National Defence: Defence Strategic Review was released to the public on 24 April 2023, to a defence ‘community’ only too eager to scrutinise the document for its consequences on the ADF’s capability mix. The paper, of course, covers a swathe of topics and concepts. It describes the reasons that a change to Defence’s pattern of business is necessary while doing, as reviews must do, extolling that Australia’s circumstances have changed. Unfortunately, and because there is only so much material that can be covered in a single document, National Defence’s readers might be left uncertain as to what the topics and concepts of the document mean, and what must be done by Defence accordingly.
There is an important emphasis on the ADF’s logistics capabilities, functions and concepts in National Defence – more than usual when compared to other Government policy documents of recent years. Moreover, the traditional focus on logistics through the lens of capability acquisition and sustainment has – perhaps – transitioned a more helpful narrative concerning the role of logistics and national-level preparedness. However, and because the overall conversation about logistics is so muted, with so little written, and it being a topic people tend to think is quite technical and conceptually uninfluential, it’s easy for those conversing about National Defence to fail to engage with the logistics implications of the paper.
Logistics and force posture
National Defence requires the ADF to develop a northern Australia network of bases ‘to provide a platform for logistics support, denial and deterrence’ (p19). This requirement centres on the mechanics of basing by focussing on air bases, shipyards and barracks – all of which must be dispersed and part of a resilient network with in-built redundancy to enable integrated defence. Fuel and ammunition feed into the discussion of force posture, and the importance of exercises to build ‘preparedness including minimum viable improvements in key areas’ is also clear (pp 78-80).
Logistics is the connective tissue of force posture, ensuring the viability of forces by the timely (and time-dependant) provision of personnel, materiel, stores and supplies. Force posture is underpinned by supply chains, distribution and the technical systems – military and civilian – that ensure that the right ‘stuff’ gets to the right location. It is underpinned by stockholding concepts that ensure sufficient resources are kept, transport management plans and policies and concepts for working with national partners when needed. Force posture without the logistics arrangements to allow such connections to be made is little more than window-dressing with respect to strategic threats. In other words, it is imprudent to rush forward to force posture outcomes if the logistics arrangements required cannot be produced.
It will also be critical for the ADF to consider concepts relating to force projection: from receiving forces at particular locations, equipping and preparing them for deployment or movement, to consolidating forces at forward locations relative to threats, and the command and control measures required to ensure this happens in a well-coordinated and efficient manner. Points and ‘mounting’ locations should be chosen to act as places where logistics control can be exerted at a time of crisis; where headquarters can manage the influx of civilian and military resources necessary to support subsequent military operations.
The relationship between logistics and preparedness
National Defence offers a clear signpost that there is a need for Defence, if not the Nation, to reconsider how it views preparedness and its relationship with logistics (p81). The idea of accelerated preparedness speaks to concepts such as mobilisation, force scaling and force expansion. These are ideas that are fundamentally logistics-related in their nature and is counter to the tendency to assume that having forces available at the outset of a conflict is a realistic measure of overall preparedness. The rotational models of force preparedness used to sustain operations in the Middle-east over the last two decades have tended to obscure the logistics problems which must be resolved by the Government, and ADF, in the years ahead. That there should be a ‘reshaping and growth of the national and Defence logistics and health workforce … to improve national resilience’ is recognition of stranglehold of logistics on what the ADF can and cannot do at a time of need (p81).
Importantly, the idea of Accelerated Preparedness, recognises the essentiality of the national support base, and national resilience, to military performance. Guided-weapons and fuel enterprises are the tip of a proverbial iceberg with respect to the type of national support arrangements needed to insure logistics sovereignty. However, and in my view more importantly, Accelerated Preparedness requires an investment in the ability of the ADF to enunciate the circumstances under which engagement on strategic logistics issues should be managed, and relationships developed.
The idea of national support should not surprise readers of Logistics in War, it being a topic of frequent discussion topic on this site and raised in a submission to the Defence Strategic Review. National support speaks to a consolidated, preparedness-centric, approach to strategic logistics in the ADF, but also presents a substantial opportunity for the ADF to reinforce its strategic logistics ‘muscles’ by better integrating what it does in the context of whole-of-nation logistics capability and capacity. Although National Defence recommends – in principle – the creation of a National Support Division, what will be most important in the immediate future is how responsibilities and accountabilities within the ADF – for national support is an ADF responsibility as it deals with its preparedness requirements – help the ADF logistical prepare.
Theatre logistics system
A section on ‘theatre logistics’ in National Defence is arguably more practically relevant to ADF in the short term, though to resolve capability gaps in ADF logistics capability and capacity will require a long-term program. The recognition that Government, and Defence, must reinvest in Defence logistics and health capacity is instructive to a more serious view of preparedness than in the past – as alluded to above. Theatre-level logistics is described in terms of the military supply-chain, with important national support overtones; it will be important that strategic and theatre logistics approaches are developed in a unified fashion. This is, of course, a normal goal for logistics planners to have.
One of the habitual challenges to the reform of logistics relates to how it is managed, let alone funded, in military organisations. As prospective logistics systems are complex and complicated, with multiple owners who have different resourcing and management priorities, it can be difficult for militaries to coherent approach the redevelopment of their logistics processes. It is possible that the emphasis given to guided weapons and fuel creates another wedge between organisations, and a potential source of friction to be managed in a crisis. However, that National Defence identifies two Commanders – Joint Logistics and Joint Health – as requiring ‘adequate resourcing’ can only be seen as an important reinforcement of their role in the context of ADF preparedness.
Conclusion
There is much to infer from National Defence: Defence Strategic Review, and important pieces of context missed in the public version of the document. However, at face value, the direction given to Defence clearly associates logistics with Defence preparedness and even national resilience. This is extremely positive, especially in comparison to other policy statements issued over the last two decades. Naturally, there is a way to go to realise the intention of the document as many sceptical commentators point out. From the perspective of a logistician, however, it’s safe to say they’re at an important interlude.
A change in the way Defence preparedness and logistics is being considered in reviews is underway. Richard Betts, in Military readiness: concepts, choices and consequences describes preparedness as coming from a choice about the balance between ‘investment’ and ‘consumption’ (Betts, p 45)[1]. National Defence, in many ways, is recognising that Defence must rebalance its approach to preparedness to the latter from the former. Ideas such as ‘minimum viable capability’ based on capability delivery in the ‘shortest possible time’ are incredibly significant for planners and logisticians in Defence to grasp (p 20). It is unlikely that a transfer of funds and interest from acquisition to methods to scale and improve sustainability will be all that is needed; there is a cultural and change management aspect to the reform of Defence logistics that will be required to fully leverage the time available.
As we conceptualise how Defence works to better prepare itself for the threats considered in National Defence, it is worth remembering the idea of logistics preparedness. Anything that is developed must be done so with the appropriate plans and policies in mind, the organisation structured appropriately and resourced needed, with logistics capabilities well resourced and integrated, and with a regime of exercising and assessments conducted to ensure that the ADF is responsive, and its operations are sustainable. This must be achieved while Defence reforms in the wake of National Defence, and in a state of heightened preparedness. There is nothing in National Defence that will be easy to implement, or in its implementation be free of angst. Nonetheless, the document does present an opportunity to achieve important – vital – outcomes for Defence that must be taken. The success of ADF operations in the future may depend on it.
National Defence: Defence Strategic Review can be downloaded here.
[1] Betts, R., Military readiness: concepts, choices and consequences, The Brookings Institution, USA, 1995
This is the third and final part of a presentation given at the Australian – New Zealand Defence Logistics Conferenceduring June 2023. The theme of the conference was ‘supply-chain resilience’.
National Defence: Defence Strategic Review, the Australian Government response to the ‘independently conducted’ Defence Strategic Review (DSR) was released to the public on 24 April 2023, and an Australian defence ‘community’ primarily interested on its recommendations for the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) capability mix. The review, and statement which followed, portends sweeping changes to the Defence Integrated Investment Plan and to the force structure and the roles of the ADF’s Services consequently. Our understanding of what it entails suffers for the fact that many of us will never see the full, classified, version of the DSR prepared in advance of the Government’s policy statement.
What is particularly important, however, is the emphasis given to the ADF’s logistics capabilities, functions, and concepts in creating the conditions for a better-prepared ADF. National Defence’s emphasis on logistics is clearly more than usual when compared to other Government policy documents of recent years, though this emphasis comes from an exceptionally low base. Supply chain resilience is, of course, a part of this narrative – as we are reminder every time we hear about guided-weapons or military fuels. Although the ADF’s logistics requirements extend beyond such critical supplies, National Defence suggests that the traditional focus on logistics through the lens of capability acquisition and sustainment has – perhaps – transitioned a more helpful narrative concerning the role of logistics and national-level preparedness.
Logistics and force posture
As I mentioned earlier in this series, logistics is the connective tissue of force posture, ensuring the viability of forces by the timely provision of personnel, materiel, stores and supplies. Force posture is underpinned by supply chains, distribution and the technical systems – military and civilian – that ensure that the right ‘stuff’ gets to the right location. National Defence requires the ADF to develop a northern Australia network of bases ‘to provide a platform for logistics support, denial and deterrence’ (p19). While this requirement centres on the mechanics of basing by focussing on air bases, shipyards and barracks – all of which must be dispersed and part of a resilient network with in-built redundancy to enable integrated defence. Fuel and ammunition feed into the discussion of force posture, and the importance of exercises to build ‘preparedness including minimum viable improvements in key areas’ is also clear (pp 78-80).
Importantly, force posture must be underpinned by stockholding concepts that ensure sufficient resources are kept, and transport management plans and policies and concepts for working with national partners when needed. The Australian community must be engaged such that logistics plans are developed conscious of local constraints on the staging or mounting of forces, and a full spectrum of Government agencies involved to ensure ‘resilience’ results.
Secondly, force posture is really about force projection, and is not only concerned with the permanent housing of forces. Debates about force posture are meaningless if they do not consider factors such as the receiving of forces at particular locations, equipping and preparing them for deployment or movement, to consolidating forces at forward locations relative to threats, and the command and control measures required to ensure this happens in a well-coordinated and efficient manner.
During Operation Warden, as per part two of this series, ADF force posture – despite its emphasis on operations in Australia’s north – was not complemented with the logistics infrastructure. Forces concentrating in Darwin rapidly exhausted civilian and military sources of supply, and there was insufficient administrative infrastructure to support their mounting. Supply would be assured by unit CO’s who, sending staff to local hardware stores and other shops, would obtain what was needed there and then. Naturally, supply ran out in Darwin quite quick!
Points and ‘mounting’ locations should be chosen to act as places where logistics control can be exerted at a time of crisis – thus avoiding situations such as this. Designated commanders can manage the influx of civilian and military resources necessary to support later military operations. As mentioned earlier, these sites work as ‘pressure release valves’ for supply-chains during crises and allow forces to prepare before moving – or reconstitution if needed. In the case of Operation Warden, a local operational headquarters – HQ NORCOM – was made responsible for coordination which in turn greatly improved the logistics support available.
Theatre logistics system
A section on ‘theatre logistics’ in National Defence is arguably more practically relevant to ADF in the short term, though to resolve capability gaps in ADF logistics capability and capacity will require a consistent pattern of investment over a long-term program. There will be pressure to deliver results in the short term – the DSR portends a great acceleration of the ADF’s logistics programs. There are risks within this acceleration.
Finally, because militaries tend to underinvest in logistics capabilities during times of peace, a sudden burst of financial profligacy can result in hasty decisions that result in the inefficient – potentially ineffective – allocation of funds to resolve what is believed to be the most critical investment issue at any one time. Before money is committed, deep analysis of the logistics system must be undertaken – an analysis a disjointed approach to capability investment can affect the way in which the components of the overall logistics system works – creating inefficiencies and affecting the realisation of effectiveness.
Secondly, any investment must be matched with the right policies, plans and concepts that will ensure a generational shift logistics preparedness and resilience. As prospective logistics systems are complex and complicated, with multiple owners who have different resourcing and management priorities, it can be difficult for militaries to coherently approach the redevelopment of their logistics processes and in the development of capability.
The recognition that Government, and Defence, must reinvest in Defence logistics and health capacity is instructive to a more serious view of preparedness than in the past – as alluded to above. These capabilities are fundamental to ‘unlocking’ the ADF’s true potential. However, it is important to take the time and effort to ensure the investment is appropriately spent – for any investment in logistics resilience tends to be – unfortunately – inconsistently expressed.
The relationship between logistics and preparedness
The idea of accelerated preparedness contained with the DSR speaks – with a touch of drama mind you – to concepts such as mobilisation, force scaling and force expansion. These are ideas that are fundamentally logistics-related in their nature, but also reflect a view that the assumption that having forces available at the outset of a conflict is not as realistic measure of overall preparedness as it might be.
That there should be a ‘reshaping and growth of the national and Defence logistics and health workforce … to improve national resilience’ is important. We can infer from this statement that the authors of the DSR did not think that ‘national resilience’ was where it should be.
The idea of Accelerated Preparedness, recognises the essentiality of the national support base, and national resilience, to military performance. Guided-weapons and fuel enterprises are the tip of a proverbial iceberg with respect to the type of national support arrangements needed to insure logistics sovereignty. These initiatives are part of developing supply chain resilience. However, Accelerated Preparedness requires an investment in the ability of the ADF to enunciate how national and international strategic logistics issues are arranged, how such arrangements are managed, and what relationships should be leveraged. This will be done so through a reinvigorated idea of ‘national support’.
It’s relevant to note that the concept of national support actually has an international component – depending upon how you view what the ‘national support base’ is. It depends on integration beyond it – older definitions of ‘national support base’ which we might include in our study of the concept include the role of alliance partners, coalitions, international supply-chains and other sources of support in creating a ‘resilience’ centric outcome. Arrangements and agreements – such as will be discussed this week between participants of this conference – help develop mutually beneficial supply and support arrangements that complement, if not enhance, what we can do alone.
Interoperable logistics creates strategic resilience and responsiveness. However, it will not be improved unless we take time to resource its achievement. It is important that interoperability should now take an increasingly strategic tone at a time where we are preparing for the next operation. Improved strategic logistics interoperability is not a way to avoid the development costly logistics capabilities for favour of establishing dependant relationships. It’s a way that partners can support one another more readily, giving them options before, during and post-crisis that they may not have had before. In a particularly competitive strategic environment, this approach is not only important but patently necessary, and a means to gain advantage over potential adversaries.
Conclusion
It is quite clear that logistics, preparedness and resilience are mingling in a broad conversation about the modes and means of military power at a time of substantial geopolitical change. Supply chain resilience is a critical strategic concern for militaries to monitor, but it is also a fundamental component to the way in which militaries create, prepare and deploy forces. Naturally, our current interest in the topic is well deserved.
It is important that we work through the semantics of the matter as the ADF and NZDF reorient themselves. Doing so may engender further conversations that ultimately change the preparedness cultures that were created to support the operations of a different time.
Resilience is about adaptability, resistance to shock, and about options for subsequent operational action. It is about capability depth, supporting systems, logistics and capacity – and in the context of this conference – a supply chain network as a buffer. In an operational context, resilience speaks to the capacity of a force to maintain its freedom of action, and for commanders the freedom of decision.
Resilience in logistics, and most certainly in terms of supply chains, requires redundancy and a good sense of risks which could be realised at a time of crisis. The ability to identify what is happening where, to vector in support from different sources, so to reconstitute support where supply chains have fractured or under strain, characterises resilient supply chains as much as it characterises resilient military logistics.
Established effectively, sources of resilience, create considerable strategic advantages. A resilient nation might be more speedily mobilised, or adapt to strategic surprise in the context of a range of contingencies. A military with reliable access to what it needs can respond quicker to a broader range of events and sustain its operations for much longer. Resilience is also underpinned by interoperability and logistics arrangements between partners with shared interests.
As we consider how our respective militaries work to better prepare themselves for future challenges, it is worth remembering the idea of logistics preparedness. Anything that is developed must be done so with the right plans and policies in mind, the organisation structured appropriately and resourced needed, with logistics capabilities well-resourced and integrated, and with a regime of exercising and assessments conducted to assure responsiveness. These factors are also a good way of looking at supply-chain resilience – let alone any other factor – that might significantly impact an approach to logistics at a time of crisis.
Thankyou for reading this series: Part one and Part two can be found at the links.
This is the second part of a presentation given at the Australian – New Zealand Defence Logistics Conferenceduring June 2023. This conference convened to discuss supply chain resilience at a time of strategic competition.Part one can be found here.
Supply chains move and flex where demand exists. It is the role of the military logistician to govern the network of this lifeblood, for it determines how a force deploys, moves, and changes its scale and scope of tasks. Supply chains are the manifestation of the projection of military power with permanence; supply chains determine how far a force can go, how organised it will be and create both constraints and opportunities for commanders.
In 2003, as the US Army sped through Iraq, it was the tightening noose of an extended supply chain – one that many believed should be lean before the conflict – which forced an operational pause on the way to Baghdad. This was not only because of a lack of munitions, but military staples. Reports after the war sought a rethinking of assumptions about lean logistics and its relevance in contemporary, large scale, conflict.
Twenty years later, a completely unprepared military force attempted a shorter-range but ultimately similar push to a capital city – this time in Europe. The Russian advance to Kiev was a logistics shambles, a perfect example of how a failure to manage supply, maintenance and other aspects of logistics detracts from operational performance. It most certainly contributed to the stalling of the Russian advance and created vulnerabilities that the Ukrainian defence force exploited.
Some might argue that I am conflating the term ‘supply chain’ a bit, and that I am downplaying the role of agency of commanders and strategic decision makers in the way militaries tend to be prepared or deployed. There is nothing stopping a commander from deploying a force without the right equipment and the support, and we should not forget that militaries often operate well beyond the capacity for what they are prepared for in order to achieve an advantage. However, this should not prevent us from doing our best to ensure militaries are logistically prepared and resilient.
Though our attention has been drawn to the ‘flashing klaxon’ that supply chain resilience, it is far from being a new issue. Signs of a system under strain have appeared in the paucity of certain small arms ammunition during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, body armour in East Timor, a litany of small-scale logistics issues which appeared in regional missions in the 1990s, and the debate about the sale of Australian Defence industry in the 1980s.
I’m sure, however, you will agree that the times warrant a revision of how we consider militaries to be prepared.We have been part of a world which has defined and measured supply-chains, if not logistics, as being effective because they are efficient – rather than because they are dependable. When this world has talked about resilience, it has been a conversation primarily focussed on developing plans for actions that should be undertaken post-disruption rather than whether treating preparedness problems in advance, or creating the organisations that are responsive in a crisis, adapt to regain the initiative, before delivering the desired result.
We have been part of a world which has defined and measured supply-chains, if not logistics, as being effective because they are efficient – rather than because they are dependable. When this world has talked about resilience, it has been a conversation primarily focussed on developing plans for actions that should be undertaken post-disruption. Today’s focus should be on treating preparedness problems in advance, or creating the organisations that will be responsive in a crisis, can adapt to regain the initiative, before delivering the desired result.
It is important to note that while we often use term ‘resilience’ – even in terms of being prepared – it hasn’t yet settled into commonplace use in terms of Western military doctrine. In the ADF, the way we think about capability orients us to viewing our preparedness problems through the lens of what we can do in the present to ensure the right capabilities are available, at the right time for the right purpose in the future. To talk about preparedness is to talk about force structure, scalability, mobilisation and what constitutes realised capability that are ready for deployment.
Preparedness choices depend upon money and time, as much as they depend upon planners determining the operational need. In Australian Defence, the capability and operating budgets – irreconcilable, at times, lines of finding – create an arbitrary wedge between structural preparedness for the future (capability) and preparedness in a shorter timeframe (sustainment and operating costs etc.). These, in turn, determine many of the logistics requirements which underpin the development of military power.
It is extremely difficult to prepare for the short term while the focus is on long-term capability development when trade-offs are germane in a preparedness process constrained by the reality of a limited budget. The demands placed upon the systems that support military preparedness depend upon what outcomes are desired an in what timeframe. This applies to supply-chains as much as any other factor.
The Commandant of the USMC, General Berger, and the US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Force Readiness, Kimberley Jackson, recently outlined that the US military required a substantial change in its readiness culture on the blog War on the Rocks. Conscious of the ‘art’ required in readiness decision-making, they advocate a new ‘strategic readiness framework’ to aid decision-making to better address the consequences of capability decisions on preparedness and the ‘cumulative effect of decisions’ on factors that arguably affect the ‘resilience’ of the force.
In Australia, we’re about to undertake a substantial rethink about how we prepare. This largely began in a burst of revelation in 2020, driven by a strategic policy update, the Australian Government and Defence proclaimed that the idea of ‘warning time’ was not fit for purpose in what would first seem a significant shake-up to preparedness planning. This concept of warning time was already on shaky ground; not necessarily because of the view that certain signals could be employed to trigger mobilisation activities, but because we employed ‘warning time’ as a fixed number (in this case ten years) and did not have a detailed plan to act when strategic circumstances changed.
A preparedness philosophy based around warning time was a feature of Australian defence planning in the 1980’s and 1990’s. However, the ‘defence of Australia’ doctrine which emblemised this preparedness approach was subject to withering critique in the early 1990s for failing to properly address the logistics activities of mobilisation. Government accepted war-stocks were lacking, and advocated for the development of national support concepts and improved civil-military interaction. However, because ‘warning time’ was believed to be available, only half-hearted attempts to develop mobilisation concepts were undertaken.
Then again, defence preparedness planning has always been characterised by mental workarounds and human behaviours amid a lack of investment as much as it has by a failure to act on triggers. Logistics problems – like the resilience of supply-chains – tend to be ignored while the going is good. When high-cost capability projects gain the interest of Defence Ministers, those activities related to sustainment and different budgets tend to fall by the wayside.
Furthermore, militaries, conscious of the cost to realise preparedness objectives, have a habit of optimistically producing preparedness concepts based on assumptions about what can logistically achieved prior to an operation.
Preparedness approaches concerning warning time are replete with assumptions about what national support (such as civil transportation or stores and equipment) can be obtained to fill deficiencies, the assumption of limitless capacity of global defence industry to provision war-stocks, and the infinite flexibility of supply-chains to adapt to the sudden demand of defence mobilisation.
History shows how little time we really get to act, assuming signals of future war are ignored or fail to engender activity in militaries. One study of twentieth-century conflicts since 1939 found that the average time between the ‘first indication of war and the firing of the first shots has been 14.3 months’, with smaller-scale contingencies around 10.6 months and that there ‘is a 50% probability that conflict can occur in less than four months.’[1]
Australia’s largest military commitment since the Second World War, the INTERFET mission in 1999, required the ADF to lead a coalition of 10000 personnel. This deployment – which included the NZDF as a major partner – occurred with the broader part of the ADF having less than two weeks to openly prepare, acknowledging that some logistics planning occurred up to nine months prior to the operation.
In this operation, the ADF developed its logistics architecture ‘on the run’, developed supply arrangements in a chaotic arrangement and in a disorganised environment. The ADF’s supply system was enduring a restructure after ten years of commercialisation, logistics information systems were patently inadequate and unable to determine what was moving where, a lack of logistics personnel inhibited responsiveness, and the appropriate leaders in logistics planning were not identified. The situation was so bad that that successive internal and external reviews were undertaken to identify where logistics preparedness failures lay in the years that followed the operation.
As I have inferred in the introduction, the concept of ‘resilience’ proposes a different way of looking at military logistics performance. Resilience is concerned with the adaptability of organisations and how they responding to uncertainty; its about how systems, groups and individuals deal with the stress of things not going as they might despite whatever preparations are made. This does not mean that preparations are not important, but that planners should be mindful that circumstances change.
You might try to argue that the INTERFET mission was a display of logistics resilience. That the ADF was able to adapt to circumstances might suggest that it was logistically ‘resilient’, but good luck and ‘brute force’ approach to logistics – dispatching as much as you can when you can – are not defining features of an effective and resilience approach to supply. The absence of failure is not reflective of a state of success!
Recent public emergencies have seen the idea of ‘resilience’ proliferate in the national consciousness, and it is understandable that the topic would permeate military discussions about preparedness. In Australia, the idea of resilience emerged from post-national disaster discussions about the restoration of ‘normality’ following traumatic events as early as 2011. Much like we see with supply-chains and wealth-making globalisation, the interdependency that modern society requires to seemingly function created a complexity which amplified the impact of catastrophic disasters and other problems.
It is natural that we would gravitate towards the idea that strategic resilience is about maintaining a buffer for emergencies. Inevitably, and for sensible reasons, the topic of national reserves or stocks (or, in the military’s case, ‘war stocks’) has been raised over the last few years. Stockholdings of strategically significant commodities are critically important for national resilience, just as they are for military operations – something recently enshrined in the Defence Strategic Review in Australia.
But we can’t forget that reserves are an important constituent of supply-chains rather than an alternative. In some cases, the maintenance of unnecessary stock levels may actually detract from preparedness and resilience; vast quantities of inappropriate strategic reserves consume money and other resources that can be used in other critical areas. Such reserves take time to manage, and when flooding a supply-chain in a crisis – as occurred during East Timor – excessive stocks ossify the supply-chain and prevent it from functioning as it should.
This means that we should not fall victim to the assumption that the modern age of war is one where ‘efficiency’ has no place, for it is only through efficiency and productivity that we can maximise the limited logistics resources we have. The solution to our problems is not more stuff; it’s thinking smarter about what it means for a military to be prepared, and how this Force can be resilient at the same time.
This series will conclude with part three soon.
[1] Speedy, I.M. ‘The Trident of Neptune’, Defence Force Journal, 1978, pp 7-16 cited in Ball, D., Problems of mobilisation in defence of Australia, Phoenix Defence Publications, Australia, 1979, p 13
This is the first part of a presentation given at the Australian – New Zealand Defence Logistics Conferenceduring June 2023. This conference convened to discuss supply chain resilience at a time of strategic competition.
By David Beaumont.
There is little doubt that the topics of logistics and supply-chain resilience court conversations beyond that of military logistics communities. COVID-19 pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions brought the topic of global logistics and supply chains to the fore, with the consequences of scarcity affecting individuals at a personal level. The pandemic revealed the fragility of the global economic order upon which our wealth and security depends for some, yet others saw the economic bounce-back as a reflection of the overall resilience of globalised approaches to logistics. Optimism may have faltered in early 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine exacerbated impacted the worlds logistics struggles while revealing the state of the defence industrial and technology base as being unprepared for anything other than small-scale operations and ‘business as usual’. Military planners, already considering the ‘so what’s’ of a perilous logistics milieu defined by scarcity, also saw that they had to account for attrition in war – despite decades in which their operational concepts rarely treated supply, transportation, maintenance and health care as anything other than second-order issues amid the glitz and glamour of combined arms manoeuvre, blue-water naval power, long-range ‘strike’, integrated air and missile defence and warfare in the cyber and space domains.
For us in the southern hemisphere of this dangerous world, conflict in Europe nor the aftereffects of the pandemic are but the start of our military logistics problems. The potential for more serious conflicts in the Pacific region is being considered at a time where de-globalisation is underway. Strategic competition has economic and commercial overtones, with sanctions and trade restrictions used as tools of coercion or – as with China’s Belt and Road initiative – a way to form tight strategic and geoeconomic relationships in the region. The securitisation of global logistics has proceeded at a rapid pace, and we now see Western nations try to decouple their technology and industrial base from a dependence on less-friendly nations (or outright strategic competitors) while creating new arrangements to share knowledge and capacity.
We, as military logisticians and a small proportion of larger discussions about national security in our own nations, are concerned with where things are made and by whom. A litany of problems leap out at us as the trend of the securitisation, if not militarisation, of supply-chains gains momentum. Munitions production and markets have shown to be operating well below the capacity desired, and their resupply attaining Government-level interest in a way unseen in years. Naval power has become a virtual adjunct to maritime and supply-chain security as the commerce which gives our nations life demands the protection of fleets of ships that themselves are the product globalised industrial capacity. Concern about the movement of fuels through potential conflict zones, or the production of ‘rare-earth’ minerals and microchips, proliferates in the media and popular discussion, as if it is the only problem we’ve discovered in a post-pandemic reflection. But there’s more to be concerned about. The complex supply chains of repair parts are being unpicked by analysis which shows the very equipment we depend upon is linked to the factories of strategic competitors in a web of logistics transactions that the best of us barely understand.
Robust international partnerships to spread industrial risks and induce alliance-based resilience are now being sought. Australia’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter capability is emlematic of how consortia-based approaches to production and sustainment now tie capability development with global supply-chains in a characteristically new way. Western nations are at a point where next-generation technology is at an expense beyond even the wealthiest to produce alone. Complexities in this approach, however, conspire with other supply chain risks to create vulnerabilities which might compromise the materiel, force posture and preparedness decisions of militaries in turn. On one hard shared production allows us to realise military capability, but shared production diversifies supply-chain risks to the point further fragility emerges.
We worry about potential conflicts and the prospect of battles to be fought over lines of communication or to secure new routes, and we now look at access to distant regions of the world for national vitality, supply chain security, or lines of communication for potential enemies on the move. More importantly, we worry about how our militaries will respond at a time of crisis, and at a time where these militaries have not had the luxury of time to predict exactly what it needs and when.
These worries are shared in Defence establishments around the world. In Australia, we now look at the recently published National Defence: Defence Strategic Review to see logistics as an issue that has interested Government enough to direct significant actions in Defence to occur. Although the requirement to create a guided weapons enterprise has captured the limelight, the publicised alignment of preparedness with ADF logistics capacity is more important in terms of overall narratives. I’ll provide a few thoughts on the implications of the DSR for ADF logistics in later parts of this presentation.
The idea of capability sustainment is moving beyond the management of a funding line over a whole-of-life use of a particular platform, to one which more comprehensively considers supply and stockholdings. Awareness about substantial logistics shortfalls is growing, as we increasingly recognise that we’ve been deploying forces on the basis of what we can sustain at a time where choice is possible. Not only is there a conversation about the resilience of defence forces facing the potential of conflict just years ahead, but resilience in the context of the various factors that influence the capability and the capacity of these forces to go to war is a topic of mainstream debate.
It is already evident to the audience that well-prepared and resilient defence forces depend upon a range of logistics factors. A logistically prepared force requires appropriate resourcing and force structure, logistics concepts and plans to be developed, the identification of the right accountable officers and management artefacts, quality materiel held in the right scale, and a military organisation that is well-practiced in the logistics conditions and requirements of portended conflicts. Logistics preparedness is not only about having the right ‘stuff’, but the organisations, processes and behaviours which allow us to efficiently and effectively resource war.
If we want to disassemble logistics into constituent parts we can talk about supply-chains we can describe capabilities including control networks and information systems, nodes, industrial support, transportation and production and the way they ensure military units can do what they are meant to do. We can talk about supply depots, where they are positioned, ‘mounting bases’ and ‘cargo consolidation points’ as well as a myriad of other issues that determine what goes where and in what condition.
Perhaps, soon, logistics will be seen as more than a collection of jumbled-together pieces of kit, a tapestry of installations, and groups of people. It is a system of connections that define military power more profoundly than any other, for even the most powerful weapon is little more than a monument to vainglory absent that which brings it to life. Supply-chains are the ‘lifeblood of war’ to paraphrase Falklands Islands veteran Major General Julian Thompson; they are arteries through which materiel moves, at a pace which determines strategic tempo or assures availability and preparedness. If we view supply-chains as part of a logistics framework around how militaries overcome the dual tyrannies of time and space, positioning that which is needed where and when, we can see how important supply-chains – if not logistics more broadly – really is.
The US has enjoyed a strategic logistics advantage in most locations where it has sought to project and sustain military power because it has been able to coalesce host nation, commercial and transnational organisations to provide services, supplies, materiel, and infrastructure where, and when it does not have the capacity to be self-sufficient.[i] The divestment of military logistic capabilities in favour of commercial options began in earnest after the Vietnam War, and can be attributed to three simultaneous and related factors: the rise of globalism and privatisation, the evolution of commercial logistics to efficiency based systems, and the reluctance to train, equip and pay combat service support personnel during the US military’s transition to an all-volunteer force that was under increased budgetary pressure.[ii] As a result of this divestment, operational contracting, corporate financing and support, and transnational supply chains have become so embedded in the American way of war, that is difficult to see how the US Army could conduct expeditionary operations without commercial support.[iii]
The deliberate divestment of military logistic capabilities has necessitated that the US use contracted and host nation support for a number of logistic related services in combat operations. According to doctrine and policy, the types of services commonly contracted to private businesses include base operations support (such as billeting, food service, and laundry services), transportation, port operations, terminal operations, warehousing, facilities construction, facilities management, energy services, and materiel maintenance.[iv] The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program was devised in the mid-1980s to support operations in Somalia and the Balkans and has been replicated multiple times in the Philippines, Latin America, Timor-Leste, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Djibouti, Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland. These programs primarily support the housing, feeding, and clothing of troops but have been expanded to include the delivery of fuel, spare parts, laundry, and sanitation services.[v]
The use of contractors in the US military
The extent of modern reliance on contracted support was most evident in operations in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. During Operation Desert Storm, the US military contracted 98 agencies and almost 4,000 people to provide maintenance, supply, and transportation services in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.[vi] In 2009, ‘private contractors outnumbered military personnel in Afghanistan and nearly equalled the number of military personnel in Iraq’[vii] and the majority of these contractors were involved in logistic services, with only approximately 11 percent conducting private military and security functions.[viii] Based on a review of Central Command Air Force comptroller purchases in 2003 and 2004, the US military is not only reliant on services procured in theatre, but they also leverage contracts to purchase goods such as construction supplies, vehicles, heavy equipment, communications equipment, tools, office supplies, computer equipment, and morale, welfare, and recreation goods.[ix] The US military’s experiences in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom have demonstrated several benefits and risks to this type of outsourcing.
Contractors enable combat forces to concentrate on core military activities and focus on the development of warfighting capabilities.[x] Civilian industry can often offer logistic-related services more efficiently and effectively because they have a degree of expertise and can source the equipment, infrastructure, personnel, supplies, and transportation assets from within the theatre or from nearby regions. This reduces the need to use US force projection assets, the time and cost of deployment, and the length of logistic lines of communication, while increasing flexibility and responsiveness.[xi] Using local supplies and contractors can also bolster the economy and build local capacity, though outcomes from programs developed in both Iraq and Afghanistan were often mixed, with some arguing that negative consequences like local inflation, and economic exploitation outweighed the benefits.[xii] Furthermore the host nation, or US Government may deliberately place restrictions on the number of military personnel that are permitted within a theatre or country for political or diplomatic reasons. Contractors will rarely fall within this limitation, which again makes them an attractive option for certain logistic functions.[xiii]
Risks and vulnerabilities
There are also risks and vulnerabilities related to the use of contracted, commercial and host nation support during combat operations. Shifting boundaries between what constitutes military and civilian activity has profound security and legal implications, as notions of sovereignty, jurisdiction, and responsibility are challenged.[xiv] By divesting logistics to contractors, the US military is also acceding some loss of control over supply chain and distribution systems. Even if contracts are written to adhere to all security and safety standards, the US military is unlikely to have the resources to retain full visibility or supervision over service providers. This limits their capacity to protect data, information, supplies, personnel, and equipment from adverse action.[xv]
The infiltration of traditional business systems by adversarial actors in any segment of the logistics network could have significant disruptive effects on the US’s ability to project and sustain military power. As COVID-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Ever Given blockage of the Suez Channel all demonstrate, global logistic networks are not as resilient as commercial and military logisticians need them to be in peacetime, let alone in conflict.[xvi] The US military is operating off an assumption that outsourced commercial providers will always be able to mobilise the required sustainment support, and that it is just a matter of cost for contractors to create an ‘adaptable and agile supply chain through local, national and international actors.’[xvii] This assumption may no longer be valid as US global hegemony and neoliberalist economic policies are challenged.
The US military has deliberately accepted risk and reduced its permanent sustainment footprint due predominantly to force structure and budgetary constraints. Recent operations have demonstrated the successful mitigation of that risk using non-military assets, which perpetuates the motivation to continually outsource certain military functions like basing, distribution, supply, and maintenance.[xviii] However, there are risks associated with the commercialisation of logistic support that may expose the US military’s reliance on contractors, particularly as new policy approaches, trade sanctions, and supply disruptions become more prominent. As nations consider self-sufficiency, it may also be pertinent to review contract logistic arrangements and consider whether the balance between commercialisation and uniformed combat service support is appropriate.
Sally Williamson is a serving Australian Army logistics officer and Art of War Scholar currently attending the United States Command and General Staff Officer Course. This is an abridged extract from her thesis titled The Diaspora as an Agent and Target of Influence in the Southwest Pacific: Chinese Grand Strategy and Logistics Implications for the United States Military. The thoughts here are her own and do not represent that of the Australian Defence Force or United States Military.
[i] Christopher Kinsey and Malcolm Hugh Patterson, eds. Contractors and War: The Transformation of United States’ Expeditionary Operations (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012): 1-2.
[ii] Deborah Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 24-52; Kinsey and Patterson, Contractors and War, 1-5.
[iii] Robert Mandel, “Overview of American Government Expeditionary Operations Utilizing Private Contractors”, in Kinsey and Patterson, eds. Contractors and War, 13.
[iv] US Defense Procurement and Acquisition, Defense Contingency Contracting Handbook Version 5 (Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office, 2017),94.
[v] Allison Stanger, “Contractors,” in Kinsey and Patterson, eds. Contractors and War, 191.
[vi] George B. Dibble, Charles L. Horne, and William E. Lindsay III, “Army Contractor and Civilian Maintenance, Supply, and Transportation Support During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Vol 1” (Report, Logistics Management Institute, Bethesda, VA, 1993).
[vii] Mandel, “American Government Expeditionary Operations,” 13.
[viii] Renée de Nevers, “Looking Beyond Iraq,” in Kinsey and Patterson, eds. Contractors and War, 63.
[ix] Molly Dunigan, “The Future of US Military Contracting: Current Trends and Future Implications,” International Journal 69, no. 4 (December 2014): 37.
[x] Dunigan, “The Future of US Military Contracting,” Rodney D. Fogg and William C. Latham, Jr., “Risky Business: Commercial Support for Large-Scale Ground Combat Operations,” Military Review (July-August 2019):14.
[xi] Fogg and Latham, “Risky Business,” 14; Camm, “How to Decide,” in Kinsey and Patterson, eds. Contractors and War, 237–238.
[xv] US Department of Defense, Joint Publications (JP) 4-10, Operational Contract Support (Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office, 2019), I-9; Geoffrey S. Corn, “Contractors and the Law,” in Kinsey and Patterson, eds. Contractors and War, 157–175.
As the ADF awaits the release of the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, change management has become a topic du jour. This article was posted some time ago, but the lessons contained within are pertinent now.
In late 2017 I published a post of anecdotes, observations and lessons given by senior officers contacted through the course of academic research. These insights were given by logisticians, but not always, and pointed at many of the issues transforming Defence logistics over a period of nearly thirty years. The conversations continued throughout 2018 and continued to highlight significant, strategic, challenges which define Defence organisations even today.
The points below are raw, deliberately unattributed and paraphrased. Although discussed in the context of strategic logistics they are broadly applicable, and many are clearly relevant to effective strategic leadership.
Logisticians and the ‘spirit of the age’
Defence logistics has been in a paradigm shift for the last thirty years. These times are difficult because of the pace of change, the absence of an equilibrium, people get ‘lost’ and do not know how to proceed. Outdated ideas become a refuge.
‘The role of industrial preparedness in military strategy is anomalous. Prospectively, the role is almost always ignored by military planners but retrospectively; it is agreed that industrial preparedness was either vital for success or instrumental in defeat.’
It is increasingly recognised that substantial adaptations to the preparedness of Defence, and Australia writ large, need to be made. Over the last decade important decisions made, and policy statements issued, commensurate to the changing nature of threats to Australia’s strategic interests. Organisations have been redesigned, inter-Departmental capabilities restructured, and capability investments made to enable national responses to potentially existential security challenges. The ability to operate in emerging domains such as ‘space’ and ‘cyber’, act in the ‘grey zone’, or investments in new technologies from hypersonic weaponry to automation and AI are seen as offsets to potential adversaries. The prospect of a war involving Australia is discussed openly, yet there is a growing realisation that less glamourous matters are impacting Defence’s ability to prepare for such potentialities. Supply chains are ‘strangling strategy’, with the movement of commodities so significant an issue that logistics is securitising.[1] And yes, global supply is recognised as essential for the ‘creation and sustaining [of] combat capabilities’ and securing supply chains ‘makes securing them increasingly more important to operational success than the defence of lines of communication has ever been.[2] The integration between military and civilian sources of logistics and support are now extolled as underpinning the ADF’s ability to respond to crises in the future.[3]
A range of reports prepared over the last decade have recommended Western militaries adopt new approaches to logistics, as well as point to the role of civilian resources in preparedness and crisis responses. Examples have included the US Department of Defence’s ‘Defence Science Board’ 2018 report on ‘Survivable logistics’; those produced by major civil fora such as the US tech-sector led Special Competitive Studies Project in 2022; conference reports such as the 2019 Williams Foundation seminar on ‘Sustaining Self-reliance’; and others associated with Defence Mobilisation and preparedness planning activities.[4] The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, too, has brought national industrial mobilisation to the fore in terms of Ukraine responses to Russian aggression, but also in the context of European, US and other logistics support to Ukraine.
The preparations undertaken by Australia to respond to military crises commend all to examine the effectiveness of the integration between Defence activities and the ‘national support base.’[5] This paper considers the ‘national support base’ as the sum of organic Defence capability (and not just capability resident in the military, but also the Department), support from coalition forces and host nations, and support (including service delivery) that is provided by national industry and infrastructure. Many constituents of the national support base are beyond Defence’s, and specifically the ADF’s, capacity to directly control, let alone influence without the assistance of other agencies and Departments in a whole-of-nation approach. Nonetheless, the strategic logistics capability available to the ADF from both organic and inorganic sources will act as a ‘shock absorber’ in a time of military crisis; it will be critical to strategic success that civil-military arrangements are in place such that Australia can respond when needed.[6]
Defence has the advantage of its history when it comes to understanding how it might tackle mobilisation and national support base integration into Australian Defence Force (ADF) logistics. The ADF considered the problem of how best to prepare the ‘national support base’ for the strategic uncertainty resident in the 1990s, and how it commenced the developments of concepts to enabled what we now call ‘force-expansion’, ‘force-scaling’ or even ‘mobilisation’. This paper presents the exemplar concept of national support as an approach upon which a future civil-military relationship in Australia is based.
Australian Army unit load ammunition containers in a warehouse ready for delivery to artillery soldiers for the safe transport and storage of projectiles in the field. *** Local Caption *** Defence’s Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) together with BAE Systems Australia have delivered an essential ammunition capability to the Australian Defence Force three months ahead of schedule.
The unit load ammunition containers (ULAC) are an essential support component of the Australian Armys 155mm M777A2 howitzer canons. The successful delivery of the ULAC has been greatly beneficial for both the Army and BAE Systems Australia. ULAC are used by artillery soldiers in the field for the safe transport and storage of propellant and projectiles in training and operational environments.
The containers were designed and produced in BAE Systems South Australian workshop. After initial testing in Adelaide and at Monegeetta some design modifications were required prior to full-scale production.
The first batch of containers was accepted in May 2016, with the final batch coming off the assembly line in June 2016, well ahead of the contracted delivery date.
When Defence made mobilisation an agenda.
It has been over twenty years since Defence engaged in a deep, public, discussion on the role of the industry, if not the nation in its entirety, for the specific purpose of supporting defence mobilisation and the ADF’s logistics concepts. The 1997 Defence Efficiency Review (DER), a review now commonly associated with an over-ambitious efficiency agenda which led to near disastrous levels of logistics hollowness in an ADF on the cusp of twenty years of continuous operations, was a catalyst which brought a conceptual trend to reality. Changing strategic circumstances affecting Australia, a post-Cold War evolution in the character of warfare, and pressures on Federal expenditure necessitated Defence rethink its business. In acknowledging the diminishing size and structure of the ADF, the Review highlighted the important linkage to national resources and good planning, and subsequently enunciated a concept of ‘…structure for war and adapt for peace.’[7]
Significantly, the DER recognised the possibility of potential challenges to Australian national interests, with special reference to the rapidity with which such intrusions can develop. The Review emphasised that “…better planning and management of civil-military relationships are thus essential to our future defence capability.”[8] Echoing other strategic documentation of the time, the DER ‘Industry Policy Sub-Review team’ recommended that the HQ ADF reconsider its strategic logistics planning capability, and for national mobilisation to be considered coherently as a critical logistics issue. National Support Division (NSD) was ultimately established, with the Division principally formed to address national mobilisation through the concept of national support. The Division was all but a reestablishment of a Strategic Logistics Division in HQ ADF, a branch that had been disestablished some years before. However, and unlike its predecessor, the role of the NSD was to develop the concepts and conduct the engagement that would better harness the nation’s economic, industrial and societal strengths in support of the defence effort. This approach was also articulated in Australia’s Strategic Policy (1997), which emphasised the importance of a small force, like the ADF, having the ability to organise and draw upon the resources of the broader nation.[9]
Following the publication of this strategic guidance, the Government released the Defence and Industry Strategic Policy Statement, which reiterates that the best defence for a nation is for the nation to wholly engage it in its own security.[10] The statement, heavily influenced by NSD, went on to define the ‘national support base’ as encompassing “…the full range of organisations, systems and arrangements which own, provide, control or influence support to the ADF. It includes all of Defence, other Government agencies, infrastructure, key services, and industry (including the Defence manufacturing sector).”[11] The framework that was introduced, endorsed by the Chiefs of Service Committee and the Defence Executive, saw policy outcomes as far reaching as:
The ADF being structured for war, and with a clear comprehension of the national support resources that were required for the full ‘spectrum of conflict’ and pattern of escalation.
Those elements within the national support base that were intrinsic to Defence activities remained pertinent, adequate and, above all, prepared to support operations.
A culture would be established whereby industry and the wider civil infrastructure were considered integral to national defence capability and were managed accordingly.
Relationships would be maintained with allies and international support provides to complement support and sustainment available nationally.
Well-rehearsed mechanisms would be established that would assess the ability of the national support base to mobilise to meet the need, and plans developed to enable this to occur.
The ADF would enjoy priority access to critical national infrastructure when the contingency required it.
Of all the ‘pillars’ of the national support strategy, the most consequential was the issue of mobilisation. The national support concept was, in practice, a euphemism for a mobilisation concept; a graduated and nationally-focussed approach to escalating a response to strategic competition. Beyond the development of plans upon which the nation’s resources would be called upon to sustain the defence effort was the establishment of mechanisms to better coordinate resources in the response to significant national security threats. Furthermore, the strategy sought to shape civil capabilities to meet Defence’s needs for mobilisation and sustainment in a coherent process that was absent at the time. Finally, it was all underpinned by strategic-level arrangements with industry and infrastructure partners; arrangements which extended beyond Defence Industry policy to create a responsive national approach to meeting unpredictable future needs.
The Airbus hangar at RAAF Base Richmond. *** Local Caption *** Team Aero – which consists of Airbus Australia Pacific, Lockheed Martin, and StandardAero – is responsible for providing Through-Life Support to the Royal Australian Air Force’s fleet of 12 C-130J Hercules aircraft.
Under this arrangement, Airbus Australia Pacific is responsible for deeper-level maintenance for the Hercules at RAAF Base Richmond, which involves conducting inspections of the airframe, replacement or upgrade of systems and components, and other necessary repairs.
A concept which needs a new life
The National Support Division (NSD) was folded three years after its establishment, and the national support concept buried amid a Defence capability approach oriented towards materiel acquisition. The establishment of the Defence Materiel Organisation in 2001 saw the Division disbanded, with its functions reallocated across Defence. As a ‘bottom-up’ derived organisation resourced from the ADF, NSD lacked the institutional support that top-down direction from Government may have given. While assurances were given that the national support agenda would remain alive in successor organisations, there’s little evidence that it ever existed twenty years later. A small Directorate now exists within an under-resourced Joint Logistics Command’s Strategic Logistics Branch to deal with national support issues, and a variety of other divisions within the Defence attend to some of the activities that were once baked into the remit of an entire, albeit small, HQ ADF staff element. Although the ADF might have a well-defined ‘strategic J4’ who advises the CDF on strategic logistics issues, and numerous senior leaders have reiterated the desire to better leverage national support for Defence activities and for increased levels of preparedness throughout the national support base, the ADF has a limited conception as to what strategic logistics entails.[12]
A new civil-military approach which considers preparedness at its core is needed. The flex within the strategic order, the constipation of acquisition and sustainment processes, the increasingly conspicuous vulnerabilities and capability gaps within defence industries, fractured international supply-chains, and problems with national infrastructure – there are a myriad of issues all of which greatly impact how the mobilisation of national responses in crises need to be managed. Recent media releases from Government attest to the importance of whole-of-nation, and specifically industrial, responses to potential crises. However, as the national support base effectively extends beyond borders, this national endeavour must also include international force posture and logistics considerations. There is always a need for likeminded nations to optimise the logistics arrangements between one another, because not even the mightiest can sustain major combat operations alone.[13] Furthermore, coordinated logistics cooperation with neighbours can be critical in shaping the security environment and assist greatly in ‘setting the theatre’ if competition and conflict are to come.
So where might Defence begin? First, it should settle on clear language to be used in a Government driven narrative about whole-of-nation defence. An inability to clarify the litany of terms, doctrine and jargon when the national support approach was originally proposed limited its acceptability within and without Defence. Furthermore, the anecdotal use of the term ‘mobilisation’ has failed to capture a more subtle approach to civil-military preparedness which entails a graduated levels of response to strategic challenges. A new narrative could be presented to Government in the wake of Defence’s mobilisation review currently underway and would help to guide whole-of-Government planning for military-based crises. An acceptable, modern, definition of national support might also be accompanied by clarity with respect to terms such as ‘force scaling’, ‘force expansion’, ‘mobilisation’, ‘surety’, ‘preparedness’ and even ‘strategic logistics’.[14] Such an approach to strategic logistics is consistent with the ADF definition’s contemporary definition of mobilisation being:
‘the process that provides the framework to generate military capabilities and marshal national resources to defend the nation and its interests. It encompasses activities associated with preparedness, the conduct of operations and force expansion. Mobilisation is a continuum of interrelated activities that occurs during the four phases: preparation, work-up, operations and reconstitution.’
Secondly, to enable the national support base to respond to a crisis it must be armed by a range of mechanisms that enable ‘it’ to better define what operational requirements it is supporting. This is not only fulfilled by an analysis by ‘force exploration’ undertaken within the Integrated Investment Plan, but a detailed study of strategic concepts for operations and the logistics requirements necessary for them to occur. Perhaps the most important task will be the aligning of processes, and strategic logistics activities to preparedness to ensure that national support arrangements can be facilitated as ‘business as usual’ rather than through ad hoc adaptions undertaken at a moment’s notice. Defence’s relatively new approach to the acquisition and sustainment of fuels and guide weapons are important achievements which show that new arrangements are possible.[15] Nonetheless, these achievements are merely a starting point for the reform that is necessary.
Thirdly, a range of policies and processes will need to be developed to enable concurrent, mutually-supporting, activity. It will be important to identify the right authorities to respond to each part of the collective problem. This understanding must also be accompanied with an acceptance that non-organic national support base capabilities are as vital to national security as the logistics and other military resources are; an acceptance that will go beyond the existing, albeit narrow, notion of industry as a ‘fundamental input into capability’ to fulfil improved capability acquisition plans.[16] Defence, inclusive of the ADF, already knows it has a great deal of internal work to undertake to make its mobilisation and preparedness arrangements reflective of potential strategic needs. This submission is not a reflection of any incapacity of Defence to prepare, and instead aims to co-opt a concept the ADF developed in the past for the benefit of the ADF in the present.
If Defence is to progress existing work about topics such as force expansion, let alone mobilisation, it must understand the level of national capability which presently exists to support the Defence effort in a time of emergency. Once it defines the strengths and weaknesses, limitations and constraints, of the national support base it can be proactive in working with national support base partners to resolve them. To do so will require an enhancement of existing modes of interaction, as well as assistant from other Government agencies and Departments with relevant experience and capability. A strategic plan will be vital ensure effectiveness. Without these efforts circumstances will work only to increase the disjunct which exists between the ADF ‘and that of the support base on which it depends.’[17] As written in 2021,
Instead, it is important that the ADF renew its concepts to leverage resources from elsewhere—potentially the national support base or alliance partners—in order to develop processes that will allow it to regain capacity after a significant strategic shock. This is not only about acquiring more materiel, ‘war-stocks’ and growing the size and scale of the ADF for that capacity; it is about efficiently managing resources in such a way that they are available at the time and place of need. Capability depth is likely to reflect the strength of civil-military relationships as much as it does materiel.[18]
Why national support matters now
A variety of Defence leaders have challenged members of the ADF, the Department, and partners to think through the problems associated with how national security needs might require all to adapt to the unexpected. So too have a range of commentators, in an array of articles and across different media. It is evident that a ‘big picture’, bold and imaginative strategic idea is needed; an idea that provides overarching principles and themes to guide planning and behaviour across the national support base. To that end Defence is armed with the benefits of corporate knowledge and a repository of information available within its own archives and captured in the diaspora of documentation that drives its daily business.
There is another reason that conceptualising, strategising and planning matters now: Western societies and their militaries are behind in their thinking. Concepts such as Chinese ‘civil-military’ fusion and a Government agenda which mandates dual-use technologies, are indicative of an increasingly sophisticated approach to military-national support base interactions on the part of our potential adversary. Such agenda help to create the conditions by which that nation can respond to its own crises or changes in the strategic environment. This is a whole-of-Government activity, an approach which includes industry partners and alliance partner involvement, as part of a holistic national security endeavour to confirm the strategic logistics basis upon which it will draw the strength to protect Australia’s national interests.
[5] The term ‘national support base’ is well-known in Australia, but the idea goes by different names in other countries. For example, the US national security community uses the term ‘defense technology and industrial base’.
[9] Department of Defence, Australia’s Strategic Policy, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1997, p 48.
[10] Department of Defence 1998, Defence and Industry Policy Statement, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p 1.
[11] Department of Defence 1998, Defence and Industry Policy Statement, p 8.
[12] The ‘strategic J4’ role is practiced by Commander Joint Logistics Command (CJLOG), though the responsibility and term has fallen out of use in recent years. CJLOG’s consensus-building role within the ‘Defence Logistics Enterprise’, a construct developed to bind Defence logistics efforts together, is ostensibly a substitute though has limited connection to operational performance and preparedness.
[14] Australian Defence Force Publication 4 – Mobilisation and preparedness includes many of these terms but there are anomalies and contradictions within the definitions.
[16] Department of Defence 2016, Defence Industry Policy Statement, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, p 19
[17] National Support Mobilisation Concepts, Developing the strategy for national support mobilisation – a research paper, National Support Division, Department of Defence, Canberra, 1999, p 7
This article concludes the discussion started here.
Things will go wrong in competition, conflict, and full-scale war. Winning will be about resilience, recovery and response as much as it is about being prepared for well-informed, but sadly speculative, conflict scenarios that planners may have contemplated in advanced. ‘Adaptiveness’ will be a necessity at the outset of a conflict, but the idea should not be a compensator for self-induced, lazy, policies and procedures designed to suit a more convenient peacetime routine. Well trained and adaptable people involved in national defence will be crucial to success, but they cannot be a crutch to allow organisations to limp through the first stages of any conflict. Resilience must be resourced in advance, staff organisations designed to be flexible, plans and policies prepared, and concepts for bringing the military and other organisations necessary in national defence to their full potential tested. Together these factors become the shock absorbers for the response which accounts for the ‘things going wrong’, and act as a springboard for what follows.
Those responsible for preparedness planning, not just within the joint force that is the ADF, but across Government should recognise that capability is only one part of the preparedness equation. Preparedness is about timing and understanding what can be done when; it is about reconciling forecasting and immediate needs with usually long-term processes for generating military capability. Belligerents in war don’t wait for capability lifecycles to manifest and operational concepts to mature. They look for opportunities to cause the most havoc at the expense of the other. What truly matters in preparedness is the latent capacity available at any one time to give the force the ability to resist to shock, face losses, and use what remains in a response that counters the strategic advantage held by an aggressor. Moreover, winning requires fortitude, mental acuity, courage, and a leadership attitude based upon problem solving, endurance, hopefulness, and opportunity seeking. These traits enable decision makers the capacity to look beyond the first salvos of war while amid chaos, redirecting the means available to eventually turn the tide of war to the positive. However, there are other important factors the ADF might consider.
Firstly, the ADF must continue to work towards greater organisational flexibility so that it can adapt rapidly to strategic shocks. With ‘Mobilisation Reviews’ and Service reforms to preparedness systems underway, it is clear that planners across the ADF are attuned to the need.[1] However, before placing too much dependence on flexible organisational designs and the ADF’s already robust approach to command and control, the ADF should seek to accurately understand what it can and can’t do within various plausible time horizons. As renowned Australian strategist Desmond Ball wrote, ‘it is not the force-in-being or the current order-of-battle that is relevant, but the mobilised force with which the adversary would have to contend.’[2] As described throughout this article, capability should not be equated to readiness.[3] Capability programs should be sequenced with force posture changes and aligned to preparedness systems. This creates a situation where decision makers can identify points of preparedness risk and potential vulnerabilities over time. Furthermore, this means that when surprise comes, ADF planners understand which parts of the force can act and when. The idea of ‘scalability’ as recently seen in some Service strategic doctrine must enter the day-to-day conversation of the ADF’s preparedness and operational planners. Scalability reflects the ability of the ADF to adjust its size and shape outside of the ‘heartbeat’ of its force development and capability acquisition programs.
Secondly, the ADF should seek to create depth in its capabilities and create capacity and sustainability rather than simply acquiring the best technology that can be bought. This will both enable it to better handle the inevitable losses of a conflict and deliver scale such that the ADF is more able to respond across multiple areas of vulnerability. Noone really knows exactly what combination of capabilities are needed in advance of war. But it is not realistic – at least not yet – for the Defence budget to grow to accommodate every plausible permutation of ships, aircraft and soldiers. Instead, it is important that the ADF renews its concepts to leverage resources from elsewhere – potentially the national support base or form alliance partners – in order to develop processes that will allow the ADF regain capacity after a significant strategic shock. This is not only about acquiring more materiel, ‘war-stocks’ and growing the size and scale of the ADF for that capacity; it is about efficiently managing resources such that they are available at the time and place of need. Capability depth will likely reflect the strength of civil-military relationships, as much as it does materiel.
Thirdly, all in the ADF must become aware that the force-in-being is not an end state in of itself. The ADF of today is unlikely to be the force that will reconstitute, recover and respond out of the initial stages of any conflict. It will be even less capable of remaining the same if substantial damage is done to the ADF in the initial engagements of the war. Outside of smaller contingencies, the ADF can, without foreign assistance, initially only provide ‘holding forces’ to provide an immediate response and defend the most vital resources. It in the largest conflicts and worse scenarios, the ADF exists to create time for the winning force to mobilise. The time for which the ADF must be prepared to ‘hold’ in a high-intensity conflict could be considerable given the time it takes to activate industry to higher levels of production, and for the nation to bring more resources to bear. Calculations undertaken in the 1970’s suggested that it would take no less than two and a half years to expand an Army, for example, from 50000 regular and reserves to a multi-divisional force capable of continental defence of 150000.[4] Quite clearly this means that everything the ADF has already achieved in the context of a ‘total workforce’ approach to its operations is far short of what is required in war.
Conclusion
To worry only about preparing for that moment at which conflict is initiated or a crisis begins creates risks that could lead to strategic failure. Preparedness planners, whether in the military or without, must look beyond this moment and into the possibilities of the war which follows. Australia’s next war will not be won by an ADF in its ‘prime’, but one that has been scarred and beaten down yet recovers to claim victory. It is important that the ADF be psychologically and materially prepared for the surprise and shock of the beginning of war.
Debris of an organisation aimed to provide a vision of preparing for war. While war may appear unlikely that does not excuse us misrepresenting it as something easy to prepare for. If the the future outlined in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update rings true, it is important that the ADF’s planners consider casualties, losses and destruction inflicted on the ADF in the early stages of a future war as they design the responses, if not the capabilities, that the ADF possesses.
Capability solutions and extra resources are not sufficient to ensure that the ADF can win the next war. Planners at all levels, from combat units to strategic headquarters, must also consider the arrangements and attitudes that will enable and ensure a considered and effective response to a crisis. It is fortunate that the ADF is has more operating and planning experience than likely adversaries and has planning underway in response to the threats recent strategic policy advice highlights. Nevertheless, the challenges are vast and consequential. Crucially, if planners do not grasp that the next war may not be short, the ADF will waste the precious preparation time that it currently has. It could build resilience, depth and expansion capacity. Without these, in the next war, the ADF will surely fail.
This article was originally published in the compendium of papers ‘Designing the future: thinking about joint operations’ by the Australian Army’s Future Land Warfare Branch. The compendium includes a wide range of interesting essays written by those responsible for conceptualising the Australian Army’s future.
[2] Ball, D., Problems of mobilisation in defence of Australia, Phoenix Defence Publications, Australia, 1979, Preface
[3] Betts, R., Military readiness: concepts, choices, consequences, Brookings, USA, 1995, p 37
[4] Ball, D., ‘The Australian Defence Force and Mobilisation’ from Ball, D., Problems of mobilisation in defence of Australia, Phoenix Defence Publications, Australia, 1979, pp 12-13
‘In war, mistakes are normal; errors are usual, information is seldom complete, often accurate, and frequently misleading. Success is won, not by personnel and materiel in prime condition, but by the debris of an organisation worn by the strain of campaign and shaken by the shock of battle. The objective is attained, in war, under conditions which often impose extreme disadvantages. It is in the light of these facts that the commander expects to shape his course during the supervision of the planned action.’[1]
From Sound Military Decision, United States Naval College, 1942
Wars are usually longer than expected and are rarely fought in accordance with the plans made by military planners at their outset. Australian experiences in the Middle-east over nearly two decades remind us that war shapes itself around ever-changing contexts. The ‘new dawn’ of ‘grey-zone’ conflict, a reflection of the age-old reality that nations consistently seek to preserve strategic interests and prosperity with resources they have, reminds us that competition is not confined to a staccato of disparate actions. Success in competition requires resilience, persistence, presence and sustainability. This truism applies to conflict. The fighting in war occurs in ebbs and flows as adversaries play advantages and disadvantages until victory is assured. However, in an affliction common to Western preparations for future war, there is tendency for planners to limit their imagination to the first salvos.[2] This creates the situation where the really difficult part of war is not prepared for – how a military organisation likely left in dysfunction and ruin at war’s outset – recovers, reconstitutes and responds. It is rare that these planners, considering the capability needs that will make the ADF successful in its operations, think as to exactly how the ‘debris of an organisation’ can succeed.
This central purpose of this paper is to challenge the reader, as a heuristic, to consider how the ADF should prepare for the consequences of the first phases of intense conflict.[3] It is a paper that talks to the ideas of resilience, response and recovery; ideas that do not normally feature in preparedness plans and operational concepts. The first part of this paper applies examples to articulate concepts and ideas relevant to understanding the reality of war. From this point, the paper applies informed assumptions to paint a picture of how a contemporary, nominally conventional, conflict might unfold. The paper then concludes with several basic principles that could be employed to guide future preparedness and contingency plans.
What a war might look like – an assumption-based depiction of a future war
Competition, including conflict and warfare, is about the control of circumstances to give an advantage – potentially an irrevocable advantage – in the context of strategic requirements. Preparedness and operational plans, however, often start with an ending in mind and are accompanied by a confident assertion that they are enough to get to the desired end-state. Though planning is useful, as the adage suggests, plans can be written such that they become virtual ‘straw-men’ arguments where assumptions and facts result in an outcome that is, in reality, possible only in someones imagination. Such plans fail to capture the dynamics of competition and conflict, and adjustments become necessary to exploit successes and recover from destruction or inevitable failures. War is not a finely tuned balance of cause and effect, but a consequence of actions in a system that is ever changing. It is necessary for us in the ADF to prepare for the confluence of events that inevitable occur over a longer term than we envisage. Historian Cathal Nolan’s The Allure of Battle is a testament to the truism that ‘[w]inning the day of battle is not enough. You have to win the campaign, then the year, then the decade.’[4]
The ADF, if called upon to respond to a significant attack upon Australian interests, must be prepared for a situation in which its plans are found wanting, its capabilities caught in moments of relative ‘unpreparedness’, and its force posture offset by an enemy’s own strategic mobility and firepower. It is safe to say that Australia is not a revisionist power, employing aggressive military activities to address its strategic requirements. This means that if it is involved in conflict, even war, it will likely not have the time to prepare itself as best as we often assume it might. One study of twentieth-century conflicts since 1939 found that the average time between the ‘first indication of war and the firing of the first shots has been 14.3 months’, with smaller-scale contingencies around 10.6 months and that there ‘is a 50% probability that conflict can occur in less than four months.’[5] These timings show how quickly conflict can occur, and the folly of the assumption often reflected in Defence planning that Australian will have ten years of warning time before major conflict.[6]
There is every chance that a twenty-first century conflict will occur faster, with the first signs of conflict buried in geopolitical tensions already at play. The ADF, like Australia, will likely be surprised by the attack, or surprised by the speed at which peace gives way to war. Furthermore, and because adversaries naturally target weaknesses, in the initial phases of any conflict the ADF would likely be facing weapons and dangers that offset whatever strengths may be hastily generated by the joint force. The systems employed by the joint force will be targeted using weapons purpose built for the task, upsetting the processes of command and control that we think are our pathway to victory in a new age of war. Agility will be denied. Strengths will be bypassed, or even prove vulnerabilities, to an adversary that has chosen the time of opportunity to strike.
So, history repeatedly reminds us that militaries usually go to war ‘unprepared’. It also reminds us that militaries often go to war disorganised, having to adapt rapidly to circumstances well beyond the expected. Martin van Creveld, writing about logistics, saw that ‘…. most armies appear to have prepared their campaigns as best they can on an ad hoc basis, making great, if uncoordinated, efforts to gather the largest possible number of tactical vehicles, trucks of all descriptions, railway troops etc., while giving little, if any, thought to the ‘ideal’ combination that would have carried them the furthest.’[7] The ADF’s experiences in East Timor during Operation Stabilise in 1999 hold true to this view; in this operation – a peacekeeping operation – disorganisation resulted in tremendous inefficiencies and near-exhaustion of the operational ADF.[8] So it is not only the effects of the enemy that the ADF need be prepared for, but also the failures baked into organisational structures which remain hidden until the moment of crisis.
We need only look at the events of late 2019 and 2020 and the confluence of bushfires, pandemics, and geostrategic tensions to show how organisations and other groups respond to the foreseen but unanticipated. The idea of ‘national resilience’ – not a new idea by any means – was revisited as fires denied the population basic services and a pandemic denied the population toilet paper.[9] Complex supply interdependencies, combined with stock minimisation in the name of efficiency, amplified the impact of localised catastrophe. Trust in societal systems, trust in supply and trust in leadership declined in these events as individuals feared for their livelihoods if not lives. As Robin Dunbar wrote in ‘The Mandarin’ recently, human behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis highlighted ‘a strong tendency to prioritise the short term at the expense of the future.’[10] The evident absence of coherent plans for action over the length of the crisis exacerbated uncertainty.
The events of 2020 are a euphemism for the impact of the initial phases of future war, where surprise may conspire with inadequate planning to sow confusion, compromise plans, and results the loss of resources and lives. The reliance of the ADF on familiar command process and organisational behaviours that provide comfortable peace-time routine will be shaken by the need for frenetic activity and ad hoc changes as forces mobilise. War will come across multiple domains simultaneously, with the ADF responding to direct attack, while potentially involved in a range of non-military civil defence responses as national infrastructure becomes a site for conflict. Supply-chains will be interdicted and used as a point of leverage, denying the capacity of the ADF to scale as effectively as it might. Exquisite capabilities could be revealed as inhibitors to capacity-building for a joint force that somehow must create additional combat force mass in the short term.
Eventually whole-of-nation activity will be brought to bear as all elements of national power work more effectively with one another. The nation will bind diplomatic, informational, military, economic and other activities to strategic effect. Similarly, the ADF will bind a joint effort, gaining momentum, into coherent operations across all domains of war. Coalition partners will be increasingly involved, share resources, and develop war plans to achieve the next strategic objectives. Combat intensity might drop as the contest stabilises, the effects of surprise dissipate, forces focus upon repair and reconstitution instead of the offense, equipment is unavailable and lines of communication are interdicted. Adversaries may attempt to de-escalate, especially if nuclear and strategic weapons could be used, but competition to control the strategic environment and retain strategic mobility in all domains is likely to continue.
An ADF that endures will be quite different to the one that started the war. The characteristics of any war, whether it be small-scale localised operations or a fight for national survival, will shape the capabilities and capacities required by the joint force. ‘Seed’ capabilities – those which exist in relatively small numbers in a peacetime force to preserve skills and an emergency capability such as the Army’s tanks or certain combat aircraft and ships – will form the basis upon which a larger ADF will expand from. It is more likely than not that the ADF, reacting to a wartime adversary, will evolve to be fundamentally different to the one that is conceptualised in current capability development programs. Shaping factors will include war-time economic conditions and choices that the Australian Government, enacting domestic policies and working in partnerships with other Departments, has made. A host of variously complicated and complex issues will impact how national power manifests into military outcomes. The ADF will have had to expand its training capacity, logistics, and invest in new capabilities to create strategic advantages. This will likely be achieved in partnership with allies, each of which may also be suffering the adverse consequences of the initial engagements of the war.
These scenario parameters offer a different focus for envisaging the next conflict that Australia faces. While they merely offer a heuristic employed to test and tease out ideas, they do help to remind us that there is much more to war than we tend to consider in concepts and preparedness planning. Furthermore, it also illustrates that preparedness is not just about readiness, but also the resilience and the capacity of the ADF to recover after a conflict-induced catastrophe. If, as the 2020 Defence Strategic Update suggests, that the likelihood of conflict is increasing in an ‘disorderly’ and ‘dangerous’ geostrategic climate, it is prudent that the ADF comprehensively reflects upon the purpose of preparedness, and what it might truly deliver the ADF during a conflict.[11] The question remains, however, how might the ADF best prepare itself?
Part two will be published shortly.
This article was originally published in the compendium of papers ‘Designing the future: thinking about joint operations’ by the Australian Army’s Future Land Warfare Branch. The compendium includes a wide range of interesting essays written by those responsible for conceptualising the Australian Army’s future.
[1] Author unknown, Sound military decision, US Naval College, USA, 1942, p 198 from Eccles, H., Logistics in the national defense, The Stackpole Company, USA, 1959
[2] Babbage, R., ‘Ten questionable assumptions about future war in the Indo-Pacific’, from Australian Journal of Defence and Strategic Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1.,
[3] A heuristic is an approach to problem-solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect or ration, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation. See ‘Heuristic’ at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic, [accessed 27 Sep 2020]
[4] Nolan, C., The Allure of Battle, Oxford University Press, UK, 2019, p 4
[5] Speedy, I.M. ‘The Trident of Neptune’, Defence Force Journal, 1978, pp 7-16 cited in Ball, D., Problems of mobilisation in defence of Australia, Phoenix Defence Publications, Australia, 1979, p 13
[6] Department of Defence, 2020 Defence Strategic Update, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia, 2020, p14
[7] Van Creveld, M., Supplying War, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2004, p236
[8] Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), 2002, Management of Australian Defence Force deployments to East Timor, Audit Report No. 38, Department of Defence, Australia, para 4.130, p 87
This article was recently published at http://www.defense.info and has been reproduced here with permission. It is based upon an interview which followed a recent Williams Foundation Seminar on Next Generation Autonomous Systems.The two articles discussing ‘Sustaining machines’ can be found here and here.
At the recent Williams Foundation Conference on Next Generation Autonomous Systems, Col. Beaumont, Director of the Australian Army Research Centre, focused on the intersection between logistics and support innovation and automation and autonomous systems. He expanded upon his presentation and provided a two part series of articles, which we put together into a single piece, which brought together his core argument.
Much like Marcus Hellyer did in his presentation to the seminar, he argued that autonomous systems are not ends in and of themselves, but must be seen as part of a wider force structure modernization effort. He warned: “It is important to be aware of the risks. Cyber threats are persistently targeting global businesses, so Defence must prepare itself during the transformation of its logistics capability.”
Aware of the risks, how do we shape a way ahead for transformed logistics? I had a chance to follow up with Col. Beaumont during a phone discussion in April 2021 to discuss how he saw the way ahead. It was clear from looking at his presentation that Beaumont highlighted the role of better information systems and the internet of things as a core way ahead to shape a more effective logistics support system.
As Beaumont started the discussion: “The new automation and autonomous systems technologies offer great promise and provide valuable tools which will be adopted more widely over time. You don’t want to get seduced by technology to the point that you’re taken down some rabbit warrens that create risks in themselves. I see automated tools as providing for serious strategy change in a relatively short period of time, rather than overemphasizing what autonomous platforms can quickly provide.”
By shaping more capability to use information tools, automation tools associated with the Internet of Things allows is for reshaping the template for logistics support. As that template is worked, the ecosystem is created within which further ability to leverage next generation automated systems is enhanced. It is a question in some ways of putting the cart before the horse.
Beaumont highlighted that “even as simple an effort to implement enterprise business tools but to do so within a deployable system is a key advancement which allows us to shape a more effective way ahead. In large part it is about building sensor networks within an overall logistics system and finding ways to tap into those networks to provide for more effective decision support and for these new systems to enable better domain knowledge throughout the logistics enterprise.”
“It is about taking those sensor networks and having the computing tools which enable you to be able to rapidly predict or act without direct human intervention to enable decisions with regard to doing the right thing in the right place at the right time to support the force from a logistics point of view.”
His focus clearly is upon shaping a logistics enterprise system which can use automation and information more effectively to drive better tactical and strategic decision making with regard to logistical support.
What we have already seen in practice is the challenge of overcoming cultural and organizational barriers to do so. We have seen in some militaries over-reliance on commercial IT systems which leaves their logistics system vulnerable to adversary cyberattacks. We have seen in the case of a new enterprise support system like the F-35 resistance to change in order to use the information generated by the enterprise system to change the configuration of logistics support itself.
As Beaumont put it: “To use a new system effectively, you have to develop the processes that truly can leverage the new system. One has to combine all sorts of different organizational factors to get the innovation which new technologies for support can provide, whether that be organizational redesign, or making sure the right people are trained to do it, and different specialties may be required as well to leverage the new technologies as well.”
New technology is not a bromide that solves anything. You actually have to think about usability to the force. You have to think about finding ways that technology actually empowers the force rather than just simply disrupts it. It is often called disruptive technology, but that’s not a positive thing if it’s so disrupts if you have actually reduced the capability of the force to fight. That’s hardly innovation.
We then turned to the question of how autonomous systems could be introduced into the Australian Army with a real benefit for the force and expanding its operational capabilities. From the logistics side, the challenge is two sided – how to you bring these assets into an operational environment? How do you service them? How do they help rather than burden? How can they provide logistical support for a deployed force most effectively?
The Australian Army is certainly experimenting with a number of autonomous systems, but the logistics side of this is a key part of shaping the way ahead, both in terms of enhancing the demand for logistical support and providing for logistical support.
We discussed one area where it might make a great deal of sense to get the kind of operational experience where such systems could be introduced and supported without introducing excessive risk to the combat force, namely, in support of HADR missions. A HADR mission involves moving significant support forward from either an air or sea delivered force. How might autonomous systems be used to assist in moving relief supplies to the right point and the right time? How might deployable “internet of things” automated information systems be set up to manage the flow of supplies to the right place and at the right time?
Beaumont noted that at the Williams Foundation Seminar “there seemed to be a wide consensus upon the importance of experimenting with these new systems to determine how best to use them.”
In short, Beaumont highlighted the near term opportunities to use new enterprise system approaches and technologies to reshape the logistics enterprise system and in so doing shape the kind of template which was conducive to further changes which autonomous systems could introduce.
Logistics In War 