war eminence—secondfrom the left is Colonel John Kerr, later Governor-General during the 1975Constitutional Crisis, and first on the left is Lieutenant Peter Ryan, MM,author of Fear Drive My Feet and head of Melbourne University Press for 30years. At the age of 90, Peter remarked to me that, if he had known I was touse the photo on the cover of the book, ‘I would have taken my hands outof my pockets.’

Why an Army Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs?Personalities are important—and to comprehend this particular partnershipbetween the World War Two Commanding General (Sir Thomas Blamey)—and one of his advisers, Colonel Alfred Conlon—we have to have a briefunderstanding of Conlon’s background. Of course Blamey, in Australia andthe Pacific, had many three-star and two-star advisers: Chiefs of Operations,

Figure 36. Members of the Army Directorate of Research including, second from left,Colonel John Kerr, who would later be knighted and appointed Governor-General, thepost he held during the Whitlam Dismissal. (COL Sligo)


The Backroom Boys and General Blamey:Colonel Conlon and Army’s Adaptation andAccess in the Pacific 1942-46

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Personnel, Logistics, Materiel, Medical and so forth—but let us focus onConlon.

Alf Conlon—aged 33 in early 1942—came from the tough Irish–Australiansuburb of Newtown near Sydney University. Newtown was a very poorsuburb in the 1920s and 1930s and the Conlon family struggled as a single-parent family with little money—although Conlon’s father (before his death)had been well-connected in the Tramways Union and the labour movement,and played rugby league for South Sydney. Alf Conlon worked and fought

his way through university and,encouraged by the philosopherand professor, John Anderson,developed a very inquiring mind.Anderson believed in criticismand questioning virtuallyeverything, and had a profoundimpact on 30 years’ worth ofSydney University graduates.

Through knowing Major GeneralVictor Stantke—the Army’sAdjutant-General—Conlonmoved into Army Headquartersin April 1942 (then called LandHeadquarters) in VictoriaBarracks, St Kilda Road,Melbourne, and established a

small Research Section for Stantke—finding solutions to wartime problemsand the non-orthodox problems the Army faced, an Army that had grownfrom 4000 permanent soldiers (in 1939) to a full-time strength of 400 000 (in1942)—all within 30 months—100 times its peacetime strength.Conscription for home defence had been on the statute books since 1909,and conscripts were called-up progressively from 1939.

What of Conlon himself? Conlon ‘was tall and of bulky build. Beneath darkhair worn stiffly en brosse, his face was pallid and fleshy. He always worehorn-rimmed spectacles, from behind which grey eyes would gaze

Figure 37. Conlon photographed inSydney during the ‘40s. (COL Sligo)




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unblinking for disconcertingly long periods. His beautiful smile wasremarkable in its power to charm. His voice was very soft, and itsremarkable tones quite unforgettable.’ He was untidy and a contemporarydescribed him in uniform, as ‘looking like a military tramp.’ He hadenormous charm and ability to persuade individuals to his view. [He]smoked, drank and ate liberally, avoided fresh air and shunned exercise; hedeclared that he was not interested in a long life, and he did not have one.’He died in 1961, aged 52.

The wartime Army Captain andAustralian poet and Professor ofEnglish, James McAuley, knewConlon well.

I’ll read McAuley’s assessment in amoment, but for context, Australiahad, of course, in the Boer War1899–1902, in 1914–18, and in1939–41, simply provided forcecomponents or large formationsthat ‘slotted-into’ British armies inthe field. James McAuley said:

Conlon built his wartime career on getting across the proposition that,in World War II, for the first time, an Australian Commander-in-Chief[then called the C-in-C] had to have a political dimension in histhinking. Australia was no longer in the business of supplyingcomponents to British forces; instead it must deal, from the point ofview of its own interests, with two chief allies, the United States andBritain; and an Australian C-in-C could not afford to be politicallynaïve or uninformed in dealing either with his own government or withAustralia's allies,

and

Conlon at his height was a prestidigitator with remarkable skills. Hecould make people of the highest seniority see themselves and their

Figure 38. Lieutenant James McCauleyin 1944. He would go on to become aProfessor. (COL Sligo)



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role in a new light, give stimulus to their thinking about their ownposition or profession or academic subject; and he could also operatepolitically with daring, adroitness and aplomb.

And of his relationship with General Blamey? The journalist JohnHetherington said:

Theirs was an improbable association in which each man strucksparks from the other's mind. Although utterly different in many waysthey yet had an intellectual affinity. Conlon's admiration of Blameynever wavered.

Blamey and Conlon’s main shared interest was post-conflict transition.When the combat troops have defeated the enemy and ‘destroyed the joint’,how does the Army do rehabilitation and reconstruction in a territory for sixmonths or several years until a civilian administration or a controlcommission can take over? The Australian Army did this in New Guinea,Papua and Northern Borneo. The photo shows General Blamey on the leftand Major General Wootten in the centre (in Northern Borneo)—Woottenbeing one of the outstanding Australian Divisional Commanders.

Incidentally, on the subject of ‘access’, Generals Blamey and Sturdee (in1942) were the founders of our system of Army Attachés, with the extension

Figure 39. General Blamey (L) with Major General Wooten (Centre) (COL Sligo)




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of the system beyond London—hence part of our system of access and(perhaps) influence. Blamey and Sturdee realised the critical importance ofhaving a three-star officer in Washington DC, the critical node in the newcoalition war. In April 1942 a Lieutenant General was posted to Washingtonto Head the new Australian Military Mission, which transitioned into the post-war ‘two-star position’ at the Washington Embassy. Later in the war Conlonsecured expanded quasi-diplomatic positions tor Majors and LieutenantColonels in Washington, London and Berlin—the latter with the AlliedControl Commission to occupied Germany—as well as organising a largemilitary government team tor Japan. Both then and now, our attaché systemis a critical part of Army’s and the ADF’s ‘access and influence’.

The Pacific, and the Range of Skills Put into Army UniformAnd what were Conlon’s views of ‘the Pacific’? Conlon’s view was that ‘themost important feature of Australia’s position in the Pacific is the profoundignorance of Australians, taken by in large, in their Pacific environment. Thisis, in itself, a very serious matter ...’ he wrote. He also had an earlyunderstanding of, and wrote of

the chain of islands from Timor to the Solomons and New Caledonia

and their importance in the war militarily to Australia—and their post-warimportance in the peace and that

one of the principal aims of Australian policy in the Pacific [should be]to avoid converting the natives of New Guinea into a sullen hostilepeople on our northern frontier.

As the photo (below) shows, Conlon was on excellent terms with theMinister for the External Territories, Eddie Ward, and persuaded Ward to visitPapua in 1944.

The Army’s early battle experience in the war was in desert and mountainconditions in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Greece. To state the obvious,from 1941 the Army had to rapidly adapt to jungle, mountain and littoralterrain, set within a maritime/air environment in the tropics, with majordisease and health risks, as well as adapting to a new and tenacious enemyforce—the Japanese armed forces. The Army also had to build its owncommand, staff, training, operations, personnel, logistic and materielfunctions to maintain six infantry divisions and several armoured brigades in



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the field. It could only ‘plug-into’ US systems and forces in certain limitedareas from April 1942 onwards.

Brought into the Army as a Major in the dark days of April 1942, Conlonrecruited a range of scholars into his Research Section, and began topersuade the three-star generals at Army Headquarters on how they couldbe of use. He recruited lawyers, anthropologists, geographers, economists,medical doctors and Papua/New Guinea patrol officers with long experiencein the Territories. The wartime Army had an officers’ category called theMilitary Secretary’s ‘Special List’ (which waived most of the normal entryrequirements and officer-commissioning pre-requisites). Blamey gaveConlon authority to directly recruit and commission specialists and expertsat ranks between Captain and Lieutenant Colonel.

The US Army, of course, has used anthropologists and ethnographers inIraq and Afghanistan. The Australian Army anthropologists (Conlon recruitedseven of them, including two female scholars) had worked pre-war in NewGuinea, the Solomon Islands, Northern Australia, and Africa. They includedthe founder of NORFORCE, Major Bill Stanner, who before the war hadresearched and worked at Daly River and Port Keats in the NorthernTerritory. The geographer, Major/Professor John Andrews taught both theterrain and human connections of Australia and Papua/New Guinea, and theoverall picture of New Guinea ‘as part of the Pacific’ affected both by Pacific

Figure 40. Conlon (R) convinced the Minister for the External Territories, Eddie Wardto visit Papua in 1944. (COL Sligo)




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population movements and economic changes in the Pacific. The lawyerswho worked for Conlon as Army officers on New Guinea legal problemsincluded a number of future Chief Justices: Harry Gibbs, John Kerr andSydney Frost, and a number of other senior judges and expert lawyers,including Julius Stone. A modern law firm would be delighted with the bill-out rate such a team of legal talent could create.

One of the old New Guinea hands was Major Jim Taylor, the father of thecurrent PNG diplomat Dame Meg Taylor. Jim Taylor conducted majorexplorations into the Highlands in the 1930s with the Leahy Brothers andwith Major John Black.

Conlon’s approach was that theproblems the Army faced (post-combat)in the Pacific required an inter-disciplinary approach—and thatspecialists from a wide range of fieldswere required. The options and thesolutions would come from theintersection of the different disciplinesand their various problem-solvingtechniques.

Colonel Conlon was influential, onoccasion, with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (then called External Affairs),HV Evatt, and Conlon had access to the Prime Minister, John Curtin. Conlonwas an important conduit between General Blamey and various CabinetMinisters, since many of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Ministers weresuspicious of Blamey’s conservative views and his treatment of left-wingdemonstrators during his decade as Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of Policebefore the War. Evatt, as early as 1943, had outlined ‘Australia’s DefenceLine or Zone’ in the Pacific, where he believed Australia and New Zealandshould be the predominant military powers.

After New Zealand and Australian negotiations, this found expression in theANZAC Agreement.

Figure 41. Major, later Professor, Bill Stanner,the founder of the original NORFORCE (COLSligo)



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Cultural Understanding and Courses on New GuineaMost of us know where the Duntroon Medical Centre is—less than akilometre away from this hall. Few of us are aware that from 1944 to late1945 that that land was the location of one of the Army’s most successfulcultural understanding programs—Conlon’s Army School of Civil Affairs—later known for 27 years as the Australian School of Pacific Administration,or ASOPA. The school was in Army hands for its initial eighteen monthswhen it trained three courses of servicemen for service in New Guinea andPapua as Military - Civil Affairs Administrators with ANGAU—the AustralianNew Guinea Administrative Unit—and many later transitioned onto the civilDistrict Administration staffs, serving in remote areas of PNG.

In the emergency conditions of the war—the Australian Army, of course, ranthe civil administration of the two territories from early 1942 until 1946 –through Army’s ANGAU. And intellectually, that was not just some colonialistreplica; Colonel Conlon himself recognised that Papua and New Guineawould soon have self-government—Conlon predicted in the mid-1960srather than ten years later in the 1973 to ‘75 period, when it actuallyoccurred.

Later, the school moved into former Army accommodation at Middle Head,looking out onto beautiful Sydney Harbour. At Duntroon, the courses ran for

15 weeks each, with 40 students per course. The instructors were notreluctant to fail students. The failure rate of the first course was 38%—with

Figure 42. The School moved from Duntroon to Middle Head where it continueduntil 1987 as ASOPA and later ITI. (Open Source)




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some RTU’d (Return[ed] to Unit) during the course, and others failed at theend during the tough and lengthy written and practical examinations andfield exercises. The student ranks ranged from Private to Senior NCO toLieutenant, mainly in their 20s, and they came from every combat arm andsome from the service corps. Those who succeeded were immediatelycommissioned at the rank of Lieutenant and posted to military – civil affairsroles in New Guinea with the district staffs.

The aim of the short course was to give the Army student a general pictureof the Territories of New Guinea and Papua, and acquaint him with theproblems of district administration so that he would not be completely ‘atsea’ when he began his field experience in isolated posts. It would not fullytrain or educate him at the higher level as a ‘patrol officer’; field experienceand further academic training would do that. But let us adjust our thinkingslightly away from its stated role—what in fact the CivSchool (CivilianSchooling) course also was, was a highly sophisticated cultural awarenesscourse for soldiers deploying to rehabilitate and reconstruct a war-devastated area.

Because of the range of the subjects studied and the quality of the teachingstaff, it was a highly successful program. It taught and examined:

• local administration, including judicial and regulatory aspects(today it would include politics and governance)

• anthropology of PNG, including the tribal and social systems,kinship, land tenure, inheritance, marriage, magic and sorcery, andso forth

• the geography of PNG and its connections with other Pacificcountries and to Northern Australia

• the history of New Guinea and Papua

• tropical agriculture and animal husbandry

• training in the Pidgin language

• mapping unmapped areas

• the Scientific Method (and clear thinking)



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• tropical medicine

• hygiene, sanitation and nutrition in PNG conditions

• the work of a patrol officer, and human relationships with the locals

• law and justice

• the machinery of administration and administration of policy

• communications and radio.

Four Ls and an HWhat then, in summary, made the School of Civil Affairs Duntroon sosuccessful, like its successor—ASOPA—at Middle Head? I wouldsummarise it with five attributes: four ‘L’s and an ‘H’.

• Leadership and lecturers

• Local ethnic perspective

• Location of the School and messes

• Language

• Humour and fun.

Leadership and LecturersThe course had strong leadership with Colonel Keith Murray (a Professor ofAgriculture) and Colonel John Kerr (a noted lawyer). The lecturers wereworld-class; for example Lucy Mair (anthropology) came out from England,along with expert lecturers in customary law and local legal systems, as wellas the very experienced New Guinea hands. Unusually for the time—the1940s—four women were on the staff including the anthropologistLieutenant Colonel Camilla Wedgwood and the NSW State Librarian, MajorIda Leeson.

Local Ethnic Perspective.The course heavily emphasised the local ethnic perspective within NewGuinea and Papua, what were then called ‘native customs’, and in 15weeks, ran a very detailed and solid anthropology program studying the




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complexity of PNG society. It also had experts on Aboriginal society, such asthe linguist Ted Strehlow.

Location of the School and MessesThe school had, at Duntroon, very good facilities for a wartime camp. Alongwith lecture rooms and smaller rooms for tutorials, it also had both aStudents Mess (students were seen as being ‘of the same rank’ for thecourse), as well as a Sergeants Mess and an Officers Mess for theinstructors. The social program was important and Conlon invited topCanberra personalities in to give occasional talks, such as Nugget Coombs,the head of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, and the widely-travelled Pacific missionary, the Reverend John Burton. Later, the locationand facilities of ASOPA at Middle Head—just opposite HMAS Penguin atBalmoral—were, of course picturesque and outstanding.

LanguageThe school made a point of regular study and practice of Pidgin (or TokPisin). Naturally, it could not cover the over 800 languages in PNG.

Humour and FunWhile the course was hard work, many of the lecturers were great fun. Forexample, Camilla Wedgwood’s comment that ‘all that separated men fromthe apes was erect-walking, opposable thumbs and less facial hair.’ Thelecturer on ‘Nutrition in the Tropics’ (and one of the guest lecturers) wasColonel Stanton Hicks, the founder of the Army Catering Corps and auniversity nutrition expert, whose book cum memoir was entitled Who calledthe Cook a Bastard?—with its wartime reverse-refrain: ‘Who called theBastard a Cook?’

ConclusionAs a military bureaucrat, Conlon did not survive the war nor Blamey’s tenure.But his ideas did, and some of the institutions he founded. The Army Schoolof Civil Affairs (1944-46) became ASOPA at Middle Head (1946-73), theAustralian School of Pacific Administration—which educated Australianpatrol officers and teachers for Papua New Guinea—and later (mainly) as theInternational Training Institute (ITI) (1973-1987) educated Papua NewGuineans for administrative and other roles—a total of more than threedecades of service, all growing from the Army School of Civil Affairs. InCanberra policy, the traditionalists did initially dominate but, in the main, the



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staffers of ASOPA Middle Head (many former Conlonites) were progressive,and ideas of self-determination and independence ultimately did prevail.

Conlon and the Directorate member Colonel RD ‘Pansy’ Wright were alsovery important (1944-46) in the founding of the Australian National University—which originally consisted of four separate Research Schools and onlytaking post-graduate students. Conlon and Wright were crucial in getting thedeveloper of penicillin, Sir Howard Florey, and the physicist Mark Oliphant,involved in ANU—and Blamey (with the Army) was the founder of one theResearch Schools: the JohnCurtin School of MedicalResearch. Furthermore,Conlon and Wright wereinfluential in ensuring two ofthe other schools wereResearch Schools: one ofPhysics, and the other ofPacific Studies.

This is not to say that Conlonand his directorate and schoolwere a total success; theywere not. And the Directorateof Research did have itsvaudevillian moments.

While in an Army sense,Conlon and his directoratewere disbanded in 1946, manyof the wartime concepts werere-developed in the 1950s.Conlon and Kerr’s militarydiplomatic system (and its notions of ‘access’) did re-appear in the 1950swith the widespread development of Army Attachés overseas. Blamey andConlon’s experience of the wartime Canberra and Melbourne politics andbureaucracy remains of interest. While the School of Civil Affairs did notcontinue within the Army, the post-war Army did re-develop a widespread

Figure 43. Conlon in later years.He would not see his 53rdbirthday. (COL Sligo)




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system of training schools, and one would expect that some of the culturalemphases of Conlon’s courses lived on in the memory of some, and foundtheir way into aspects of the post-war schools as the Army adapted toservice in various overseas locations and conflicts. And, of course, theArmy’s interest in the Pacific was nurtured through the post-war Army’s rolein Papua New Guinea, the subject of the next talk. In the light of post-conflict transition in Iraq after 2003, the World War Two doctrine on post-conflict transition doctrine and practice of the US, British and Australianarmies (including Conlon’s part in it) also remains of interest.

In the wider civil sphere, Conlon influenced and, to some extent, mentored ageneration of directorate members who were, by the 1960s, 1970s and1980s, at the top of their professions in Australia—in the judiciary, academia,the public service and diplomacy, in medicine, and some in politics. Most ofthe senior Australians in PNG before 1975 had experience of the School ofCivil Affairs or ASOPA. To paraphrase Peter Ryan on Conlon:

He was a great man, and he might in many ways be held up as anexample of public spirit and intelligent vision ... [He had remarkablepowers of enlisting the sympathy and service of others in unselfishcauses]. The simple fact is that although he had his Machiavellianstreak, he operated on a moral plane and with an intellectual rangewhere few could stand beside him.

And Jim Taylor:

His contribution to Australia and New Guinea will stand for all time.

Thank you very much.


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Australia’s Papua New Guinea soldiers:The Army in PNG 1951-75Dr Tristan Moss

IntroductionThe structure of the Papua NewGuinea Defence Force (PNGDF)today is largely the product of thedecisions taken by the AustralianArmy in the 1960s. In no other casehas the Army, the ADF or indeedAustralia played a greater part increating the roles, structure andculture of a foreign armed force.Thousands of Australian soldiersserved alongside Papua NewGuinean troops, who werethemselves an integral part of theAustralian Army. Indeed, in 1972,almost one in ten members of theRegular Army was Papua New Guinean. This close relationship, as many arefond of calling it, has continued past independence, and even today Army isintimately involved in PNG through the Defence Cooperation Programmeand exercises with 3rd Brigade. It is, perhaps, the best example of Army’sinfluence in another country.

So how did the Australian Army exert influence in PNG prior toindependence? How did Army shape the PNGDF not just in terms of its


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structure and doctrine, but in terms of institutional culture, and the soldierswho made up the force?

The nature of the Army’s influence on the formation of the PNGDF was theproduct of its own internal failings—and the painful lessons that thesecreated—as well as external factors. Shaped by its very public mistakes inthe 1950s, and the rapidly shifting political and strategic landscapethereafter, the Army of the 1960s was proactive in its management of itsPapua New Guinean units, and looked to independence long before othercomparable institutions in PNG. One result is that the legacy of this period isstill plain to see.

Second World WarAustralia’s engagement with Papua New Guinea has always been about ourown security: this shaped the way we saw the island, the way we interactedwith those who lived there, and the wayin which we eventually constructed amilitary force there. While Australiaannexed Papua in 1888—adding NewGuinea in 1914—there was little desireto recruit soldiers from the localpopulation. Australia’s colonial footprintwas small, and the risk of arming localswas seen as too great. Instead, PNGcontributed to Australian defencebecause of its difficult terrain: it was, asone historian has put it, ‘Australia’snorthern shield’.

It was not until the demands of theSecond World War that the first unitswere raised from Papua and NewGuinea. The Papuan Infantry Battalion, created in 1940, was conceived as areconnaissance and raiding force and was not considered capable offighting as, or against, regular troops. Joined by three New Guinea InfantryBattalions, with two more forming by war’s end, Papua New Guinean

Figure 44. A soldier of the Papuan InfantryBattalion. PIB members excelled at scoutingand providing intelligence on enemylocations. (DoD via AWM 016502)



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soldiers were grouped under the aegis of the Pacific Islands Regiment inearly 1945. These troops fought in every single Australian campaign save forMilne Bay.

Ultimately, the PIR was disbanded shortly after the war alongside thewholesale de-mobilisation of Australian armed forces. However, the fear ofhaving an armed and trained group of indigenous peoples in PNG alsoformed an important part of the decision to disband the regiment,particularly as a series of discipline issues in 1945 cemented the view of thePIR as a liability to colonial rule.

1950sThe PIR was re-raised in the early Cold War as it became increasinglyapparent to defence planners that in order to defend PNG, a force wasneeded to be permanently stationed there. After the raising of a reserve unitproved to be a disappointment—and after the colonial governor’ssuggestion that he create his own army was loudly rejected by Army—thePIR was re-created as a single battalion regiment in 1951.

This new battalion was structured on the same lines as the wartime unit. Itwas conceptualised as a force that would act in support of Australiantroops, rather than as regular soldiers. Papua New Guineans were notconsidered to be capable of leadership or the technical aspects ofsoldiering, a view which reflected colonial perceptions of the 1950s, in whichPapua New Guineans were seen as a primitive people to be guided byAustralia. One Northern Command document described Papua NewGuineans as ‘unsophisticated’, having ‘little better than a primitive cultureand background’, and displaying a ‘childish enthusiasm’.

Throughout the battalion’s early years, Papua New Guineans were perceivedas a relatively easy way to defend the Territory of PNG, but little more. Theywere far cheaper to employ than an Australian battalion, not just in their paybut also in the quality of food and housing.

The PIR was also seen as requiring less in the way of officers, both in termsof quality and quantity, which appealed to an organisation that waschronically undermanned. As such, PNG was at the bottom of the pile forreplacements, and saw a high turnover of commanding officers: four in sixyears. Many of those officers Army did send often had no experience in PNGor were of poor quality. Indeed, one CO suggested that he was sent



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‘undesirables’ in the form of ‘those with poor service records and maritaltroubles’. In 1952, for instance, the PIR had only four out of 14 officers.

What’s more, this was in a battalion that did not have officers commandplatoons because Papua New Guineans were to be ‘instructed, rather thanled.’ Papua New Guineans, as colonial subjects, could simply be told whatto do. Leadership did not enter into the picture.

DisturbancesAn attitude that PNG was a backwater, and that Papua New Guineansoldiers were simple, uncomplicated versions of Australian soldiers wouldcome back to haunt the PIR at the end of the 1950s.

On a December weekend in 1957, Papua New Guinean soldiers andcivilians clashed at Koki Market in Port Moresby after insults were tradedand the Australian RSM was attacked by a mob. Incensed, around 100 off-duty Papua New Guinean troops marched on the market, entering into aseries of running fights with local men. Despite the size of the riots, onlyminor injuries were sustained in the fighting.

Eventually convinced to return to the barracks in the evening, the troopswere promptly tried by a civilian court two days later. Forced to stand on theparade ground in the hot sun, and angry at being singled out for punishmentby a court they considered to be an outside agency to the Army, some ofthose charged rioted again, chasing the magistrate from the courtroom.Eventually order was restored, and around 60 men were charged anddismissed from service.

For the PIR’s image in the territory, the 1957 disturbance was a disaster.Already suspicious of armed Papua New Guineans, Australian authoritiesand the press roundly attacked the regiment. Some called for the PIR to bedisbanded, or to be counter-balanced by a number of regular Australiantroops. That it was 100 years since the Indian mutiny was not lost on many,who saw ill-discipline as a threat to the government.

This was an over-reaction, as the brawl was between off-duty soldiers andcivilians, not with the government. Consider that no-one suggests that thefamous ‘Battle of Brisbane’ between American and Australian troops in1942 was a threat to the Curtin government.

Nonetheless, while few were actually hurt in the two incidents, the 1957disturbance revealed the weakness of the Army’s policy in PNG. Twice, the



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few Australian officers and NCOs actually posted to PNG were ignorant ofthe mood of their troops and were unable to arrest the violence before itbroke out. Only one of these Australians actually spoke the language of histroops. He was away at the time.

Little was done to address these and other issues after 1957. The PIRremained at the bottom of the pile not just for officers, but also foradministrative changes. The failure to address these problems becameapparent in 1961, when members of the PIR became increasingly angry thatthe police had received a 33% pay rise. By contrast, the decision on asimilar pay rise for soldiers had been ignored for over a year by Defenceofficials in Canberra.

After the battalion commander arrested a handful of ring-leaders who werecalling for action, around one hundred soldiers marched out of barracks,intent on freeing them from the gaol. Scuffling with the Australian officersattempting to stop them, the troops used their belts as weapons—one ofthe belt buckles from these fights has actually made it to the NationalArchives here in Canberra. In a quirk of history, one of those officers hit wasa Captain Campbell, the father of the current CDF. After a few hourshowever, the troops were rounded upand returned to barracks.

For civilian observers, this secondbout of fighting seemed tocompound their fears about theArmy, and in 1961 it would havelasting effects on civil-militaryrelations in the Territory.

Ultimately, around sixty Papua NewGuineans were dismissed after thedisturbance. Recognising its role in creating the riot, the Australian DefenceDepartment quickly and without fuss approved pay rises.

The 1961 disturbance marked a watershed in the history of the PIR. Led inparticular by Major General Thomas Daly, Commander Northern Command,

Figure 45. Major General Sir Thomas Dalywas GOC Northern Command whichincluded the PIR. (DoD)



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the Army recognised that its policies, rather than any intrinsic Papua NewGuinean instability, were to blame.

Australian soldiers did not have their fingers on the pulse within the PIR. Theofficers sent to PNG were not well-suited to the particular requirements ofworking with Papua New Guineans, and indeed what these requirementswere were not well-understood. The 1961 disturbance in particulardemonstrated that Papua New Guineans approached their service differentlyto Australians. This was particularly the case in the way that they airedgrievances. Finally, the disturbances revealed that it was not enough for the14 or so officers on the ground to amend their approach to managing a unitof Papua New Guineans; decision-makers in Australia had to do so as well,given that their policies had shaped the conditions for the riots.

Expansion and ConfrontationThese realisations were compounded by two seismic shifts over the nextdecade. First, in 1962, Indonesia took over West Papua. For the first time,

Australia shared a land border with a potentially hostile nation; this was allthe more worrying given Australian troops would engage in combatoperations against Indonesia in Malaya and Borneo in the next couple ofyears. In the context of the Indonesian threat, and of wider instability in the

Figure 46. PIR troops train near the border with West Papua (Irian Jaya) using SLRs,and L2A1 heavy barrel variants, placing this image in the 1960s. (Image: PercyCochrane, Uni. of Wollongong, CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 AU)



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region (not least in South-East Asia), the Menzies government authorised theexpansion of the armed forces, which included the PIR.

At the same time, racially-based laws in PNG were dismantled, such that bythe middle of the decade, Papua New Guineans could drink, vote and jointhe public service. In the Army, this meant that more senior and technicalroles were now open to Papua New Guineans, and the first Papua NewGuinean officers were recruited in 1963.

While not directly connected to de-colonisation per se, and while notobvious at the time, it was these two changes—the Indonesian threat andthe acceptance of Papua New Guineans on a more equal footing—that laidthe foundations for the PNGDF at independence.

Figure 47. Location of the three PIR battalions and the various bases including acompany outstation located at Vanimo on the north coast. (Map, ANU via author)



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Under the Army’s plan, the PIR began expanding from one to threebattalions, with a host of other supporting units, such as engineers. Otherservices expanded their presence in PNG as well. The Air Force was toreceive upgraded airfields at Lae and Wewak. The Navy, which hadpreviously used Papua New Guineans as shore-based personnel, was tobegin the creation of an indigenously-manned patrol boat squadron. Most ofthe changes that affected Papua New Guineans, however, occurred in theArmy.

By 1965 the second battalion had been raised and was based at MoemBarracks in Wewak. PNG Command was also created that year, elevatingPNG to equal footing with other regional commands.

Plan PYGMALIONThe PIR and PNG Command also took on a larger role in the defence ofPNG. In the event of war, the two battalions were tasked with carrying outPlan PYGMALION, designed to defeat an Indonesian incursion. Plannersexpected that Indonesians would attempt to ferment disaffection amongPapua New Guineans towards Australian rule, as they had done among

Figure 48. PIR married quarters at Vanimo on the PNG north coast near the borderwith Indonesia. A permanent outstation was built there for PIR operations along thefrontier. (Image: Percy Cochrane, Uni. of Wollongong, CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 AU)



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border groups in Borneo. In this event, battalions of the PIR would deploy tothe border, mounting platoon and company patrols from temporary bases,and the permanent outpost of Vanimo on the north coast. They were to besupported by the single company of the SASR, and naval and air assets asappropriate. Australian infantry were only to be deployed if the conflictexpanded.

Indonesia never invaded, and PYGMALION was never implemented.However, compared with Australian battalions, the PIR was unique in itspeacetime role. Alone among the nine other Australian infantry battalions, 1and 2 PIR had the task of patrolling an Australian border in order to detectincursions by hostile forces. Theirs was a key part of Australia’s defence,establishing a presence in the region, speaking with locals, and generallykeeping tabs on their Indonesian counterparts. These patrols were excellenttraining: the terrain tested men and equipment to the limits. Unlike everyother Australian unit, these patrols meant that the PIR also trained on theground on which it might be reasonably expected to fight.

In the first half of the 1960s therefore, the PIR shifted from a force expectedto operate as auxiliaries to Australian troops, to their equal. The humanmaterial remained the same, but Australian attitudes and needs hadchanged such that it was necessary and desirable to treat Papua NewGuineans as having similar operational roles as Australian troops.

Building Papua New Guinean Soldiers for IndependenceThe structural changes brought about by Confrontation allowed for muchdeeper shifts in the role and conceptualisation of PNG Command by Army.

Ostensibly, the expansion of PNG Command during the 1960s was intendedto serve Australia’s immediate defence needs. However, PNG Commandalso saw the expansion as an opportunity to build the force under itscommand into something that might one day be an independent defenceforce. While it might seem an obvious course of action today, given PNG’sindependence, this was actually a remarkable decision, as at no stage wasPNG Command formally instructed to prepare for independence during the1960s.

Independence was certainly in the winds, but no-one knew when; mostexpected it in multiple decades, not the 1970s. By the mid-1960s, only tenyears before independence eventuated, the Australian Government wasambivalent about de-colonisation. And just ten years earlier, in 1950, the



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Minister for External Territories, Paul Hasluck, stated that PNG would not beready for independence until 2050.

While talk of independence increased in the 1960s, no firm governmenttimeline was set down until 1971; just four years prior to independence.

Nonetheless, despite the lack of direction, the Commander PNG Command,Brigadier Ian Hunter, shifted his force’s focus from defence of the border topreparations for independence.

Figures 49 and 50. National Servicemen with education degrees were allocatedto the Royal Australian Army Educational Corps. These ‘Chalkies’ were thendeployed to New Guinea to teach PIR soldiers and officers. (Image DoD viaNashos PNG)



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Hunter’s ‘new task’, as he saw it, envisioned the forging of a military forcethat represented and served PNG. Although Australia’s defence remainedimportant to PNG Command, by 1969 Hunter reported to The Agenewspaper that the purpose of PNG Command was to ‘create a nationalarmy before there is a nation.’

To achieve his aim of creating a national army from units developed to serveAustralian interests, Hunter believed that ‘the three elements of the problem[facing me]—developing an effective army, producing the right manpower,and improving Army/community relations—have the one common factor: thePacific Islands soldier himself.’ It was by focusing on the Papua NewGuinean soldier and ‘working through him’, that Hunter hoped to create thehard-to-define, but vitally important, organisational culture that would ensurethe PNGDF’s stability after independence—whenever that might be.

Hunter did so in particular by re-purposing PNG Command’s educationprogramme, which had originally been designed to produce an educatedcohort of Papua New Guinean soldiers who could be trained to take onroles of technical skill and command responsibility in the service ofAustralia’s defence interests. This was a significant expenditure of Armyresources: between 1966 and 1972 the Australian Army operated PNG’sthird largest educational system. National servicemen with teachingdegrees—termed ‘Chalkies’—made up the bulk of Army teachers. Indeed,such was the emphasis on teaching Papua New Guinean soldiers that theSecretary for the Army remarked that ‘social training and general educationare now receiving attention comparable to that given to soldiering’.

Another striking feature of this period was the amount of effort put intounderstanding Papua New Guinean soldiers by the Army. This was a clearreaction to the failures in predicting, and then stopping, the disturbances in1957 and 1961. From 1965, the Australian Army Psychological CorpsResearch Unit in PNG set about surveying and compiling data on PapuaNew Guinean soldiers, building up an impressive wealth of information on arange of subjects, such as religious beliefs, political views, racism, retentionrates and the background of soldiers.

This data was used by commanders and by those designing education andtraining. It was also vital in the creation of a force with a demographicbalance between PNG’s regions, which was considered an important part ofcreating a truly national and stable PNGDF.



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IndependenceIndependence, when it came, came quickly. As a result, Brigadier Hunter’sdecision to start preparing for de-colonisation early on proved fortuitous. Atindependence the PNGDF had a well-trained and well-educated force thathad been tested in arduous patrolling and exercises along the border.

While there was a great deal of controversy about the structure of thePNGDF—and indeed whether PNG needed a defence force at all—thestructures, institutional culture and roles of the force that the Australian Armyleft behind were reasonably well-suited to PNG’s needs. This was provenmost clearly in the PNGDF’s deployment of two companies to Vanuatu in1980. That they were able to field such a force on a peacekeepingmission—which was neither imagined nor trained for prior to independence—showed the versatility of the force structure Australians left behind.

Australia continued its engagement with PNG after independence. Butnumbers quickly fell from their heights of 600 in 1975 to 100 in 1980, andaround 20–30 thereafter. The Army also began to treat PNG as just like anyother foreign posting, and did not necessarily send those with PNGexperience.

Nonetheless, there is still, arguably, the sense that Australia has a uniquerelationship with PNG—but it’s not quite sure what that might be. Indeed,Sean Dorney calls Australia the ‘embarrassed colonialist’.

While Australia has always been engaged with PNG, the number ofAustralian troops in the country, and the level of Defence commitment morebroadly, has waxed and waned. The conflicts in Bougainville, the SandlineCrisis and the long war in the Middle East have all seen Australia’swillingness to commit manpower, money and political capital fade, only to bepicked up again when we ‘re-discover the Pacific’. Or indeed when weworry that another country has.

Today, the relationship seems dynamic. Papua New Guineans train inAustralia, including in my classes here at ADFA, while the DCP maintainsclose connections with their counterparts in PNG, and facilitates a hugenumber of exercises, training courses and combined activities. The fact thatDCP personnel, for instance, are moving back into married quarters inPNGDF barracks is an encouraging sign of the strength of the relationshipon the ground. In addition, the fostering of links between 3rd Brigade andthe PNGDF seems to have helped bed the relationship down further. And, of



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course, while the Defence organisation in Australia might let PNG slip fromtheir minds, the obverse is not necessarily true. For PNG and Papua NewGuineans, for better or worse, Australia always looms large.

ConclusionSo what can we take away from the history of the development of thePNGDF up to independence in 1975?

Examining this history is not just an exercise in recounting the story of arelatively forgotten, but important, part of the Australian Army. It also hasstrong resonances today, for two reasons.

First, because many of the decisions made during the 1960s and 1970scontinue to have aneffect today. Anyonewho has been to aPNGDF base canattest that the sameold barrack blocks thatwere built in the 1960sare still there today—often un-modernisedunlike the ones in, say,Lavarack Barracks.

Indeed, the top photois from the late 1960s,and the bottom is fromAugust this year. This, Ithink, is symbolic ofthe structures—bothphysical andorganisational—thatAustralia left behind,and their continuedpresence today.

Figures 51 and 52. PNGDFbarrack blocks have remainedunchanged since the ‘60s.(Image via author)



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Indeed, stretching the metaphor of those barrack blocks a little further, thataccommodation on PNGDF bases is modernised at a far slower rate reflectsthe broader pace of change within the PNGDF, compared to the ADF. Whilethe pace of change prior to independence was rapid, the pace after 1975can be described as glacial. As a result, the pre-independence period is stillstrong in the institutional memory of the PNGDF. A clear example of this isthe fact that the current PNGDF CDF is the first in the position not to havetrained under Australian rule.

Of course, Australia’s history in PNG does not explain everything. PNGbecame its own nation, and made its own decisions in the more than fortyyears since independence. In terms of the PNGDF, there is more scholarshipto be done understanding their post-independence experience, not least inrelation to the Bougainville conflict.

The second resonance is in the lessons that we can take away fromAustralia’s shaping of the PNGDF. First, in order to work with foreign militarycultures, the right type of Australian soldier must be selected. Second,Australians must understand their counterparts. This applies not just on theground in that country, but also to those making decisions in Australia aboutselection, support and mission design.

Third, a key lesson from this history is the power of what might beconsidered everyday issues, particularly pay and conditions. Fourth, successis not just about successful training, but also education, in the broadestsense of the term. Shaping organisational cultures is as powerful as buildingcapability, I would argue, and education is key to this.

Finally, real investment in the relationship is crucial. Here, I’d like toshamelessly steal a phrase from Commander 3rd Brigade, Brigadier ScottWinter, who argues that in order to develop a strong and lasting relationship,the ADF must have ‘skin in the game.’ It’s not enough, so the idea goes, tosimply work with a foreign nation. It is also important to be invested in thecountry, in its people and in the military as an institution, not just because oftheir strategic importance, but also because we might learn something fromthem.

This is what the Army did before 1975 after a number of painful lessons. Indoing so it created an institution that, while it has its fair share of problems,has lasted in a similar form to today, and still largely welcomes Australiansoldiers with open arms.


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From Desert Warfare to StormLandings: Transforming the 2nd AIFDuring WWIIProfessor Peter Dean

In preparing for this talk I took thetime to give the Chief of Army’s Armyin Motion strategic guidance areview. Much of this documentseems, in many ways, timeless, somuch so that senior leaders of theAustralian Army in the Second WorldWar would find many familiarconcepts and ideas such as: the‘professional mastery of landcombat’, manoeuvre, firepower andcommunications—all things at frontof mind of the Army’s leadership as itwas thrown into the maelstrom of aglobal war in 1939. Key environmental factors such as a geopoliticalchange; the rise of an Asian superpower; and tensions on the Europeancontinent and in the Middle East were nothing new to the inter-wargeneration of military leaders in Australia. Nor was the rate of technology-change something foreign to their experience. This was its very own era of‘accelerated warfare’ with simultaneous co-operation, competition andconflict; compressed warning times; the changing character of combat;domain integration and demographic and societal change.


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In 1939–40 however, some of the issues in the 2019 guidance could bedescribed, rather generously, as ‘aspirational’, especially the notion of‘preparedness’ and being ‘ready now’. Other concepts, such as the Army’score purpose as being an integral part of the ‘joint force’ is something thatwould become, in the course of the war, a lived reality, while concepts suchas ‘persistent presence’ had been more conceived before the war within theframework of what Canadian historian Doug Delaney has called an ImperialArmy project.

My focus here today is on the notion of an Army—that of the 2nd AIF—as aforce in motion between 1939–45. The assessment of the first period—thatof warfare in the Mediterranean and North Africa—will be more of afoundational piece; setting the broader context for what then happened inthe Pacific from 1942–45. Thus, the focus will be more on amphibiouswarfare in the Pacific—this being a product both of time and space, but alsorelative to the theme of the Army’s connection with the region and theconnection between the modern Army in Motion and its past. The currentArmy situates itself clearly as part of the joint force and as a former CA saidat this history conference in 1994: ‘by their very nature amphibiousoperations are joint. The more we practice and develop doctrine andexperience in amphibious operations, the better we will be at joint warfare.’

Preliminary – 1940–1942: the Army, the AIF and Desert WarfareIn 1939 the regular Army was a shadow of the force it was to becomeduring the war and a shadow of the force we have today. The decision in1939 to raise a second expeditionary force meant that Australia would havetwo armies during the war, the 2nd AIF and Militia, which Al Palazzo hasnoted ‘developed as [two] completely separate entities.’

Despite moves towards inter-operability in the British Empire in the inter-warperiod, at the outbreak of war the raising of the first AIF division for the newconflict, the 6th Division, saw it set an Australian standard—the principledifference being four battalions per brigade rather than the British standardof three. In addition, the British standard included units that the 2nd AIF didnot have, notably a machine-gun battalion, an anti-tank regiment, and lightaid detachments. The Australian divisions were both less mobile and lesscapable than their British counterparts. In addition, the Australian divisionlacked not just modern equipment but also material supplies to the pointwhere it didn't even have most of its tents.



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By the time the division went into battle at Bardia in December 1940, thedivision had re-organised along the lines of the British army pattern but it stillsuffered from ‘galling shortages of equipment’ including transport and anti-tank guns, an artillery regiment, and a full complement of modern guns. Thiswas offset by the addition of British units that included a machine-gunbattalion, four regiments of artillery and the 7th Royal Tank Regiment (7RTR).Despite the drawbacks of the formation’s equipment it was superblypositioned to go into battle. As Craig Stockings has noted, the ‘division wasthoroughly trained and in close-to-perfect condition’ and that it was ‘asready as an untested formation could ever reasonably be expected to be’formed off the back of 15 months of ‘hard, systematic, sequential and well-planned training’. What is especially noteworthy was the Australian’s abilityto draw from British Army schools, including a staff college in the MiddleEast, with the ‘focus on combined arms operations in open terrain’. Thiswas reflected in the plan for the attack at Bardia that evolved around theprimacy of 7 RTR.

The emphasis on combined arms operations and the importance ofarmoured warfare in the Middle East was apparent to the AIF Commander-in-Chief, General Blamey, even before the 6th Division went into battle. Onemonth before the assault on Bardia, the Australian Government hadannounced that four AIF divisions would be Australia’s ‘complete army

Figure 52. Sir Ivor Hele’s painting of The Battle of Bardia was commissioned by theAWM in the 1960s from events described to the artist by survivors. It depicts theevents of the capture of Post 11. (AWM ART27576)



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effort’. Blamey responded by writing the Prime Minister of the importance of‘modern armoured formations’ and that in order for Australia to prepare fordefeating the Axis in battle, a formation of at least two AIF armouredformations must be built up as ‘soon as practicable.’ This was because ‘theAIF is organised as a corps of four infantry divisions [and] it can only be aself-contained force if it has its due proportion of armoured formations.’

While the development of two AIF armoured divisions got underway, threeAIF infantry divisions fought across the length of the Mediterranean inGreece, Crete, Syria, as well as in North Africa at Tobruk and El Alamein. AtTobruk the 9th Division, like the 6th at Bardia, was supported by an array ofBritish Army units including four artillery regiments, most of the anti-aircraftbatteries, a machine-gun battalion and a cavalry regiment as well as beingmaintained and supported by the combined naval and air forces of theBritish Empire. It had also gone into battle lacking equipment but alsolacking training. Lacking the coherency of the 6th Division, the 9th had beenformed in an ‘ad hoc manner…absorbing the least trained and most recentlyenlisted AIF brigades.’

Figure 53. Captured Italian Fiat Ansaldo Carro Armato M13/40 tanks. These Italiantanks were widely used by the Italians in North Africa and these examples, capturedat Bardia, were crewed by members of the Australian 6th Division Cavalry Regimentand used against the Italians at Tobruk. The large white kangaroos were painted toidentify them as friendly tanks. (Image by Frank Hurley. AWM 005043)



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However by the time it went into battle at El Alamein it had a full divisionalcomplement including a divisional cavalry regiment, an anti-tank and anti-aircraft regiment, a machine-gun battalion and a pioneer battalion and hadbeen able to undertake formation training. This was to be sorely needed astowards the end of the battle, as their British corps commander Oliver Leesenoted, the ‘whole of [Rommel’s] Panzer Corps was concentrated against theAustralians.’ It led to the division suffering some 22% of the casualties of the8th Army in the battle even though it represented under one tenth of thearmy’s strength.

For the AIF in this theatre it had undergone major and continuousorganisational change between 1940–1942. Its doctrine, like allCommonwealth formations, was based on British field service regulations(FSR) and was generally sound, although it had some major shortcomingsand was applied rather inconsistently and with a different emphasis in manyBritish formations. At Bardia, Tobruk and El Alamein, the Australiancommanders had adapted field service regulations to suit the operationalneeds. In all of these operations the importance of patrolling was reinforcedas a core component of the Australian approach to tactics that was notnecessarily shared by their British counterparts. During all of theseoperations the Australians continually revised their tactical approach, attimes clashing with British senior officers as they sought alternative tacticaland organisational solutions to address both the terrain and the enemy.

Transforming to Fight the Japanese 1941–1945By the time of the return of the 9th Division to Australia in early 1943, the AIFin the Middle East looked vastly different to the one that had arrived in 1940.It had already demonstrated its ability to adapt to the changing operationalcircumstances while maintaining its core organisational structure, cultureand doctrine largely intact. This experience had, however, totally removedthe majority of the AIF from Australia’s region—three infantry divisions hadfought in the Middle East and the two armoured divisions prepared to follow.Only the 8th Division remained in the Asia–Pacific region and had beendestroyed as a fighting formation in the Japanese assaults in Malaya, DutchEast indies and the South Pacific. Time and space precludes me fromdiscussing these, instead I’ll turn my attention to the AIF in the South-WestPacific Area (SWPA) campaigns in 1942–45.

Adapting to Jungle WarfareBy the time of the 9th Division’s return from the Middle East, the 6th and 7th



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Divisions were at the tail-end of a long and bitter campaign in Australia’sbackyard. Having fought along the Kokoda Track they were engaged in abitter attrition-style campaign at Buna, Gona and Sanananda. The 9thDivision, therefore, was able to benefit from the experience and lessonsidentified by the 6th, 7th and 8th Divisions as well as the militia units andformations that had fought in the jungles of South-East Asia and of Papuaand New Guinea.

By early 1942 the 9th Division was able to rely upon various systems thatArmy had created to adapt to operating in the jungle. Two LandHeadquarters Training Teams were set up—to disseminate the lessons ofMalaya and New Guinea—as was the Jungle Warfare Centre at Canungra.The 9th Division was also able to settle into the newly established divisionaltraining grounds in the Tableland Region near Atherton in far-northQueensland where, after February 1943, it was also joined by the 6th and7th Divisions recuperated from thePapuan campaign.

Post the Papuan campaign Armyalso undertook a majorreorganisation of its key divisions.The Army’s six operationaldivisions—the three AIF divisions and3rd, 5th and 11th militia divisions—were all converted to the lighter‘Jungle Establishment’. This wasdriven by the logistical difficulties inthe SWPA and the Army’s deficiencyin supporting arms. Thus, jungle divisions had less artillery, fewer motorvehicles, and smaller infantry battalions than the standard divisions.

There are many good and detailed studies on the Army’s adaptation tojungle warfare and I will not go into detail here, suffice to say that the Army’ssenior leadership had noted in 1942 that there was no ‘black magic’ to

Figure 54. Major General Frank Berrymanin 1944. Berryman served as a Brigadierin Syria in 1941 and then as senioroperations officer in Papua in 1942. Helamented the fact that Army’s officers didnot know enough about tactical doctrine.(DoD)



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fighting in the jungle. The senior operations officer in Papua during 1942,Major-General Frank Berryman, noted that fighting in the jungle did notmean that the Army needed new doctrine, rather ‘the old doctrine is the onlyway to win, but one needs to know it [and] to know when and how tomodify it for different situations. Our trouble is that so many officers do NOTknow our tactical doctrine and think things are new.’

The Army was also quick to adapt. As John Moreman summated, the Armyhad adapted to the jungle environment so swiftly that by early 1943 ‘most ofthe key aspects of jungle warfare had been realised…and appropriatedoctrine and training programs were introduced.’

Jungle warfare was, however, but one side of the operational coin in theSWPA. Reforming the Army to undertake amphibious warfare was a muchbigger task than mastering the art of jungle warfare. For jungle warfare theArmy had to adapt its warfighting approach in order to develop its skills,knowledge and capabilities—what can be described as sustaininginnovation. In amphibious warfare the Australian Army had to go through aperiod of disruptive innovation—adapting to a whole new way of warfare.

This is because from the outset, amphibious operations were a way ofwarfare in which the Army had basically no experience, expertise orcompetence. Despite an exceptionally poor foundation by early 1942, thestrategic driver for an amphibious capability was self-evident. If it was evergoing to get off the island of New Guinea and participate in the liberation ofthe Japanese occupied territories in the Pacific, the AIF had to quicklybecome an expert practitioner of amphibious warfare.

This patent strategic reality of 1942 was the critical factor in avoiding anybureaucratic or cultural barriers to change what could have easily stymiedthe Army’s disruptive innovation in amphibious warfare during this period.This clarity of strategic purpose provided a clarion call for change, butdespite this unifying element the hurdles to delivering this new capability inwartime were still colossal.

Goodenough Island 1942This is exemplified by the Army’s first foray into amphibious operations in1942 when the 2/12th Battalion from the 18th Brigade made a raid onGoodenough Island north of Milne Bay to destroy a party of Japanese NavalInfantry which had been stranded there when its landing craft had beensunk by the RAAF. The raid was planned at short notice, with no time for



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rehearsals. The sole training came in the shape of a short commanders’course in amphibious operations the CO had undertaken. The raid lackeddetailed embarkation plans, landing craft, a fire support plan, adequatecommunications, beach reconnaissance and an appropriate tactical schemeof manoeuvre. In the end the Japanese naval infantry defeated the initialassaults of the battalion and slipped away unnoticed.

It was evident that everyone involved, from the staff officers, commandersand planners to the ship’s crew and the soldiers, were novices who lackedtraining and experience in amphibious warfare. However, while it lackedtactical proficiency it achieved its operational objectives. The UK combinedwarfare (the WWII name for amphibious) doctrine of night landings awayfrom enemy concentrations proved sound and this operation reinforcedwhat the Allies had learned from the Japanese—that even a relatively smallamphibious force backed by adequate sea and air power can have animpact beyond its size and that maritime manoeuvre was critical to offensiveoperations in the theatre.

Innovation from the Top–Down: 1942-1943Army disruptive innovation in amphibious force development was done inthree phases.

Phase 1 was driven from the strategic imperatives which led to top–down

Figure 55. Australian troops conduct amphibious assault training at HMAS Assault,the RAN establishment at Port Stephens, NSW, at which the Joint OverseasOperations Training School was located. (DoD via AWM 304848)



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innovation and horizontal adaptation from the experiences of the Allies inother theatres. This was undertaken from 1942–1943.

Phase 2 was bottom–up adaptation informed by the experiences ofamphibious assaults at Lae and Finschhafen and the littoral operations in theHuon Peninsula campaign from September 1943 to April 1944.

Phase 3 from April 1944 to July 1945 was an infused process thatincorporated the top–down directives, and horizontal learning and bottom–up adaptation into a system of learning.

Phase 1 largely consisted of the tried-and-true approach of establishingtraining schools. This was done by the establishment of the Joint OverseasOperational Training School in mid-1942 at Port Stephens backed up by theFirst Australian Army’s Combined Training School at Bribie Island nearBrisbane.

These two Army-run schools, co-located with the Royal Australian Navy’straining establishments, formed the backbone of the initial training anddoctrine development allowing for individual and collective training. Theirmajor issue was a lack of landing craft due to a global shortage. As such theRoyal Australian Engineers started to build its own landing craft based onthe British pattern. For the Army, one of the keys was working with newpartners, this time the USA, in the co-development of capabilities, doctrine,planning and operations.

During 1942 these establishments battled on: short of equipment; withlimited guidance; with few experienced staff; and beset with inter-serviceand inter-Allied rivalry. Other problems included the mixed nature of doctrineas each country used its respective national doctrine; a lack of a unifiedcommand structure; and the growing distance between the training schoolsand the frontline. However, the foresight to set up these trainingestablishments in 1942 meant that the cycle of learning and adaptationstarted early and, as such, both of the coalition partners were well placedwhen landing ships and craft started to arrive in sufficient numbers.

The arrival of US 2nd Engineer Amphibious Brigade (2EAB) and, in particularthe 7th Amphibious Force (VII Phib) proved to be the first major gamechanger in solving the issues that were apparent in 1942. The VII Phibproved a unified command structure when it took over all training schoolsand establishments—irrespective of service—and it pioneered the



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development of a hybrid doctrine for the theatre. The issue of landing craftand vessels was solved with the arrival of an EAB and additional craft due tothe delay in operations in Europe. Finally, VII Phib established a series ofmobile training teams meaning formations did not have to return to the fixedtraining establishments. This was all done with exceptionally close co-operation with the Australian Services, including the 2nd AIF’s BrigadierRonald Hopkins, who was given command of one of the VII Phib’s twoplanning cells in 1943–44.

This allowed the 9th Australian Division’s brigades to receive a two-to-three-week training program in amphibious operations with the small landing craftfrom the EAB starting on 16 June, facilitated by the establishment ofCombined (Joint) Operations Cell established at I Australian Corps HQ.However, the lack of experience and limitations of both the Australian Armyand the VII Phib in amphibious warfare were to be on display duringOperation POSTERN. This is not to say that the landing of the 9th Divisionoutside Lae was not a major achievement.

Tactically however, it revealed major shortcomings. First the training wasconducted with the 2EAB but the assault required the larger ships of the VIIPhib necessitating a sudden transfer causing major planning and logisticissues. During the training there was some limited practice in loading andunloading men and supplies from amphibious craft, and in caring forequipment in tropical conditions, but in reality nothing was ‘learned of thesupply and maintenance problems’ of amphibious operations.

This was no more evident than when the divisional commander refused anoffer of the 2/1st Ordnance Beach Detachment before the assault believingthat logistical arrangements were well in hand. This despite the fact thatbefore training commenced all senior commanders received a pamphletoutlining ten general lessons for amphibious operations from USexperiences in North Africa and Guadalcanal, and British operations atDieppe and Madagascar that highlighted that ‘adequate personnel andmaterial must be available for clearing the beach and dock areas ofsupplies’. As Captain Maxwell Worthley of the HQ staff 20th Brigade, noted:the landing was ‘a most ungodly balls up’.

The logistical issues were to form almost half of the lessons identified fromthe operation—re-affirming what had already been identified from previousAllied operations, but not learnt. The 9th Division was required to pull its



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pioneer battalion and two infantry battalions out of the assault to sort out thechaos on the beachhead and bring forward supplies.

Only luck saved the division’s assault from being stopped due to a shortageof supplies when persistent Japanese air assaults on the beachhead failedto hit key logistics stores piled up right next to the landing sites.Furthermore, once the division was landed, VII Phib moved on to otheroperations leaving behind only a limited number of 2EAB craft formaintenance and supplies. This revealed the desperate need for a localamphibious capability to operate in coastal and riverine areas for bothtactical manoeuvre and logistics resupply. In the follow-on operation in theHuon peninsula this capability proved decisive as small landing vessels andcraft allowed the division to use the coastal waters as an operating spacelanding infantry, engineers, tanks, artillery and supplies in the rear ofJapanese defensive positions, allowing them to constantly out-manoeuvrethem.

Creating an Effective Learning Organisation – Absorbing the Lessonsfrom 1943Major lessons were learned from the operations at Lae and Finschhafenespecially around planning, rehearsals, doctrine, liaison with the Navy, the

Figure 56. AIF troops and RAN Beach Commando personnel. It was critical thatbeachheads were not only cleared for the assaults, but organised and suppliedby logistics specialists thereafter. (DoD via AWM 083103)



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need for more specially-trained officers and units, and the management andorganisation of the beachhead. While still on operations in New Guinea, IAustralian Corps issued a training instruction in December 1943 detailing thebeach organisation and maintenance during combined operations.Importantly, it defined the Service responsibilities and delineated the roles ofvarious officers. More broadly the Army wasted no time in absorbing thelessons of these operations. This included the formation of the 1st AustralianBeach Group (ABG) in November 1943, and the 2nd ABG in May 1944.

Based upon their British Army equivalents, but tailored for operations in theSWPA, each of these units was commanded by a colonel, the Beach GroupCommander, who was responsible to the divisional commander. With 1800personnel, each ABG consisted of Army troops, an RAN Beach Commando,and a large collection of logistic units including engineers, signallers, medicalstaff, Army Service Corps personnel, and ordnance and provost units. Therole of the ABG was to facilitate the landing by unloading the landing craft,clearing the beach, liaising with the fighting forces, and administering thebeachhead. Longer-term logistic support beyond the initial landing, becamethe responsibility of Base Sub-Areas, another new organisation formed in1944.

In addition, the Army formed its own landing craft companies equipped withBritish- and Australian-designed landing craft. These craft were formed intothree Engineer Water Transport Groups. It is estimated that the AustralianArmy operated over 1800 vessels by 1945. By the time the war came to aclose the Army would be close to deploying its own armoured landingvehicle tank (LVT) capability via the 1st Australian Amphibious ArmouredSquadron that was formed in November 1944.

The other major organisational moves were the establishment of a MilitaryLanding Group (MLG), and the expansion of the Australian CombinedOperations Section (COS) in Corps HQ as well as the establishment of anumber of specialist combined operations staff appointments at Blamey’sAdvanced Land HQ. In addition, the Army would produce its own doctrine inthe form of the pamphlet Amphibious Warfare for Australian forces in theSouth-West Pacific Area 1944.

MLG’s provided specially-trained officers to advise and assist in therequirements of amphibious warfare including shipping, landing craft and thetactical embarkation of a force for divisional and brigade staffs. The COS



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consisted of seven specially-trained officers in amphibious warfare forattachment to corps HQ. The role of the COS was wide-ranging andincluded: providing the training section in corps HQ; producing doctrine forthe Beach Groups and Beach Commandos; supervising the MLG officers;operational planning; collating; preparing and disseminating reports onamphibious operations from across the Pacific; and producing reports onAustralian operations. The final support for amphibious operations came inthe form of four specially-trained lieutenant colonels attached to theoperations section and two majors attached to the logistics section of theArmy’s senior operational HQ units, Advanced Land HQ and its ForwardEchelon.

What these moves did was systematise the learning and adaptation cycleinside the AIF. In establishing these specially-trained officers and units, theAIF recognised the need to become a fully-fledged learning institution inamphibious warfare. However, it also recognised its place and the limitationsfor this type of amphibious warfare in relation to the institution. It recognisedthat the AIF did not need to transform itself into a marine corps and that‘amphibious’ was not a way of war, but rather a means to an ends—anextension of Army’s way of warfare, that was still firmly underpinned,although at times unevenly applied, on combined arms operations.

The period from mid-1944 to mid-1945 saw the majority of the AIF out ofoperations giving it a significant period of rest, training and adapting in orderto prepare for operations. Despite a whole host of false operational starts,the 6th Division was sent to fight near Wewak in New Guinea while IAustralian Corps consisting of the 7th and 9th Divisions plus Corps troopswould form the assault force in Borneo in what would be the lastamphibious assaults of the Second World War.

In the lead up to these operations, I Australian Corps undertook significanttraining with the beach groups and readily absorbed lessons from previousoperations and concurrent Allied operations in the Pacific. By 1945, theAllies in the Pacific theatre were able to exert air and sea control over muchof the Pacific Ocean and, in places, enjoyed air and naval supremacy. Withincreased access to materiel and shipping the Army was able to reconsiderits divisional structure allowing for increased firepower, especially artillery andtanks, to support its operations. The Australian Army amphibious warfaredoctrine in 1944 recognised the possibility of operating two types ofamphibious assaults: night time or pre-dawn landings away from the enemy



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—the traditional British doctrinal approach; or daylight assaults onto themain objective—the USMC approach. This gave commanders a range ofoptions and considerations for their decision-making. For the OBOEoperations at Tarakan and Balikpapan, by the dent of necessity in the formercase, and the operational advantages in latter, it was deemed that theassaults would be made directly onto the objective.

In the central Pacific, US historian and USMC veteran Colonel Joseph HAlexander named a number of operations, namely Tarawa, Saipan, Guam,Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as ‘storm landings’. Thoseamphibious landings were distinguished by six additional characteristics:they were all dangerous, long range, large-scale, self-sustaining assaults,executed against defended positions, while within the protective umbrella ofcarrier task forces.

Tarakan was to be assaulted by the 26th Brigade Group from the 9thDivision. While nominally a brigade landing, by the time Brigadier

Figure 57. The importance of coordinated effort in amphbious operations was learntthrough the tribulations of prior operations. Here, beachhead logistics at Balikpapanduring Operation OBOE in July 1945 are being coordinated while wounded are beingcollected for treatment and stores brought forward. In the background are members ofthe RAN Commando. These sailors and soldiers weren’t to know it but Japan wouldsurrender in less than six weeks. (DoD via AWM 111031)



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Whitehead’s men were ready to go into action the brigade had swelled to11 000 men, the size of a small division, while at Balikpapan the GeneralOfficer Commanding 7th Australian Division, Major-General Teddy Milford,was provided with a super-sized formation consisting of 33 000 men,making it larger than many corps level formations. GHQ’s insistence on theairfield and oil refinery at Balikpapan being taken quickly, plus 7th Division’sassessment of the operation, led to a rejection of a landing away from theobjective followed by an overland assault, as per Lae. Instead, Milfordplanned to land directly onto the objective in a full frontal assault. This wasonly possible by the size of the division, the overwhelming firepoweravailable, as well as the addition of US Army LVTs (Landing Vehicle Tracked),meant that 7th Division assessed that a frontal assault using the centralPacific’s storm landing doctrine was the best way to minimise causalities!

Both of these landings, as well as the 9th Division’s operations in Brunei Bay,proved to be highly successful though they were still not perfect as the‘orchestration of this power was still an evolving art.’

In conclusion, the AIF was a force constantly in motion; constantly adaptinginnovation that led to ‘new tactics [and] techniques…[that] in time…[were]captured in doctrine, [and] led to a change to organisational structure [and]the acquisition of a new enabling technology.’

In the process of fighting, the AIF undertook two types of innovation:sustaining innovation, that is ‘innovation that seeks to improve on traditionalvalued ways of war[fare]’ which was achieved through its adaptation tomodern combined arms operations including those in desert and jungleclimates; and disruptive innovation that ‘seek[ed] to develop [a] wholly newway of war[fare]’ that it achieved through its most significant innovation—amphibious warfare.

Through both of these types of innovation, the AIF evolved itself into a muchmore mature organisation and in this process it became a learninginstitution. It did so by adjusting, rather than fundamentally changing, itsextant system of warfighting (combined arms operations); its institutionalorganisation (unit, brigade, division, corps and army); and its commandstructure and doctrine. It should also be noted that the AIF’s progression asa fighting force occurred in fits and starts. It was subject to the capabilitiesand performance of its officers and men and the limitations and restrictionsplaced on it by such things as: the availability of technology, training, and



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experience; the need to preserve capabilities for operations; the tension ofjoint and combined warfare; and the friction and chance of war.

In the end though, it proved itself a highly efficient force and this is no moreevident than in the stark fact that in a period of 33 months fromGoodenough Island to Balikpapan, the Australian Army went from unable tocarry out a tactically proficient battalion-sized amphibious raid to being ableto undertake a divisional-sized amphibious landing that had the hallmarks ofa USMC storm landing.

Figure 58. Members of 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (Amphibious) conduct a beachreconnaissance exercise in late 2019. Amphibious skills within Army waned since WWII but havebeen revived with the greater ADF emphasis on joint operations in a maritime environment. (DoD)


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Not Rich in Standing Armies or ImmediatelyAvailable Resources:Plans, Realities and the AustralianRegular Army’s Deployment to Korea, 1950

Lieutenant Colonel(Dr) Dayton McCarthy

When Robert Menzies, the PrimeMinister of Australia, addressed theUnited States House ofRepresentatives on the 1st of August1950, Australia had, after muchtortured deliberation, just announcedits decision to commit ground troopsto the Korean War. Faced with anopportunity to curry favour with theUS with an aim to secure a NATO-like treaty in the Pacific, while jugglingextant but conflicting Commonwealth defence commitments, Australia haddiscovered that its post-war army was in a parlous state. Australia had anumber of ambitious ends but these could not, it seemed, be met by itshumble means.

So in Washington, Menzies took the opportunity to talk up the Australianoffer and, in doing so, ‘gild the lily’. The Australian commitment would beone regular infantry battalion—the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian


Not Rich in Standing Armies or ImmediatelyAvailable Resources:

Plans, Realities and the AustralianRegular Army’s Deployment to Korea, 1950

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Regiment (3 RAR)—currently understrength and under-equipped, ongarrison duties as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force orBCOF in Japan. Menzies argued that

We are not rich in standing armies or immediately availableresources…We have no substantial standing army and troops forservice abroad must therefore, in the normal sense, be speciallyenlisted, trained and equipped…But in my talks with your leadershere it has been completely agreed that the time factor is soimportant in Korea that a comparatively small force speedily trained,equipped and despatched is better than a larger force postponed formany months.

For a nation that had fielded an army of around 400 000 soldiers at the endof the Second World War, less than five years prior, the difficulty in providinga single infantry battalion was galling. The Australian Regular Army (ARA)would have to adapt—and adapt fast—to ensure it achieved and maintaineda persistent presence in Korea.

This paper will assess the force generation, preparation and sustainment of3 RAR in Korea through the lenses of persistence and access. I believe thatthis is best achieved by understanding these components across the eightfundamental inputs to capability or FICs. I’ll conclude this necessarily briefwave-top assessment by proposing a ‘scorecard’ for achievements anddeficiencies within the FIC categories and what we might learn from ourexperience in Korea more than fifty years ago.

Fighting a Real War, while Preparing for Another: The Muddied Watersof Strategic Guidance and Political Support.Support is a broad category and covers everything from political supportthrough to the notion of the wider national support base. In this context, letus consider support in the guise of clear strategic guidance provided to theArmy and the multi-faceted and sometimes contradictory political objectivesswirling in the background.

A cogent post-war defence policy did not exist at the end of the SecondWorld War, although various discussions had been put forward, with manynoting the need for some form of standing army to respond to short-noticetasks.



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The most notable proposal was LieutenantGeneral Rowell’s 1946 planning paper thatidentified the Soviet Union as the only majorthreat. He understood that Australia’ssecurity relied on participation withincollective security arrangements whetherthey were under the auspices of the newlycreated United Nations or with the UK andthe US.

By early 1950, the Australian Governmenthad decided to conclude its commitment to BCOF in Japan and hadreturned most of the force to Australia. Here the regulars could assist withthe soon-to-be-implemented National Service scheme and better contributeto the still ill-formed Commonwealth defence plan which at that point waspencilling in a major Australian contribution to any future conventional fight inthe Middle East. In parallel, the British had also applied early pressure onAustralia to assist in combating the nascent insurgency in Malaya.

Meanwhile Percy Spender, the Minister for External Affairs, had workedassiduously with US representatives to develop American interest in a PacificPact that would provide collective security in Australia’s region. After the

North Koreans invaded on the 25th of June,Spender pushed Cabinet that an Australianground force would assist in his negotiationswith the US.

Australia’s Chiefs of Staff Committee met onthe 26 of July 1950, less than a week after theDefence Committee had recommended thatAustralia not send ground troops to Korea.Rowell, now the Chief of General Staff advisedthat 3 RAR was not combat ready. The other

Figure 59. Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Rowell.Vice Chief of the General Staff 1946–1950 andthen Chief of the General Staff 1950–1954. (DoDOfficial Photo)

Figure 60. Sir Percy Spender. Minister for ExternalAffairs under Menzies and then Ambassador to theUS from 1951 (Open Source)




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chiefs believed that the urgency of the situation along with the need tomaintain positive Australia–US relations were more important, or at least notsufficient grounds for withholding the battalion from active service. And sothey agreed to send 3 RAR to Korea.

Lieutenant General Horace Robertson, the Commander-in Chief of BCOF,observed the zeitgeist around the nature of the commitment to Korea whenhe mused that ‘none of us may regard this theatre as much importance tous… but it is the chief one in which the USA has men fighting and dyingdaily and to them that is much more real than preparations for a major warwhich many believe may never eventuate.’ The need to support the US,while understood in a very general and conceptual way, had never translated

into the need to deploy ground forces toKorea, at least not until the eleventh hourchange of heart.

Almost to the moment the decision tocommit 3 RAR was made, all extantstrategic guidance ebbed and flowed

between planning for a counter-insurgency deployment to Malaya or alonger-term, mobilisation-driven operation in the Middle East. The firstsuggested a greater emphasis on developing the deployable regularbattalions. The second underpinned the rationale for the National Servicescheme and the build up of the part-time Citizen Military Forces or CMF—the antecedent to today’s Army Reserve—as a basis for mobilisation, usingthe limited Regular Army manpower as trainers and administrators ratherthan combat troops. Eventually, the ARA would deploy to Malaya, but onlyafter the hostilities in Korea had ended. The deployment to the Middle Eastnever took place. In fact it had started to wane in the minds of strategicplanners from 1953 onwards, although Australia persisted with developing a

Figure 61. Lieutenant General Sir HoraceRobertson. One of Duntroon’s first graduates, hesaw service at Gallipoli with the 10th Light Horse,in North Africa during WWII as a BrigadeCommander and later in New Guinea as aDivision Commander. He would later takecommand of the British CommonwealthOccupation Forces in Japan where BritishOfficers resented being commanded by anAustralian. (DoD via AWM 093976)



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supposed ‘3rd AIF in being’ based on two CMF divisions largely comprisingsoldiers from the National Service scheme.

‘A Firm and Broad Foundation for Expansion’: the Theory and Realityof the ARA’s Organisation at the Outbreak of the War.Rowell, who had been responsible for much of the post-war planning for theAustralian Army, stated that in the absence of any concrete defence policy inthe immediate post-war years, the aim was to maintain or re-establish the‘framework of formations and units on which we could build in anemergency.’ A year before 3 RAR’s commitment to Korea, Rowell assessedthat ‘I say advisedly that, to the extent necessary to meet the needs of anemergency, we have re-established our framework.’

By 1947, Australia’s Five Year Plan for defence had been signed off. Thepermanent forces would comprise 19 000 soldiers, the vast majority ofwhich would be in staff, training and administrative roles, in addition to aregular brigade group set up, in theory, to be readily deployable overseas.The CMF was to be 50 000-men strong, built around two divisions and anarmoured brigade. Crucially both the permanent and part-time forces wereto comprise of volunteers only. The recruiting campaigns began and thenpetered out due to an overwhelming lack of interest from Australia’s war-weary population. By February 1949, the CMF had a strength of 14 000men; in October of the same year, the Army was forced to admit that all ithad was around 1000 serving regular infantry soldiers, and most of thosewere in Japan as part of BCOF.

But low numbers tell only half the story. The pretence that the Army—eitherthe regular or part-time components—was postured to deploy overseas wasundermined by the operational limitations imposed by the Defence Act. Itforbade the deployment of the CMF overseas, and even volunteer CMFsoldiers would have to volunteer again for overseas service. Considering therole earmarked for the CMF in any future deployment to the Middle East, thislegal proviso hamstrung defence planning during the 1950s. So due to theDefence Act, neither the ARA, nor the CMF, was organised or ready to ‘meetan emergency’ in 1950. These circumstances justified the introduction of theNational Service scheme to bolster the CMF and the hasty establishment ofthe K-Force recruiting scheme to bring skilled former servicemen back intothe Army.




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‘Scraping the Bucket to See What We Can Give’: Personnel Issues andForce GenerationDespite the structural, legal and organisational problems faced by the post-war Army, Australia could get 3 RAR into the field relatively quickly becauseat least it was constituted—admittedly under-strength and ill-equipped—inJapan as part of BCOF. But when the numbers were crunched, factoring inpredicted combat losses, expected personnel turnover due to expiringcontracts and the needs of manning Australian-based headquarters andtraining centres, the numbers in 1 and 2 RAR would not be sufficient.

To make up the shortfalls, the Army opted for the special call up ofvolunteers – ‘K Force’. Applicants for K Force had to have had prior Armyservice. Indeed many of the K Force volunteers were former NCOs in the2nd AIF or other armies who came back into the Army at reduced rank. Asat May 1950, 3 RAR had a strength of 545 all ranks.

The first tranche of reinforcements, comprising soldiers from the other twoRAR battalions arrived at the end of August. With the addition of the K Forcereinforcements by 11 September, 3 RAR had been brought up to its warestablishment of 960 all ranks through the augmentation of 22 officers and450 other ranks.

Figure 62. With the parlous state of the Army in 1950, raising a force for Korea requiredvarious restraints and constraints to be considered such as the restrictive Defence Act andthe needs of National Service training battalions. (Author)



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‘Capable of Only the Most Rudimentary of Tasks’: ad hoc Training andPreparing for Combat.When the 67th Infantry Battalion—which later became 3 RAR—was formedin 1945 it was full of young, fit officers and soldiers with, on average, threeand half years’ war service in the AIF and AMF.

But the battalion gradually lost its wartime edge as it undertook occupationduties. Terms of enlistment came to an end and experienced soldiersreturned to Australia. If reinforcements did arrive—and before the KoreanWar this was unlikely—they were inexperienced. By 1948, Japan had beende-militarised and 3 RAR’s activities were limited to guard duties withtraining up to platoon level conducted during the warmer months. By 1950,due to its turnover in personnel and occupation duties, 3 RAR—and the restof the Army—had become a complacent, peacetime force, ‘capable of onlythe most rudimentary of tasks.’

3 RAR had to re-equip itself and integrate reinforcements from Australiabefore it could really commit to collective training. It did so in short order,and with a large degree of success, due to the high latent standard oftraining and experience of the ‘K Force’ volunteers. It is instructive to

Figure 63. Lieutenant General Sir Horace Robertson, Commander BCOF, inspectsmembers of Australia’s contribution to the force. By 1950, the BCOF was windingdown and Australia was one of the only countries with a still-significant component,however five years of garrison duties had blunted the sharpness of the force. (DoDvia AWM)




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examine just how little individual training these K Force soldiers received.The K Force scheme, announced on 2 August, but which began recruitingon 21 August, could afford to be selective taking only one in every fourapplicants. What would later be standardised as a 28-day course—in itselfextremely short by modern standards—the training conducted by the firstintakes comprised kit issues and medicals with only the most cursoryfamiliarisation and weapons revision. Indeed the first batch of K Forcevolunteers landed in Japan to reinforce 3 RAR on 31 August—havingcompleted, at most, 10 days of individual training in Australia.

The battalion had commenced some low-level collective training on 1August. The middle weeks of August consisted of company training and thereceiving of new vehicles. From 30 August to 11 September, a platoon’sworth of reinforcements was delivered daily by a Qantas flight from Australia.

By 12 September, 3 RAR was fully manned; on the same day, its incomingCO, Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Green, assumed command. Green remainedwith the battalion for a fortnight before leaving for Korea with the advanceparty. The rest of the battalion then spent the remaining thirteen daysreceiving demonstrations of the section, platoon and company in the attack

Figure 64. The timeline from commitment to deployment was about two monthswhich included receipt of reinforcements, lessons, individual and collective trainingand receipt of new weapons. (Author)



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and defence, taking ownership of six new 17-pounder anti-tank guns andcompleting a final four-day defensive operations exercise. In other words, forthe vast majority of the reinforcements, the sum total of collective trainingthey undertook prior to deploying to Korea was the four-day defensiveexercise; the main effort of the battalion in those final, hurried days being theassimilation of new equipment and reinforcements into the battalion.

‘Preventing the Bugger’s Muddle’: BCOF, Facilities and AccessThe existence of HQ BCOF was later considered a godsend that greatlyenabled the Commonwealth war effort in Korea. However during the earlystages of the war the headquarters was initially sidelined by the UK althoughit was well understood that it would need to use some of BCOF’s facilities.After Rowell wrote to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field MarshalSir William Slim, urging him ‘to put this business on the right basis andprevent what can only become a “buggers muddle”’, the two countriesquickly achieved a consensus on how the headquarters and its facilitieswould support the Commonwealth effort in Korea. Thus HQ BCOF assumedadministrative control of all British, New Zealand and Australian troops on 24October 1950. In December 1950, the organisation’s name changed tobetter reflect its new function, with Robertson becoming Commander-in-Chief of British Commonwealth Forces Korea or BCFK.

Australia’s substantial contribution to BCOF had been driven by its desire tobe taken seriously as an emerging Pacific power at the conclusion of theSecond World War. Moreover, BCOF proved to be a marked departure fromthe previous Australian way of war. Instead of just providing combat troopsto be largely supported by another country, BCOF necessitated that itmaintain substantial forces overseas in peacetime for the first time in itshistory, as well as take responsibility for policy, command, control andadministration for a Commonwealth force under overall US command. Itprovided a beta test for the Commonwealth framework that coalesced intoHQ BCFK, namely the non-operational command of a number of nationalcontingents, balanced with the acceptance of national command structuresthat allowed those national contingents freedom of action in relation to theconduct of their own administration and special requirements.

BCOF/BCFK became the staging and mounting base for most of theCommonwealth forces during the war as well as providing the‘Headquarters-Rear’ function. If proximity and access to Korea was crucial,then HQ BCOF had also proved valuable in another unexpected manner.




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Even before the war, Roberston had developed an excellent relationship withMacarthur as Supreme Commander Allied Powers. During the early days ofthe war, when diplomatic feelers were not yet attuned to US suggestions ofpossible Australian military commitments, Roberston, due to his proximity toMacarthur, had been aware of tentative US requests for Australian groundtroops and referred this information back to Canberra. By doing so, he gavethe Australian Government perspective and some early warning ofimpending requests to be expected via other channels. During the war, thisconduit of access to Macarthur was strengthened.

‘One Organisation and One Chain of Supply’: Systems, Supply andSustainabilityUnlike the RAAF and the RAN, and with the possible exception of the 17pounders, the Army did not deploy with what we now consider ‘majorsystems’. Australia relied on the US Navy troopship, USNS Aiken Victory tocarry 3 RAR from Japan to Korea. Qantas flights were used to deliver

Figure 65. 3 RAR prepares to board the USNS Aiken Victory to sail to Korea on a wet,cold and blustery day in Kure, Japan. The soldier in front carries half an M9A1 US-made ‘Bazooka’ anti-tank weapon. Even though Australia still used the British PIATanti-tank weapon in the early stages of the war, supplies of US-made equipmentsupplemented our inventory. (DoD via AWM)



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reinforcements to Japan. Moreover, the Australian Army went to the KoreanWar with largely Second World War-vintage weapons and equipment, asthere was no modernisation conducted in the immediate post-war years. Assuch the ‘major systems’ capability will not be explored any further.

For 3 RAR’s initial deployment into Korea, HQ BCOF mounted the force, butan Australian maintenance area in Pusan, Korea was established in parallel.It was co-located with the British advance base and was responsible formoving supplies into theatre as well as sourcing key items through the USsystem such as petrols, oils and lubricants (POL), heavy engineering supportand second-line transport. By February 1951, Pusan had becomecongested and, with no other Korean port deemed appropriate, the decisionwas made to withdraw most Commonwealth logistic elements back to Kure,Japan where the HQ BCFK was located.

Eventually the Commonwealth logistics and wider administrative apparatusconsisted of no less than a Headquarters-Forward and Headquarters-Main,a liaison group, a base hospital, a battle school, a forward maintenance areaand even a leave unit for soldiers visiting Tokyo.

HQ BCOF formed the cornerstone upon which the Commonwealthadministrative and logistics framework for the duration of the war was built.Where the national or Commonwealth systems could not provide certainitems—such as cold weather clothing during the first winter of the war—theUS augmented these systems.

‘A Watershed in Defence Co-operation’: Command, Doctrine andInter-operability.From the moment it set foot in Korea, 3 RAR benefitted from the familiarmodus operandi and standardised ways provided by its superior formation,the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade, allowing it to perform to its best.This happy circumstance remained and contributed to the inter-operabilityon dramatic display at Kapyong. This inter-operability reached its zenith inOctober 1951 where 3 RAR, now part of the newly formed 1stCommonwealth Division, fought the Battle of Maryang San.

It is worth examining the Commonwealth Division in some detail—eventhough it is not part of the 3 RAR deployment story. The Division combinedBritish, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Indian units in a standardtriangular British division comprising three brigades and divisional troops.




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Drawing on a common military and cultural heritage, deep linkages andemploying a near-common organisational and warfighting doctrine, the 1stCommonwealth Division had been formed as a means to project, protectand strengthen Commonwealth interests within the wider US-led alliance. Inthis way, the Division acted as a buffer between US I Corps and subordinateunits, filtering the American way of war into something more compatible withthe Commonwealth military temperament. Senior commanders alsoexercised national command and Major General Cassels, the divisionalcommander, was free to appeal to Commander-in-Chief BCFK if heperceived that the orders from his US superiors were contrary to his brief.

People-to-people links were manifested in a number of ways. There was alarge number of ex-British Army soldiers who had immigrated to Australia inthe K Force volunteers. Similarly, the choice of Cassels as the firstcommander was nothing less than inspired. Besides his extensiveoperational experience, he took command after having been posted toAustralia as a liaison officer on the UK defence staff. What’s more, theAustralian Army hand-picked its commanders for 3 RAR, ensuring thebattalion was led by the best possible officers. This includedunceremoniously dumping the incumbent CO just weeks before deploying infavour of the youthful, but highly experienced, Charlie Green. When Greenwas killed in action, the battalion second-in-command, Bruce Ferguson,stepped up. Ferguson had commanded a company in New Guinea and hadbrigade and divisional headquarters staff experience. His steady handguided the battalion through the defensive battles of mid-1951. Hissuccessor, Frank Hassett, had varied regimental and formation staff postingsduring the last war; famously he related his experience of planningoperations in New Guinea where he would ‘run the ridges’ as thefoundational concept for his plan of attack on Maryang San.

AssessmentSo was the young Australian Regular Army’s deployment to Korea asuccess? On many levels, yes. For example, 3 RAR was not rushed intoaction prematurely and therefore did not suffer a fate like some of the poorlytrained and equipped US units in the opening days of the war. What’s more,the Australian contribution was sustained and even increased by the end ofthe war. And let us not forget that in the end Spender got his Pacific Pact;the ANZUS Treaty was ratified in September 1951 in a large part due toAustralia’s willingness to support the US efforts in Korea. But the



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contribution to the Korean War also exposed deficiencies in strategicguidance, defence planning and organisation that would plague Australia forthe rest of the decade. Indeed traces of some of these deficiencies still lingertoday.

In terms of a FIC ’scorecard’, I’ll work in ascending order and finish on a highnote. The Australian Army provided nothing that could be considered majorsystems to the fight in Korea and is thus rated as a ‘not applicable.’ I assessthat the Army’s organisational structures and support in terms of cogent andcoherent strategic guidance was poor.

The Army would spend the rest of the 1950s simultaneously planning for abig conventional war in the Middle East with a mobilised army based on theCMF; a jungle-based counter-insurgency operation using the ARA in itsimmediate region; all the while grappling with the ramifications of thestrategic and tactical use of nuclear weapons. The one saving grace wasthat by 1950, Australia did possess a standing infantry force that coulddeploy overseas at short notice and thus meet the emergency in Korea.

But the Army could generate 3 RAR only after scouring its units in Australiafor volunteers and receiving the augmentation from the specially-enlisted

Figure 66. The author-generated ‘FIC Scorecard’ assesses the major Fundamental Inputs toCapability in the deployment of 3RAR to Korea at short-notice.




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soldiers as part of K Force. We may argue that the Army delivered exactlywhat was asked of it; Australia’s ground force commitment to Korea wasconsidered and limited, just enough to assuage the US. It was nevercountenanced that war would supersede or replace ongoingCommonwealth defence planning, whether for Malaya or the Middle East.Due to the stricture of the Defence Act, the CMF—the bulk of the Army—sustained by non-deployable national servicemen could not be used inKorea or Malaya. The Defence Act has been revised a number of times sinceKorea. The modern Army Reserve is not the old CMF. Nonetheless I suggestthat, other than the provision of individual reinforcements, the purpose androle of the part-time officer and soldier in any future substantial conflict, orindeed in peacetime generally, remains ill-formed and unclear.

I rate collective training and personnel as adequate. To deploy 3 RAR, theArmy stripped itself bare; and the K Force gambit, while ultimately providingshort-notice reinforcement for the Army, was only successful because therewas a large pool of experienced, but footloose, former soldiers on hand tocall upon. The situation may not have been as dramatic as ‘scraping thebucket’ as Spender characterised the manpower situation in July 1950, butit was not far off the mark. Likewise, 3 RAR, while not rushed into action,had received only the most truncated collective and mission-specifictraining. It could deploy only by relying on the latent skills in the RAR andtaking for granted that the skills and experience of K Force veterans—whomat that point had not been in uniform for five years—could be dusted off andrefreshed with only the most cursory training. But it worked, as theperformance of 3 RAR demonstrated.

Facilities, supply and command—the key pillars of access, endurance andpeople-to-people links respectively—worked well. HQ BCOF/BCFK’s utilityto the Commonwealth war effort was underpinned by its geographiclocation in Japan. Situated on the south-western peninsula of HonshuIsland, the headquarters and its services were only two hours flight time andeighteen hours sailing time from Korea.

This earlier Australian decision to pursue a greater role in regional affairs andtake stewardship of BCOF paid off handsomely. Under the terms ofoccupation, only those countries that had a role on the occupation forcecould base forces in support of Korean operations out of Japan. And thispay-off remains today. From this foundation, a status of forces agreementbetween the US and Japan—under the legal artifice of the UN Command-



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Rear—was formalised at the cessation of hostilities. This arrangementmeans that today—and should it be needed—the US and Australia retainaccess to Japan for the conduct of military operations in Korea.

With minor exceptions, the fact that the Commonwealth armies used thesame weapons, equipment and ammunition, assisted standardisation andstreamlined the Commonwealth supply system. In the midst of thisCommonwealth framework, each national contingent maintained its ownreinforcement and personnel records system. And with the modestAustralian commitment to Korea, the national supply chain was not undulystretched or challenged. The experience of augmenting nationally-sourcedsupplies with coalition-provided supply and support was noted as anexemplar for future overseas deployments.

Figure 67. LTCOL Green, CO 3RAR with BRIG Coad, COMD 27 Cmwlth Bde.LTCOL Green was 30 years of age when he commanded 3RAR after havingcommanded the 41st Battalion during WWII at age 25. Green was killed inNovember 1950 after two key actions when his battalion had moved to a restarea. An enemy shell exploded in a tree and he was seriously wounded, dyinglater in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. On that day, the Chinese entered thewar. (Army PR via AWM HOBJ1648)




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Common doctrine, shared military culture and organisation and deep intra-and inter-organisational linkages allowed 3 RAR to perform well within the27th Brigade and later as part of the 1st Commonwealth Division. Despitethe enmeshment within the Commonwealth military apparatus, the KoreanWar also gave Australia its first taste of coalition operations in a post-BritishEmpire world, where it had full autonomy over the decision to go to war inthe first instance, what its contribution would be and how those troopswould be used on operations.

3 RAR’s deployment to Korea posed the problems of any expeditionaryoperation—that is getting to the fight, to conduct the fight, supported by themeans to sustain the fight. And so if ‘Australia was not rich in standingarmies or immediately available resources, it had enough of both in quantityand eventual availability to achieve a persistent—albeit limited—deploymentduring the war, greatly facilitated by the assured, forward presence in Japan.It may be drawing a long bow to derive modern lessons from the KoreanWar, but we can say with certainty that with expeditionary operations,persistence combined with presence, provides options.

And so, no matter how dire the nation’s defences were in 1950, there wereenough options at Menzies’ and Spender’s, Rowell’s and Robertson’sdisposal to allow them to meet—and indeed beat—most of the challengesposed by 3 RAR’s deployment to the Korean War.

Figure 68. Manning their picquet, two soldiers of the RAR with Bren gun and Owengun and grenade on the parapet keep watch. These members are from 2RAR,3RAR’s sister battalion, that was committed to the fighting in 1953. (Army PR viaAWM HOBJ4479)


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Closing RemarksBrigadier Ian Langford, DSC and Bars

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t keepyou because I know many of youhave been here all day.

‘Firstly, I would like to acknowledgethe esteemed panel of global expertson our history and their insights intoour place in the region and Army’srole in our nation and society, but toalso acknowledge formally that noneof this happened by itself. And tomake the public declaration that whata gem the Army History Unit is forArmy, for the Australian DefenceForce and for the nation.

‘It is one of those parts of our Army’sDNA that we don’t think about every day. It is true, the ability to be able toapply the lens of history is a little like oxygen—you often don’t appreciate ituntil you don’t have it anymore. And so Tim, to you and your staff, thank youfor your efforts. Army is part of the wider ADF team contributing to ournation’s defence. And Army itself is a team of teams, each contributing toour Service’s part in that defence. The Army’s History Unit contributes byhelping us focus our thoughts and understanding, through the prism of


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historical contexts, the trials and tribulations we have experienced and thoselessons from which we can learn.

‘It is a significant achievement to get 300 people together in Canberra inNovember to talk about the serious business of warfighting with a particularfocus on land. Through the context of history, you give us insights into theworkforce of the future and how we can use those lessons of history tomake sure we win the next war, because given the advent of disruptivetechnology and the changing nature of the global system, there will be noPearl Harbour from which we can then recover—and subsequently win—when the next conflict comes. These historical lessons: the role of us in ourregion, the globalist perspective in Australia, in fact all the information thatwas talked about today, need to be taken and formed into the context thatwe must use as we plan for our national defence, and the future discoursethat will emerge.

‘I know many of you will have read the capstone documents of the currentChief of Army: Army in Motion, Accelerated Warfare, the Army Contributionto Defence Strategy, and I would encourage you to read those two or threetimes a year if you want an azimuth check on how we are responding tothose external drivers that require us to think about war’s enduring natureand to then understand its evolving character. With that in mind, think aboutthe historical contexts you have been given today. Think about thechallenges of operating in a maritime part of the world and the challenges ofbeing at the bottom of the South-East Asian archipelago in a region wheretrust matters. History is absolute in terms of people and society pre-judgingnations and their outcomes. We have an obligation to understand how itcomes together and then apply that understanding through the militaryinstrument of national power.

‘Our operating environment, especially within our region, is shaped by newtechnologies which are accelerating change. When I saw the imagery inProfessor Horner’s presentation that showed coast artillery, I immediatelythought about the advent of hyper-sonic weapons and the disruptive naturethat new technology brings with it. Consider this example: what effect doesa warhead travelling at Mach 19 coming towards your home unannouncedhave, when you don’t have the capacity or the time to determine whatpayload it is carrying, or ascertain how many of them are coming at you, andwhat is required to be able to respond? So using Professor Horner’shistorical context of coast artillery you think “disruptive technology” and what


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it means for us as warfighters in the current operating environment as wecome to terms with this accelerated form or warfare.

‘So I reiterate the point to express my humble appreciation and respect forthe expertise that was offered today; to acknowledge the efforts of theAAHU and the fact that it is responsible, on your behalf, for the maintenanceof Army’s living history, and to conclude by urging all of you who are inuniform today to make an effort to engage more meaningfully with thestewards of our history, to be part of the discourse, and to think about yourown contributions in the historical context. There are veterans of foreignwars that have been part of these case studies and examples that will bescrutinised in the years to come for the lessons that apply to future warfare.

‘Be part of that discussion: read, write and contribute and emulate some ofthe grand minds and deep talent that exists in the briefers we listened totoday and the subjects presented. We need to be continually in motion asan Army: always learning; always adapting; always transforming. Only bydoing this can we ever hope to be ready now and ready for whatever thefuture may bring.

‘Tim, once again, thank you. I wish all of you safe travels, and I’ll see youall—with a friend—about this time in two years.’


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2019 Chief of Army History Conference

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