By David Beaumont.

Two decades ago, as Western militaries confronted a new strategic paradigm with declarations that a ‘revolution in military affairs’ was underway, the US Army Chief of Staff General Reimers declared:

‘There will not be a revolution in military affairs unless there is a revolution in military logistics’ (1996)

This view, since paraphrased or made contemporary by Reimer’s successors and many others, reflects a truism in military transformation. If militaries are neglectful of the logistics process, or fail to adequately invest or adapt their logistics capabilities, they are likely to fail in their preparations for war. This is because logistics is vital in establishing the potential of a force, but also ultimately contributes the means by which firepower and shock is delivered to critical places at the right time to meet strategic and tactical objectives.[1]

I was fortunate to be invited to present on the Australian Army’s approach to logistics transformation and development at a recent Australian Army Research Centre (AARC) Seminar. The paper ‘Transforming Australian Army Logistics to support the Joint Land Force’ provides a history of logistics transformation, and describes several imperatives that will influence how the joint land force might be sustained in the future. This paper, however, could not cover all concerns. The AARC seminar introduces a fifth imperative to the discussion, the cost of logistics – sustainment – must be reduced, so that logistics resources can be redirected to other areas that require attention and repair.

Transformation occurs every day in Army through many overt and unseen efforts. In recently issued Commander’s Statement titled ‘An Army in Motion’, the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Burr writes that Army must ‘be ready now, while concurrently becoming future ready’ and that Army must also ‘transform’ to capture future opportunities. It will be important that logisticians articulate what problems need resolving, aggregate the efforts being undertaken under a binding narrative, and devote effort to this objective. However, if we are serious about transformation – and we should be – the effort must be shared by all in Army with organisational and operational reforms pursued.

The AARC Seminar, Realising the sustainable joint land force, concludes with a proposed strategy for the transformation of Army logistics. I believe that the question to be answered is ‘how does the joint land force improve its logistics capability and capacity at a lower cost?’ Pursuing this question on overall productivity is not about seeing logistics efficiencies as a ‘bill payer’; when we have done so in the past we have found savings tend to be less than anticipated, and that there are always unintended operational consequences of change. Instead, we should seek efficiencies to enable the redirection of our efforts to areas that need reinforcement or as described above, repair.

The three core outcomes of my proposed strategy are to ‘reduce the footprint’, ‘improve logistics readiness’ and to ‘reduce the cost of logistics’. I outline these areas of effort in the Seminar. While a strategy to proceed with change is advocated to unify effort and prepare Army for the transformative influences of technology and other factors, it is also important that we increasingly accept change is a positive influence and adapt organisational culture as a consequence.

A video recording of the Seminar can be found here.

The slide deck with full details of the proposed strategy can be found here or on request.

David Beaumont is a serving Australian Army officer. The thoughts here are his own.

[1] Huston, James A., Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775-1953, University Press of the Pacific, USA, 2004, 2^nd edition, p 655

By David Beaumont.

To start 2018, LIW is pleased to announce the release of ‘Transforming Australian Army logistics to support the Joint Land Force’, a paper shaped by the discussion of logistics on LIW during 2017. Published by the Australian Army’s Research Centre, the paper comprehensively examines compelling operational reasons for a new agenda of change – from newly developed operational concepts to other imperatives for transformation. With permission from Army, the announcing article reads:

There is need for the Australian Army and its logisticians to address the transformation of its logistics capabilities, concepts and processes now. This is not only because Army must look to the future and the ever-changing face of war, nor is because of revelations gained through nearly twenty years of operational experiences. It is not just because the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, asked his senior logisticians to lead a ‘revolution’ in late 2016 or that Army’s balance of forces between the ‘tooth’ and the ‘tail’ is awry. Army needs a transformation of its logistics, now, because of the intractable nature of change as its applies to logistic modernisation. It needs to reinvigorate a stalled evolution of its logistics capabilities and capacities by making transformation less of an extraordinary activity, and part of the daily business of Army logisticians and planners.  It is because Army must be ‘primed’ for the real revolution in logistics that comes with a modernising Army; Army’s logisticians ensuring the ADF’s land force is well-prepared and optimised to accept the benefits of future technology, process and concepts.

Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics to support the Joint Land Force addresses the topic of logistic transformation in two parts. To establish the context behind which transformation should be examined in the future, the monograph will first outline Army’s track record with transforming logistics in an historically-based narrative. The changes described have been a combination of those imposed upon Army, but also the consequence of operational experiences. During the 1980’s and 1990’s a strategy in which the defence of Australia was a force structure and operational concept determinant shaped the way in which logistics in Army would be conducted. However, it was a series of reviews by successive Labor and Coalition Governments to, as part of the Australian Defence Force, over-exuberantly cut its ‘tail’ to fund its ‘teeth’. The flaws in this approach resulted in a harrowing experience in deploying to East Timor in 1999, and Army considered its logistics strengths and weaknesses in considerable detail. However, the transformation of Army logistics largely stalled as operational imperatives changes with successive operations in the Middle-east, and with managing organisational change occupying much of Army’s time in garrison.

In the second part of Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics, four challenges facing logistic transformation will be discussed. These four challenges will articulate why transformation is necessary, and suggest ways in which such transformation should occur. Ideas relevant to future wars will be discussed, including emerging operational concepts relevant to the provision of logistics in contested environments, including recent discussions concerning ‘Multi-domain battle’ and ‘5th generation warfare’. Doctrinal ideas will be challenged, and alternative concepts proposed. However, the monograph will not prescriptively outline the detail; this is the work of the concept developers, doctrine writers and those logisticians and commanders who will ultimately lead the implementation of transformation plans. Instead Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics focuses upon observations and conclusions about the direction of transformation, proposes how problems may be prevented in the future, and identifies operational and non-operational issues that must be overcome in future transformative efforts. Moreover, it contends that the Australian Army’s logistics community must lead its own agenda in this period, else others will do the leading for it.

Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics exists because there is need for public discussion on the topic of logistic transformation simply because the subsequent consideration of the problem will be directly relevant to successful change. This is because the real problem facing the transformation of the Australian Army’s logistics is not that Army does not know the problems or the solutions, although the monograph describes these issues. Army has already spent considerable time and planning effort to identify the issues which need resolution. Rather, the monograph asserts that it is the manner and means by which transformation in logistics has occurred that is the central issue.  As Army ventures into a period of considerable change, both environmental and in terms of opportunities offered by new capabilities, it is time that logistic transformation becomes a focal point about which Army’s evolution continues.

You can find Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics to support the Joint Land Force here.

 

By David Beaumont.

This post concludes the ‘Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics’ series, and is an abridged extract from a larger paper.

Over a series of articles, I have outlined a basic history of change with respect to logistics in the Australian Army. Institutional history is not always the most interesting to read, but what it reveals is often highly important for understanding how change occurs in militaries. Militaries adapt during wars and on operations, but the ‘hard work’ of long-term transformation often occurs over extended periods of time and by people far removed from the battlefield. In the case of the ‘Transforming Army’s Logistics’ series of posts, the reveals a variety of lessons relevant to those seeking to influence the trajectory of change in those capabilities relevant to sustaining military forces. This includes the logistic community and force designers of land forces beyond the Australian Army, and perhaps even other Services.

The first and second periods of logistic transformation in the Australian Army were distinct. The first, from the late 1980’s to Army’s deployment to East Timor in 1999, was essentially defined by the pursuit of Australian continental defence strategy and the far-reaching programs of commercialisation that transitioned much of Army’s strategic organic logistic capability into the private sector. It was a period during which change was imposed, and Army’s logisticians were forced to make compromises and difficult choices about which capabilities had to remain organic to Army. Therefore, it serves as a reminder that logisticians should not take the opportunity to lead transformation for granted – there is always someone around the corner to do the ‘leading’ for them.

Although the basic operational concept applied in this period was proven strategically faulty, and Army’s logistic capabilities had been mauled by imposed policies, a few significant and ultimately positive changes did occur. Army had redesigned its logistic capabilities to fight beyond and outdated divisional model, and had consolidated various logistic organisations into arguable more efficient – and less hollow – units and formations. Furthermore, a more collegiate relationship with industry and other Services had emerged from new policy and the progression improved operational jointery in the ADF. The pressure to transform logistics was certainly severe at this time, and despite the soul-searching involved, a great many efficiencies were introduced in the process.

As I wrote here, the second period was shaped by Army’s focus on fighting wars in progress. Although concepts were developed, and Army developed modernisation plans and an ‘objective force’ based upon a long-term view of the future, the need to rapidly adapt for operations saw logistic transformation occurring as a series of many incremental, and at times hard-won, steps. The achievement of a goal pursued over no less than three decades by Army’s most senior leaders, to prefer Army’s structure on the basis of preparedness rather than concepts, also had a significant effect on the objectives sought out of logistic transformation. It was a period in which Army, and its logisticians, became used to meeting minimum preparedness requirements rather than preparing for contingencies themselves. Sustaining and supporting an Army on continuous operations over the last fifteen years has required Army’s logisticians to develop solutions to numerous, and serious, problems but it has come at the cost of developing innovative concepts and doctrine to prepare Army for the future.

Transformation in Army’s logistics capabilities has always required a combination of incremental and revolutionary changes usually made in response to externally-driven pressures. It is possible to infer from Army’s responses to the continental defence requirements of the 1980s and 1990s that revolutionary change in logistics has only occurred through a systematic, conceptually-based, process. Once Army had addressed several logistic capability gaps after the East Timor crisis, logistic transformation in practice was infrequently conceptually based at all; more about managing organisational change than preparing for the future. In the turbulence caused by supporting operations, and Army’s transition under programs including the ‘Hardened and Networked Army’ and Plan Beersheba, attempts to progress transformation were hampered as a consequence.

The transfer of funding from logistic capability programs, and manning to support combat capabilities, further complicated transformation in this time. In sum, this period was not conducive for logisticians to describe what they want – or, indeed, what Army needs – define the steps to get there, or assemble the requirements to achieve it. Considering this it is understandable, though hardly ideal, that ideas have tend to stay just that. Substantial transformation of doctrine and procedures have yet to occur to reflect innovative ways of sustaining the force with many ideas remaining as little more than points on a ‘Powerpoint slide’ or concepts in a pamphlet, and are unusable in actual practice.

Much of Army’s most recent efforts towards logistic transformation has been retained in the intellectual domain, fed on a diet of experimentation, and without an effective transition into evaluation and exercising, doctrine development or the modernisation of Army’s logistics. Concept development and experimentation are vital first steps to transformation, and there is a wealth of useful material available which reflects a diligent approach by a range of Army and scientific personnel to understanding the logistical needs of the future Army.  However, due to its attention towards the conduct of operations, it has been difficult taking the results to completion.

The lasting benefits from experiments conducted or concepts presented have been arguably marginal and predominantly reflected in subtle shifts to major Army capability programs rather than significantly addressing wholesale logistic transformation. There has been virtually no transition of logistic ideas from the ‘laboratory’ to the training area since the RTA trials were conducted in the late 1990’s, with training time and capacity predominantly consumed by the need to operationally certify forces for deployments or other preparedness obligations. It is time Army devoted more time to exercising the ‘logistic fountain’ from which it draws the strength to fight.

Moreover, transformation in Army was always complicated by the way in which it synchronised with efforts undertaken elsewhere in the joint force. Admittedly, the idea of ‘joint logistics’ as an institutional construct is relatively young, its organisations frequently restructured in an unhelpful turbulence. The approaches required to support Army at the strategic level have required a considerable culture shift for a Service which used to perform many strategic and operational logistic functions organically. However, with its most recent focus on enabling a force generation cycle, logistic transformation on Army was less about structuring the right balance of capabilities and concepts within the joint domain than “simply” getting forces to the operational area.

Logistics, as a process which begins in the national economy and ends at the front line of the battlefield, depends on all Services and Defence agencies to be effective, and to work efficiently together. If transformation is to be given a chance to succeed, a greater proportion of time must be spent getting the joint relationships right. Whether future operational concepts demand Services to interact together more effectively or not, the logistics process or system is bigger than any one Service, group or agency to control; ‘bridging the gap’ between all parties involved is essential for effective sustainment. This applies in garrison, as well as on operations. The Australian Army has been reminded of this necessity in successive operations, and has come a long way – along with the Australian Defence Force – over the last three decades in making joint operations a true force multiplier.

It is, however, important for us to not ‘over-think’ this requirement and look to solve every strategic logistic challenge with a complicated and complex systemic review of Defence logistics. Changes taken at the local level are important in transformation, and as much as logisticians need to think strategically in terms of the wider force, and getting relationships ‘right’, they shouldn’t forget there are many things to fix right in front of themselves. Furthermore, there is always a risk that the bigger the problem that logistic transformation appears to be in the future, the less likely logisticians will invest the considerable time required to do it properly.

After reviewing this history of logistic transformation in the Australian Army, I feel that logisticians have not embraced logistics transformation as fully as they should. This is not an indictment upon the attempts made by many logisticians to positively influence Army’s modernisation outcomes. Rather, it is collectively held belief that a more comprehensive investment by logisticians in terms of their time is unlikely to be productive. Army’s natural bias to organisational change over the last twenty years rather, as well as its conceptual focus upon its front-line formations, are just two of the reasons as to why major logistic transformation has been viewed as wasted effort.

Secondly, the rapidity by which the Australian Army has introduced major force structure initiatives including Hardening and Networking the Army and Plan Beersheba has created an environment in which simply responding to short-term change is all that capacity allows. Army’s logisticians are so consumed by performing the day-to-day function of sustaining training and operations that it is understandable that many would consider themselves unable to promote transformation outside of the staff environment. Thus, it can be entirely expected that changes to doctrine or concepts rarely find the way out of the hands of planners and into those who will be expected to execute transformation.

Perhaps this means that the prospects for future logistic transformation are not good, and a review of history gives logisticians a reason to disengage themselves even further from logistic transformation. For those who feel this way, they should keep in mind the considerable personal effort undertaken by many who have been engaged in Army’s future – from the senior-most logistician leader who fought to get Army’s logistics thus far, to the forward-thinking soldiers and officers who promoted their own ideas by whatever means possible. Insularity caused by an unhealthy scepticism of attempts to transform logistics capabilities and processes does nothing more than perpetuate problems. Nor should inadequacies of time be an excuse for a failure to invest in the future; any efforts undertaken by logisticians now are ultimately for the benefits of others on the battlefields of tomorrow.

Successful transformation requires Army’s logisticians invest themselves deeply in transformation despite the many institutional and operational obstacles that confront them. There is reason to do so now because Army is always changing to suit new circumstances and emerging problems. Participating in the agenda for change in this time requires a personal investment of interest, and an enhancement of a collective sense of responsibility. After all, it is certainly better to ‘own’ one’s destiny, than let one be ‘owned’ by it.

David Beaumont is a serving Australian Army officer, and the thoughts here are his own. He can be followed on Twitter @davidblogistics. Image by the Australian Department of Defence.

By David Beaumont.

This post continues the ‘Transforming the Australian Army’s logistics’ series, and is an abridged extract from a larger paper.

As much as we might like to think that militaries change because of strategic necessity and transformative concepts, they are also beholden to a variety of social, economic and institutional influences. The developmental path undertaken by Army in adapting its logistics capabilities is a complicated mix of organisational culture, responsibility to Government, an element of happenstance, and operational pressures. Many influences in transformation are simply out of Army’s control. For most mid-rank to senior serving officer and soldier logisticians, Australia’s deployment to East Timor in 1999, Operation Stabilise / Warden, was a foundational event which compelled a generation of changes to logistic capabilities. Certainly, immediately after this operation, quick action was undertaken to address a variety of capability deficiencies that this operation so painfully revealed. The focus on systemic hollowness within several key logistic capabilities after the East Timor operation was important, but its long-term effect on Army’s development has been somewhat limited.  More fundamental changes to Army’s, and the ADF’s, logistics capabilities made in the two decades prior left greater legacies in terms of organisation, responsibilities and expectations relevant to the operational performance of land forces. Therefore, it is from this era that the modern history of Army’s attempts to transform its logistics must be understood.

Army, and the logisticians that serve within it, tend to view the twenty-year experiment with ‘Defence of Australia’ strategy as mythos. As a post-Vietnam Army sought to find its footing, growing societal and political moves for strategic self-determination, experiences from a range of peacekeeping operations in places such as Somalia and Bougainville, coupled with extensive capability programs fighting against the obsolescence of equipment but in a period of national financial pressure, placed immense pressure on the ADF’s logistics capabilities. Just as strategists contended with implementing the ‘Defence of Australia’ operational concept, born out of the 1986 Dibb Review and subsequent Defence Of Australia 1987 (DOA87) White Paper, logisticians began the process of rationalising capabilities under a variety of initiatives.[1]

However, it was not strategic policy that would be the biggest concern of logisticians; industry policy, and a bipartisan desire in Government to deregulate the government sector that would be particularly influential. If wasn’t until the 1990 Wrigley Review, the 1991 Force Structure Review and the Defence Commercial Support Program (CSP) which accompanied it, the latter of which saw a great transition of the ADF’s logistic capability to the private sector, that the policy implications of DOA87 and a greater union between Service logistics and commercial support from the national support base really hit home.[2] The atrophy of Army’s organic logistic capability through the commercialisation process undertaken over this period would have considerable consequences in the future. The degradation of base level logistics is well known, but the degeneration of deployable logistic capability also affected formation and unit logistic elements.

It is easy for a logistician to look back upon this time with concern. However, there were positive changes to Army logistics occurring during this period that are often overlooked in the hyperbole. Modern approaches to operational command and control, as well as logistic jointery, developed to support ‘Defence of Australia’ and other imposed changes, left long-term benefits for the ADF.  Within Army, logistics command and control was investigated in detail and with vigour. Efficiency seeking led to the growth of joint institutions that better coordinated logistic activities across the ADF. Systematic experimental and exercise-based analysis of logistic performance complemented conceptual development to produce force modernisation outcomes which continue to be implemented today. This period may have comprised paradigm-changing events and processes which had enormous implications for the ADF’s operational performance. There were, however, other incremental changes occurring to Army’s force design that were, arguably, just as influential. Before assessing logistic transformation during any further, it is important to appreciate other themes and issues which were affecting the force.

Post-Second World War operations, including the more recent Vietnam War and peacekeeping operations such as in Somalia (Operation Solace), had accentuated a shift in Army’s approach to where the bulk of its logistic capability resided. This move was reflective of the changing character of operations, and emerging thoughts on combat logistics. During the Cold War period, and in a stark contrast to the major wars which preceded, most deployments were of Task Forces or units, usually conducted within a coalition which provide some measure of sustainment. Furthermore, the light, motorised and armoured specialisations of Army’s formations and units saw such forces requiring their own equally unique logistic echelons at the unit and formation level.

By the 1980’s, Army was under pressure by the Defence to move from a divisional model that perpetuated hollowness across the Service, and adopt a force structure better suited to the demands of Australian continental defence. Thus, it was felt, there was no need to centralise capability at the divisional level; Army was evolving from one designed to fight formations of at least brigade in size within a two-Division structure, to one that deployed battalion groups within independent brigade-sized formations for a variety of different requirements.[3] Larger divisionally-oriented logistics regiments were slowly but surely decentralised, adjusted or simply disestablished as Army reluctantly abandoned long-held but impractical ambitions.[4]

These changes were only accentuated by the operational concepts and doctrine developed to enable a ‘Defence of Australia’ strategy. The resultant operational concept required an Army that was capable of fighting in extremely dispersed conditions, in an inhospitable geography defined by distances between units measured in the hundreds of kilometres. As stated in the Chief of General Staff’s Advisory Committee in 1986

The priority demands on our ground forces are for the protection of military and infrastructure assets in the north of Australia from a protracted campaign of dispersed raids.[5]

Based upon this prevailing view in Defence and Government, it is understandable why there may have been a desire to outsource many purportedly ‘non-core’ logistic functions, supposedly obtainable from the national support base in a time of crisis, through programs advocated by successive reviews.

This was only part of the reason for the truly transformational change that was to occur to Army logistics in the early 1990’s. Due to funding pressures that made attaining the capability desires of the 1987 White Paper, a strategic logic which required a growth in defence funding, a large ‘tail’ in the Services would not be tolerated by Government. Three reviews were fundamental to reshaping Army logistics in this period. Firstly, Defence was compelled by Government to examine its force structure to implement the ‘Defence of Australia’ approach through the 1991 Force Structure Review. At the same time, Dr Alan Wrigley was appointed by Government to examine a holistic, national-based, approach to defence. Wrigley’s report, The Defence Force and the Community: A partnership in Australia’s Defence, and the subsequent Inter-Departmental Report which reflected the endorsed Government outcomes, advocated an increased role for industry in the support of Defence activities.[6] Finally, the Commercial Support Program (CSP) that was released concurrent to the Force Structure Review and reflected the intended commercialisation of the ADF’s organic logistic capability.[7]

To fund $200 million of capability programs, the Force Structure Review required Army and the other Services to examine what were ‘core’ (directly combat and combat-support) and ‘non-core’ (largely ‘rear-echelon’ logistic functions) activities. [8] Those activities identified as ‘non-core’ would be market-tested for commercialisation, with many outsourced under the CSP. This process of reducing numbers in the ‘tail’ would hit Army the hardest; the Force Structure Review acknowledging that:

The combat structures of the Navy and Air Force are largely major equipment oriented and have been the subject of detailed reviews over the last decade, while Army is organised around personnel based structures. Any significant reduction in ADF personnel numbers inevitable involves a more fundamental review of Army’s structure to maintain the viability of the combat force.[9]

In addition, landholdings would be rationalised, the ‘Military District’ model of regional engagement would be abandoned because of the Defence Regional Support Review and the institution of the operational level of command in the ADF, and training institutions and practices consolidated across all Services. It was a period of ruthless cost-cutting and manpower saving, where logisticians themselves would have to volunteer options to reduce the size of Army’s organic logistics capabilities. Although the goal was to ensure the combat force was funded, these three programs in unison are now anecdotally regarded as creating structural weaknesses with respect to Army’s capacity to sustain itself on future operations.^[10]

Accompanying the force structure changes were the conceptual ones. The need for Army to draw more of its sustainment from external sources began to be reflected in operational concepts. In 1992 Major General Geoffrey Carter, Deputy Chief of General Staff, described the logistic support required for ‘Operations in Defence of Australia’ as:

Logistic support to implement these concepts will tend towards austerity coupled with maximum use of the civilian infrastructure. While it can be expected that we may harness all available national resources, we may need to seek assistance from friendly nations.[11]

At the unit level, battalion groups were expected to operate without an abundance of logistic support but also independently. Yet it was recognised that logistics capacity would temper the ability to conduct operations.[12] Local civilian industry was expected to support the hypothesised military operations, but the reality was forces were too dispersed, and national support capacity limited in the remote environments it was believed that operations would be conducted in, to provide such support. Battalion-group level manoeuvre forces would be resourced with whatever would be required for defence of Australia tasks so to make them operationally responsive.[13] Army’s transformation path had optimised it for fighting at the battalion level, and this continued a growing emphasis on pushing logistic capabilities into brigade formations. This necessitated growth in unit-level logistic echelons, as well as confirming the importance of multi-capability formation logistics unit, the Brigade Administrative Support Battalion, in its role as the provider of modular logistic components to units as required.

While new concepts favoured the battalion group as the principle fighting formation of the Army, there were reasons for change in other areas in Army. As defence planners started to think about the means by which operations in the north and north-west of Australia could be sustained, it was realised that these forces would require a greater level of logistic support than had been experienced when in operations with coalition partners.[14] Thus the Logistics Support Group (LSG) was created on the basis of Vietnam war experience; consolidating many of the divisional-level logistic functions and assuming the responsibility for operational-level logistic support for land operations.

This formation (later known the Logistic Support Force (LSF) and now 17 Combat Service Support Brigade) additionally served as the ‘third-line’ of logistic capability, meaning Divisional-sized operations could – in theory – be sustained. However, this formation proved to be a poor cousin to the combat formations, themselves heavily hit by the pressure on Army to cut the size of its force. Combined with the downsizing of the ADF’s logistic elements (the Army had downsized from 34000 to 24000 over this period) with Government policy and reform initiatives, the LSG and LSF would prove to be quite hollow. This was an issue that would have significant ramifications in future operations in East Timor.

Elsewhere, and as the operational concepts continued to mature, and major strategic-level changes in logistics occurred, Army found itself more and more integrated in the fortunes of the emerging ‘national support agenda’ and the burgeoning joint force. Army’s own strategic and operational-level logistics organisations and capabilities, including Logistic Command, had been merged with those of the other Services to form Support Command Australia (SCA) and other Departmental strategic agencies in the mid-1990’s due to Government efficiency-seeking. This was a natural progression to the development of operational-level command within the ADF, but also to centralise and more efficiently manage ADF logistics from acquisition to service delivery. Furthermore, SCA was directed under the 1997 Defence Reform Program (DRP) which established it, to accelerate the commercialisation of ADF logistics. This process resulted programs such as the Defence Integrated Distribution System (DIDS) for transportation within the national support base amongst other major programs which integrated commercial operations with Army activities.

SCA would, in 2000, meld with the National Support Division and Defence Acquisition Organisation to form the now defunct Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO). Planners had conceived SCA to be an organisation that could exert control over the strategic and operational components of the logistics process, but in practice it was overwhelming focussed upon the acquisition and sustainment of Defence capabilities rather than their operational use. When DMO was created, this weakness in SCA would lead to planners establishing a subordinate Joint Logistic Command (JLC) whose purpose was to perform numerous operational functions Army undertook for land operations in the past. Nonetheless, until this happened, the logistic process as it applied to the ADF’s land operations was fractured and confused. The constant changing at the strategic level of Defence which began in the late 1980’s until 1999 had been immensely disruptive, and created a great deal of uncertainty with respect to supply-chain responsibilities for land forces around operations such as Op Bel Isi (Bougainville) and Operations Warden (East Timor). Â

With respect to the tactical logistic activities left to Army, in the mid to late 1990’s, and learning off the US Army’s experiences with its Task Force XXI study, Army began to approach the problem of defending Australia through a series of planning events and experiments. These would become known as the Army 21 (A21) concept launched in 1995, and the subsequent change process known as ‘Restructuring the Army’.[15] Although the 1996 election resulted in a change in Government, and a nominal shift from a continental approach to strategy, the RTA trials maintained the same vision of war as practiced the decade before. Army would become an integrated full-time and part-time Army, comprising highly mobile task forces and units, capable of autonomous operations in dispersed, joint, operational environments.[16] For logisticians, these concepts once again emphasised the robustness of forward echelons as a means of ensuring sustainment for forces vast distances away from historical lines of operation. These forces would have to be sustainable for operations of 15 months at a time, with 30 days of combat operations mixed within.[17]

However, just before the focus of the RTA trials could turn to the sustainability requirements for offshore deployments during 1999 in the ‘Defence of Regional Interests (DRI)’, the Australian Army was called to deploy to East Timor. Operation Warden would provide good reason for Army – and the ADF more broadly – to adapt its approach to logistics and support to operations. The consequences of commercialisation and a national support base not ready to support an operation which all but consumed the entirety of the ADF’s attention and effort would hit home hard. Army threw whatever it could at the problem of force projection, even resuming operational-level logistic tasking that it was not supposed to perform. In the wake of this deployment, to be explored in the next post, Army’s planners and logisticians switched to a new focus in which logistic transformation would be considered.

David Beaumont is a serving Australian Army officer, and the thoughts here are his own. He can be followed on Twitter @davidblogistics.

[1] Department of Defence, The defence of Australia 1987, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia, http://www.defence.gov.au/publications/wpaper1987_1.pdf [accessed 03 Mar 17]; For an outline of what this policy meant see http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/DefendAust/1987 [accessed 05 Mar 17]

[2] Horner, D., ‘Deploying and Sustaining INTERFET in East Timor in 1999’, 2009 from Australian Army History Unit, Raise, training and sustain: delivering land combat power, Canberra, http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/Files/Our%20history/AAHU/Conference%20Papers%20and%20Images/2009/2009-Raise_Train_and_Sustain-Delivering_Land_Combat_Power.pdf, [accessed 13 Apr 15]

[3] Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, From Phantom to force: towards a more efficient and effective Army, Commonwealth of Australia, 2003; http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Completed_Inquiries/jfadt/army/armyindx [accessed 04 Mar 17]

[4] Horner, D., Making the Australian Defence Force, The Australian Centenary History of Defence, Vol IV, Oxford University Press, Australia, 2001, p 260

[5] Chief of General Staff Committee 7/96 Agendum of Oct 1996

[6] Commonwealth of Australia, Interdepartmental Committee on the Wrigley Review, Australian Government Publishing Service, Australia, 1991

[7] Department of Defence, Force Structure Review 1991, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia, p5, para 8 [National Archives of Australia; AWM 388]

[8] Shephard, A., The Defence Commercial Support Program: saving $200 million a year for defence procurement?, Parliamentary Research Service Research Paper No. 2 / 1993, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia, 1993, p 1

[9] Department of Defence, 1991 Force Structure Review, Commonwealth of Australia, para 2 [National Archives of Australia; AWM 388]

[10] Horner, D., ‘Deploying and Sustaining INTERFET in East Timor in 1999’, 2009 from Australian Army History Unit, Raise, training and sustain: delivering land combat power, Canberra, http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/Files/Our%20history/AAHU/Conference%20Papers%20and%20Images/2009/2009-Raise_Train_and_Sustain-Delivering_Land_Combat_Power.pdf, [accessed 13 Apr 15]

[11] Carter, G., ‘New developments in land forces’ from Horner, D., The Army and the future: Land forces in Australia and South-east Asia, Department of Defence, Australia, 1992, p 263

[12] ibid., p 266

[13] ibid., p 265

[14] Horner, D., Reshaping the Australian Army: challenges for the 1990s, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence, No. 77, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, Australia, 1991, p 42,

[15] Chief of General Staff Committee 7/96 Agendum of Oct 1996

[16] Fisher, J., Brennan, M., Bowley, D., A study of land force modernisation studies in DSTO –1996-2000, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia, 2002, p12

[17] ibid., p 12p

By David Beaumont.

Some may recall from earlier posts on ‘Logistics In War’ that in late 2016, the Chief of the Australian Army, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, challenged the senior logisticians of the Australian Army to ‘revolutionise’ Army’s logistics. This was not because sustainment operations were not successfully happening, nor was it a condemnation of any imaginary inadequacy perpetrated in the efforts of the soldiers, officers and civilians responsible for delivering Army its logistics, and through extension, operational capability. Such operations and efforts, also borne by the joint logistic community and the wider Defence organisation, have kept Australian forces in the field for nearly twenty years of operational activity.

Rather, the Chief’s challenge was a direct statement that logistic transformation must come from within Army’s logistics community; an encouragement to find innovative ways in which Army’s logistic capabilities could be enhanced without substantially growing the land force. Furthermore, it reflected a need to break from tradition and habit to progress logistic development in a new direction. While not an indictment on Army’s logisticians nor their leadership, the challenge compels the community to realise transformative efforts in balance with current operational needs, and with a speed of execution that will enable the entire Army to progress into the future.

Long-term transformation in any component of the land force has always been a difficult and consuming process. Most Western militaries have had difficulty in transforming logistics in particular, and various individuals have written about such challenges as a consequence. John Louth, writing in respect to the UK situation, cites unrealistic expectations being made of logistic capability, the inability of the logistic community to successfully make the intellectual and business case for investment, the general unwillingness of the organisation to accept their advice once offered, and a widespread ‘misreading’ of the significance of lift and sustainment capabilities to numerous operational scenarios.[1] These are only a portion of the challenges that impede transformation.

Numerous American reports and papers attest to similar difficulties, and describe the consequences of logistics transformation stalling with respect to recent operations such as Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.[2] Although few Australian Army logisticians have written on logistic transformation, a number of notable papers exist such as Lieutenant Colonel Susan Smith’s research paper in 2000 which examined East Timor operations and the need to change Army logistics.[3] More recently the need for logistic transformation featured in Army’s 2014 Institutional Lessons Study and was regarded as Army’s priority concern by its leaders; it was discussed further during the resultant ‘On Operations’ conference and publication.[4] The problem has never been that issues requiring transformation have remained unknown. Rather, the problem has been the manner and means by which change is ultimately implemented.

Army’s logistics capability and capacity has endured tremendous transformation over the past thirty years. During the 1980’s and 1990’s a series of Government-induced reviews by successive Labour and Coalition Government’s compelled the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to cut its ‘tail’ to fund its ‘teeth’. Army bore the brunt of the cuts, and of Army, the commercialisation process affected Army’s logistics capabilities the most. Since the logistically harrowing experience of a deployment to East Timor in 1999, Army considered its logistics strengths and weaknesses in considerable detail. Some weaknesses have been addressed. Others have not. During the seventeen years since Operation Warden, strategic planners have conceptualised various pathways to effect land-force logistics, and senior commanders and logisticians have argued persuasively and campaigned consistently for further investment or force structure adjustments.

Even as we see a generational change in equipment enter into service we are still left with an unpleasant feeling that Army’s logistics capabilities are an area of risk, awaiting to play havoc with the future Army’s operational performance.  Dr Palazzo and Colonel Chris Smith recently noted that to prepare for expeditionary warfare, as envisaged under Australian Maritime Strategy, ‘any chance of success [in expeditionary operations] requires a higher ratio of ‘tail’ to ‘teeth’ than expected from current operations.[5] Furthermore, their paper claims that there is potential for a shift in balance between land forces from a focus on the combat arms to ‘enabling and support’ elements.[6] Therein lies the base assumption that the Army is unbalanced, its logistics capabilities are hollow and that most attempts to transform logistics have led to unsatisfactory outcomes.

There is more to transformation than getting the ‘tooth to tail’ ratio, or any other abstract measure of force balance, right. Yet there is a real need for further investment in the right logistic capabilities, as there is also an obligation by Army and its logisticians to steward this investment. This is the component of transformation which, for many years, has been forgotten. Concepts seem repetitive, assumptions are outdated, and senior ADF logistic community leadership has recently commented upon how logisticians seem to have lost control of their own agenda. This is a tremendous risk to logistics transformation in an epoch in which ‘austerity’ and ‘efficiency’ are terms used to complement logistics, budgetary limitations and growing costs in delivering combat capability necessitate reductions in other areas, and in the systemic uncertainty which exists as the entire ADF changes the way it undertakes its business during the First Principle Review (FPR). Arguments are riven with assumptions that are well beyond their usefulness, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the ever-changing nature of warfare requires these shibboleths to be abandoned. It is now time for logisticians and planners to look to the future and reinvigorate and transform Army’s logistics capabilities accordingly.

The transformation of Australian Army logistics will be the subject of a series of posts which articulate the need to transform Army’s logistics and the way in which transformation should occur. These posts are abridged versions of a much larger work to be published at a later date. With this in mind, these posts will not prescriptively outline concepts; this being the work of a systemic review being undertaken by Army Headquarters over coming months. As a work of opinion the series of posts will make observations and conclusions about Army’s track record with modernisation, discuss how problems may be prevented in the future, and highlight the challenges that must be overcome in future efforts. Some may seize upon this as a criticism of Army, its leadership and its logisticians. This is absolutely not the case. At times, Army has experienced tremendous pressure from external sources with respect to what logistics capabilities it should possess, and how they should be employed. Army’s logisticians have performed the best they can with the means available. Instead, this series looks to the future as one of opportunity whereby an operationally-experienced logistics community can lead change to better enable Army to win the land battle as part of a joint force.

David Beaumont is a serving Australian Army officer, and the thoughts here are his own. He can be followed on Twitter @davidblogistics.

[1] Louth, J., ‘Logistics as a force enabler’ from RUSI Journal, June / July 2015, vol. 160, no. 3, Royal United Services Institute, UK, 2015, p 60

[2] An excellent example being Maccagnan Jr., V, Logistic transformation – restarting a stalled process, US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, USA, 2005

[3] Smith, S., A handmaiden’s tale: an alternative view of logistic lessons learned from INTERFET, Australian Defence Studies Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia, 2001

[4] See Beaumont, D, ‘Logistics and the failure to modernise’ from Frame, T. & Palazzo, A. (eds)., On ops: lessons and challenges for the Australian Army since East Timor, UNSW Press, Australia, 2016

[5] Smith, C. & Palazzo, A., Coming to terms with the modern way of war: precision missiles and the land component of Australia’s joint force, Australian land warfare concept series, Vol. 1, Australian Army, Australia, 2016, p 20

[6] Ibid., p 21