Defence

Feature

Punching above our weight

By LTCOL Christopher Holcroft

Major Nick Floyd (right) meets with Commander 2 Brigade, 5 Iraqi Army Division, Colonel Saman Talabani, in Baqubah, Iraq. Colonel Talabani is a graduate of Australia's Command and Defence Strategic Studies (CDSS) course at the Australian Defence College.
Photo supplied by MAJ Nick Floyd

Australia's contribution to the Coalition effort in Iraq may be small in terms of numbers of personnel but its value should not be underestimated, according to Major (MAJ) Nick Floyd.

Australia's involvement in the South-East Asian region in the past decade has contributed to a successful approach adopted by Australian Defence Force (ADF) servicemen and women currently operating in the Middle East.

Major Nick Floyd, recently embedded as a Coalition Planner for the Multi-National Corps—Iraq (MNC–I), based in Baghdad, noted that Australia's efforts in the region are not well known to many Americans, but those that are aware hold our contribution in high regard.

'The ADF's work in the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia has been probably more wedded to reconstruction, joint inter-agency cooperation, and the development and building of local security forces over the past decade, compared to the US Forces' experience over the same period of time,' MAJ Floyd said.

MAJ Floyd observed that the MNC–I staff structure is now geared to direct the full spectrum of military power. 'The American military employs an Effects Cell (based on the Corps Artillery HQ), which looks at the coordination and delivery of all effects, both lethal and non-lethal, or kinetic and non-kinetic. Our experience has been non-kinetic, whereas the vast majority of the American military experience has been quite kinetic,' he said.

During his time in Iraq as part of Operation Catalyst MAJ Floyd worked with planners from all branches of the United States, United Kingdom, Ukrainian and South Korean military services in the MNC–I headquarters. He was involved in future planning, with a focus on the development and employment of the newly emerging Iraqi Army in the security of Iraq.

Operation Catalyst, which currently comprises about 1320 personnel, is the ADF's contribution to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Iraq. It commenced on 16 July 2003, following on from Operation Falconer. Working with the nascent Iraqi Government, the ADF continues to contribute to Multinational Force efforts to develop a secure and stable environment in Iraq and assist national recovery programs.

MAJ Floyd said Operation Catalyst has provided Australia with unequivocal ongoing justification for the development of a different approach to how we would fight any future wars.

'In the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO) we are using, and being exposed to, scenarios pertinent to the new complex warfighting concepts, which the Australian Army is about to put into doctrine,' he said.

'This is being supported by the Hardening and Networking the Army initiative, which has recently been approved by Cabinet.

'It's about the way we look at operating in a complex environment—appreciating the complexities of the human environment, the information environment and the geographic environment. Our emerging doctrine is developing an approach to operate within such environments.'

MAJ Floyd said his planning processes while working in HQ MNC–I were undoubtedly very similar to those carried out by planners at Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC).

He observed that at MNC–I the Plans Cell focuses on future plans, carrying out deliberate planning and contingency planning, and conducting more immediate planning simultaneously.

'For instance, an Operations Order was recently released, detailing how the Corps (MNC–I) would prosecute the operation in Iraq over the next six to 12 months,' MAJ Floyd said.

'The Order was the product of a very long and deliberate planning process which involved the congress of a number of planning teams. These teams went through a complete military appreciation process—what the Americans call the Military Decision-Making Process.

'These worked through all the steps: Mission Analysis; Course of Action Development; Course of Action Analysis; Decision; and Execution. At each step a series of joint planning teams were convened, where a range of stakeholder and other issues were then discussed.

'All the salient issues were brought together, synthesised and presented to the Commander, who then provided guidance on a step-by-step basis. The plan was finally decided on, and then the Operations Order was published.'

'At the same time, any number of more immediate planning actions were developed, approved by the Commander and staffed for execution by the Ops staff,' he added.

MAJ Floyd said planning efforts within MNC–I also incorporate an ever-growing input from the Iraqi Ground Forces Command (IGFC)—a recently formed HQ that is similar in function to the Australian Army's Land Command, but which also acts as the Corps HQ for all 10 Iraqi Army Divisions. While at this stage the Iraqis are subordinate to MNC–I because their HQ staff and processes are still under development, they will stand up under their own steam in the fullness of time.

MAJ Floyd's duties also included acting as a 'partner' to his Iraqi counterparts in the G-5 Plans cell of the IGFC, affording him an intimate insight into, and direct role in, the development of the IGFC.

When MAJ Floyd arrived in Iraq, he joined the MNC–I Plans team of around 30 Action Officers—mainly majors. The majority were graduates of the various US advanced Staff Colleges—the School of Advanced Military Studies, the School of Advanced Warfighting, and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies—so most of them were very much high-flying, hard-hitting 'Jedi Knight planners'.

'There's good reason for having this calibre of officers in the Plans Cell. You want the best sort of guys over there to ensure the plans are as well conceived and as well articulated as possible,' MAJ Floyd said.

He observed a number of differences between planning processes when comparing the ADF with our American counterparts.

'Our Military Appreciation Process (MAP) was broadly based on the Military Decision-making Process of the Americans,' MAJ Floyd said.

'We modified it considerably to fit the Australian way of warfighting. In particular I noticed the American system was more staff-driven, whereas within our doctrine, the Commander's intent is given far more prominence.

'Our MAP gives the staff a much clearer left and right of arc, so we benefit from that by ensuring we have more clear guidance to proceed in a particular direction. The British model is even more Commander-led, and the Americans are more staff-led.

'I think we have something that's a little more approachable and amenable to the Australian military psyche,' MAJ Floyd said.

The other key departure from familiar Common Staff System doctrine was the way in which Plans, Future Operations and Current Operations were all part of an enlarged 'Three' Cell ('Operations' in Common Staff System nomenclature) within the MNC–I structure.

MAJ Floyd said one of the benefits for him from Operation Catalyst—and specifically from the way in which the MNC–I operates—has been to observe the workings and be part of a Corps HQ that is completely and utterly focused on fighting a campaign.

He said his experience in Operation Catalyst had been absolutely invaluable because it allowed him to see how a Corps HQ operates.

'You can do much in theory. However, participating in a land-centric campaign conducted with Australians fulfilling a number of key roles has given me a wonderful opportunity to understand how the Americans approach warfighting at the operational level,' he said.

'Also it has been great to see how the British and, to a lesser extent, other Coalition forces have been injected into the planning process.

'I've been lucky in that my previous posting was in Army's Strategy and International Engagement Directorate, so I was apprised as to how our Coalition partners' warfighting concepts have been developing of late.

'This has included developments like Transformation for the US Army, and some of the emerging concepts the British have engineered, such as their FLOC [Future Land Operating Concept] and FRES [Future Rapid Effects System].

'I was broadly across those sorts of things before I went to the MEAO so I went without these things being an absolute mystery to me,' he said.

MAJ Floyd said it was very informative to work in a Coalition environment and see how the Americans think and approach the campaign, and operate within their work rates. He believes that having embedded soldiers in the Corps HQ will continue to provide experience that can't be replicated in Australia.

'Just because we are small in comparison to the American war effort in Iraq, don't underestimate what the Australians bring to the table,' MAJ Floyd remarked.

'Australia is a minor Coalition partner in terms of numbers and we can't hope to match the American war effort. However, our own unique military experience has been in far more cooperative actions, which have seen us working with a range of different militaries in addition to our traditional allies, the US and the UK.

'Also, our military approach has worked well with other regional partners, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand. The fact that we almost always operate in a coalition environment helps us to be better attuned to other actors in the battlespace, and more culturally aware when working with other countries,' MAJ Floyd said.

'I have little doubt that the value Australia brings to the table lies in the calibre of the personnel it injects into the Coalition—from the tactical through the operational to the strategic level, and I was fortunate enough to be in a position that transcended and interface at all three levels.

'Time and again, I saw the benefit of frank and fearless advice from embedded Australian officers in shaping and refining plans and practices—advice grounded not only on a professional education and experiential basis, but tempered and shaped by our collective institutional operational experience.

'It's this composite framework that leads us to value, and to factor for, the human, the non-rational and the non-kinetic aspects of warfighting. This doesn't mean we can be complacent about what or who we provide to the Coalition: on the contrary, we must not only continue to ensure we embed high-quality staff on coalition operations, but also continue to harvest, understand and reinvest all of the operational lessons we have learnt in the past 15 years into our philosophy and approach to warfighting in today's complex battlespace,' MAJ Floyd concluded.

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