Defence

Strategy

Warfighting of the future

By Brooke McDonagh

Australian troops arrive at Al Muthanna Task Group's Camp Smitty. Photo by CPL Robert Nyffenegger

Defence's inaugural Joint Future Warfighting Conference was an important event in ensuring Defence maintains a professional and intellectual edge, according to Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove.

"Conferences like this are crucial to identifying issues, trends and capabilities when it comes to future war fighting," GEN Cosgrove said.

Strategy Group's Directorate of Future Warfighting organised the two-day conference in Canberra, which attracted several hundred delegates from across Australia and the world, including a number of important Defence personnel and industry representatives.

The theme of the conference was 'preparing for tomorrow's threats today' and the program included a variety of presentations on the future security environment, concepts for future warfighting, and the important aspect of linking concepts to capability development.

Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Hill opened the conference, saying this was an opportunity for a fluid exchange of knowledge and experience in an increasingly complex strategic background, and a timely reminder of the unique profession of the warfighter.

Senator Hill identified today's threats as relating primarily to terrorism and extremism. Key threats include the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, missile systems and other unconventional and asymmetric capabilities. He indicated that other issues of concern were transnational crime, piracy and illegal practices such as people smuggling, unauthorised resource extraction, international black money transfers and biological threats.

"Warfighting capabilities are one of the assets we can use to combat these threats, but more often than not, the response will also require other resources, thus the warfighter is seen as part of the solution, if not the whole." Senator Hill said.

"Our warfighting capability lies in the legacy of the generations that have gone before, (in) the doctrine and culture that has stood the test of time. To a willingness to adapt and meet new military challenges and a constant upgrading of military capability."

The Minister acknowledged that most warfighting in the future will be in coalitions requiring Defence to be interoperable in form and in practice. Senator Hill reiterated Australia's commitment to new generations of aircraft, ships, tanks and other fighting platforms, recognising that jointness within the force has a multiplier effect.

GEN Cosgrove delivered the keynote address. He covered his vision of the ADF in 2020 as a seamless joint manoeuvre force able to exploit real time links between our sensors and all our weapon systems. The CDF also spoke on the ADF's contribution to the extraordinarily complex task of countering terrorism, which demands collaboration between the services, a joint response, and a cooperative, integrated approach across government and between nations.

Delegates also got an insight into various international approaches to future warfighting, and the concept - capability linkage from international speakers representing the United States, UK, Singapore and France.

Industry's contribution included retired American MAJGEN Dean Cash, representing Raytheon, the major sponsor of the conference, who presented a unique and challenging view on concept development and experimentation.

In concluding the conference Director- General Military Strategy, Air Commodore Mark Lax said the conference had been a major success, and is now planned to be a biennial event.

"The conference added significantly to discussion on Defence's future war fighting concepts, and reinforced the ADF's already strong reputation as an innovative and strategically focussed organisation."

This conference is just one of Military Strategy Branch's key activities for the year. The branch develops and evaluates military strategies, develops future warfare concepts, and reviews strategic doctrine, and military strategic policy. This guidance helps steer the future development of the ADF. The Branch contributes advice on strategic priorities and the broad parameters for the development and use of military capabilities to achieve them. It also conducts regular strategic war games to support the Senior Command Group of the ADF.

The Directorate of Future Warfighting (DFW) is part of Military Strategy Branch, within Strategy Group. DFW is a joint organisation that leads the work to define the Australian Defence Force of the future. It produces joint concepts that underpin the ADF's concept-led and capability-based approach to modernisation and validates these concepts through the joint experimentation program.

DFW has been responsible for the production of the Australian Illustrative Planning Scenarios (AIPS), the Future Warfighting Concept, and Network Centric Warfare publications. The Directorate has recently completed the Future Strategic Environment scan and is currently developing the Australian Joint Operations Concept, including work on Command and Control, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

DFW, with assistance from DSTO, designs and conducts the joint experiments that validate these future concepts. The output of this work is used to refine the concepts and will provide a part of the strategic guidance to the capability development process.

A transcript of Senator Hill's opening address was featured in the April edition of Defence Magazine.

[ top of page ]