By David Beaumont

This article, and the series which follows, are an updated version of a presentation given at the Australian National University titled ‘Logistics preparedness and mobilising the national support base: the effectiveness of ADF strategic logistics prior to Operation Warden 1999‘.

Part One , Two and Three can be found here.

When it comes to ADF operations in East Timor in 1999, the poor state of the ADF’s logistics capabilities and capacities is well known. Capability gaps were so obvious in post-operational analysis that a strong narrative about mis-investment in Defence emerged in the wake of Operation Warden and the corresponding INTERFET mission. Logistics capabilities were cut on a policy mandate, under the assumption that national support would be available when needed. This was, however, an assumption made for convenience at a time of peace rather than an assumption which truly assessed what the ADF might need if the worst situations happened.   

The capability gaps experienced during Operation Warden grew wider and wider with every one of the difficult years characterised by increasing levels of budgetary thrift since the mid-1980s. The ADF’s senior-most leaders were, in the main, reluctant to cut uniformed logistics capability despite supporting commercialisation. Passivity, however, was what degraded logistics capability as displayed as commercialisation took hold from 1991, and in the lack of energy given by the ADF to energetically establish a preparedness-based logistics approach that factored large-scale civilian contribution to its operations.

This situation was made worse by the absence of good data and analysis to inform determinations of the right balance between combat and logistics forces in the ADF. On one hand, the Services of the ADF extolled the importance of organic logistics capabilities in meeting the tasks set by strategic policy such as Defence of Australia 1987 and Australia’s Strategic Policy 1990, but their staff could not enunciate these risks to the satisfaction of planners (many of whom saw logisticians as being overly conservative and risk-averse) nor were the concepts produced by the Services sufficient justification to stall reforms. But while we can look at the fact that the ADF did not seem to have an effective way of defining its logistics needs based upon a concept, it’s hard to say whether it would have made any difference given trends in strategic guidance.

The second, major, change to the ADF’s strategic logistics capability during the 1990s came with a joint approach to operational and strategic logistics. This joint approach paralleled the development of the operational level of command in the ADF and reflected the long-term coalescing of the ADF since its founding. The consolidation of Service logistics commands into Support Command Australia (SCA) during the Defence Reform Program (DRP) was the ultimate expression of this trend, although other joint units such as the  1^st Joint Movement Group  – a strategic transportation and planning agency – did emerge over this time. A joint approach to logistics promised greater productivity and efficiency, allowing relevant agencies to coordinate the support needed.

The joint approach became increasingly appealing because it offered the potential for resource savings, however. After all, productivity and efficiency gains could be – and ultimately were – seen an opportunity for Defence to reinvest efficiencies gained into what were nominally considered combat functions. The creation of SCA precipitated a dramatic acceleration of commercialisation in the ADF up until an abrupt cessation after Op Warden. The five principal tasks given to its Commander had little to do with generating greater capacity through a joint approach to logistics, and instead sought business process efficiencies to enable rationalisation. He was required to take the five year old Commercial Support Program to the final Tier of Activity – Tier Three – which gave serious consideration to outsource every function performed by the newly formed Command.

It is striking to see that the positivity directed by researchers towards the joint operational approach in ADF which a has demonstrably improved the management of ADF operations, yet this same a joint approach was used to create the condition for cost-savings and budget cuts to logistics right up until Operation Warden.

The final lens used to examine the ADF’s performance from 1987-1999 is ‘testing and assessment’. We can all appreciate that the ADF of the time – as with that of today – is an organisation in wait. Being so, and to ensure it is ready when needed, a range of exercises – in the field and ‘command post-exercises’ held within an on-base environment, is essential.

Rear Admiral Henry Eccles, writing in Logistics in the National Defense about the exercises of the US military, once observed that ‘[t]oo seldom have the reports of these exercises included a realistic appraisal of the logistics problems and situations that would have been encountered under wartime conditions’. This is a fair characterisation of ADF military exercises – some of which were specifically designed to assess the ADF’s ability to leverage national support – and, I contend, was one of the reasons that potential problems were never treated by the ADF.

Lessons from exercises and operations did influence the progression of what would be known as the ‘national support agenda’, and discussions about how Defence might approach important preparedness issues such as mobilisation. This was especially the case in the late 1980s and while defensive self-reliance – especially in the context of defending the Australian continent – dominated strategic thought. However, as joint methods of command and control became a key focus for internal reform in the ADF, exercises tended to test operational headquarters and combat forces above all other functions. General Peter Gration, CDF in the early 1990s, says as much in the histories of the time.  

Exercises only began after logistics forces had moved in advance to prepare arrangements before the combat forces arrived for the main game. Historians observe that at no stage did the ADF properly test how responsive its logistics capabilities would be in a major crisis, nor whether factors such as outsourced logistics could be arranged quickly and as intended in strategic policy. Lessons were learned but most were incidental, issues thrown up during the conduct of exercises as equipment was not provided, transport delayed and repair parts ran low  – and not because of a deliberate intention of the ADF to assess strategic logistics and its influence on tactical activities.

Real-time, operational, tests of logistics capability did occur with increasing frequency in the 1990’s. Australia was embroiled in peacemaking and keeping, as well as a Gulf War commitment, with operations highlighting a range of areas in which improvements were needed. None of these operations, however, were of such a scale that logistics problems were anything other than a temporary inconvenience. This was especially the case with respect to how the ADF’s strategic logistics processes worked in conjunction with civilian logistics support, with the only interplay of note being with strategic transportation providers. There was little incentive or intention for change.

I will close with a short statement about important preparedness-based exercises conducted in late 1998-99. In 1998, as part of Crocodile 99 lead-up activities, various planners met for a series of tabletop activities to assess how the ADF ‘transitioned’ from its ‘present level of capability’ to an operational stateC99-related planning exercises found, yet again, that national support integration had not been achieved as desired long ago. Strategic logistics gaps were everywhere.

All three Services alerted the convenors of the hollowness in their combat capabilities, but the dependency of operational land-force logistics units such as the LSF – in an environment where a call-out was not going to occur to fulfil the needs of the scenario – was particularly severe. To support the combat operations that were being imagined for the fictitious EX C99 scenario would have required Army’s Logistics Support Force (and organisation which would later that year deploy virtually everything it had to support Op Warden) to be doubled in size and would have created such a demand for logistics personnel that it was ‘highly likely to undermine combat capability’ if trade-offs between combat and logistics forces had to be made.

There were no plans to leverage support from defence contractors in place, let alone doctrine as to how civilians could be properly integrated into a force engaged in combat operations; an alarming issue given the ADF and Department was in the final stages of the Commercial Support Program (CSP). NSD had yet to produce this doctrine, though had taken steps to publish guidelines for the employment of civilians in the ‘area of operations’ in either 2000 or 2001. Logistic planners lacked sufficient guidance on rates of effort, and it was impossible to accurately detail the logistics costs for supporting the mobilisation of a sizable force. Arrangements for industry support to operations were found to be lacking, which is understandable given the ADF couldn’t adequately define the logistics costs of mobilisation, although participants recognised that advance notice of operations would have greatly enhanced the capacity of the national support base to mount operations.

To read the same problems in the exercise outcomes of 1999 as those in 1989 speaks to the intractability of reform in the ADF, and Defence. Years of vacillation about the arrangements by which the ADF should draw upon the national support base for its operations, as well as a conspicuous failure to create workable strategic concepts to respond to Australian national security needs, came with considerable consequences as the ADF watched the security situation in East Timor decline in early 1999.