President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
Most national security discourse concerned with the High North centers around icebreakers, shipping lanes, and so on. However, combat in Arctic conditions offers little new stimulus to naval and airpower practitioners because of the relative global uniformity of their domains. The changing Arctic will have far greater impacts on ground combat by restricting the mobility of units across already-difficult terrain and by exacerbating the logistical and life support needs of these formations.
Editor’s Note: This article by Lieutenant General Angus Campbell originally appeared on The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s weblog The Strategist and is re-posted here with permission.
Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, Chief of the Australian Army (Courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute)
In my role to lead and prepare an Army to serve its nation, my career experience has developed in me a profound commitment to the value, indeed the necessity, of joint, inter-agency, coalition and allied operations, as the best and most sustainable way to pursue our nation’s interests.
This is because of the extraordinary skills, and potential for greatness, resident within our people, especially when we team across the boundaries of a diverse national and regional community.
The Army has an important contribution to make to this team, bringing many unique and useful capabilities. Important, although not always preeminent; context is all.
Unsurprisingly, as a Chief of Army, I am not an adherent to the false god of ‘high tech war’, that declares armies redundant, so banal is this analysis. Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster speaks in his usual compelling manner on this topic in his recent essay, Change and Continuity: the Nature of Future Armed Conflict.
Like all of you I dread war, and would welcome quick, clean, bloodless, decisive clashes, but when Shakespeare wrote, ‘Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war’, he reminded us that these dogs, elsewhere alluded to as Famine, Sword and Fire, have a will of their own.
A war started is not necessarily a war ended; home by Christmas an illusion. War can slip readily out of the control of any of its belligerents. On land, at sea or in the air, cyber and space domains, war can all too easily spill over the convenient boundaries and timelines we so desire of it. An adversary on the defensive is an adversary looking for another domain in which to attack. This violent clash of wills doesn’t necessarily end when or how we choose.
In the deeply human and political tragedy that is war, in the last resort, violence often comes to a dramatic, exhausted or lingering close on land, because that is where we live.
However, this is no easy pass, the Australian Army should always be able to explain to the government and the people its role and utility, within a wider team effort, in defence of our nation and its interests.
Army’s priorities are:
Today, I am going to concentrate on the third priority, modernisation. But before I do, let me make a few comments about the others.
Support to operations is obvious but has many deep implications. We fight joint, certify and deploy joint, command and control joint, increasingly employ joint doctrine and many of the most powerful asymmetric effects we can apply are uniquely joint. And these joint forces team with interagency, coalition and allied partners.
Recent adjustments to organisational and command arrangements within the ADF, announced in the First Principles Review, reflect the importance of strengthening the centre and enabling next steps in our joint development. I am very excited by the possibilities for the ADF of these changes and suspect historians will look back on this decade as the ‘tipping period’ in building joint forces characterised by deep environmental expertise.
The Australian Army’s 2014 Future Land Warfare Report, identified five trends that will likely shape future war: crowded, connected, lethal, collective, andconstrained, these trends are also converging. These are not simply big or pervasive changes — they broadly outline our future operating environment and will transform the ways we think, operate, cooperate and contribute as an army.
The Army doesn’t and shouldn’t have the luxury of choosing the type of war or security operation in which we might become involved. That is a decision for government. But we have to structure for and be competent in land joint war fighting, our unique contribution to national capability. Everything else we might be called upon to do is less difficult.
Today we see terrorism, intra-state conflict, great power positioning, state instability, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief all at play and all affecting Australia or its interests.
Because of life’s inherent uncertainties, I want the joint force to be as capable as we can afford, and I’m delighted at the quality of the air and naval forces Australia is building. We will always be stronger working together.
Our modernisation effort supports Army’s contribution to a broad range of operations. The following are three examples of issues we might consider in how Army does so:
First, the Army contributes to developing Australia’s key international security relationships, building confidence, and promoting common strategic understanding and interests. The Defence White Paper is likely to reinforce the importance of this ADF role and I look forward to working with our partners throughout the Indo Pacific Region, to align effort, build capacity and enhance cooperation.
Second, the Army contributes to deterring, and if required, defeating coercion of, or attacks on, Australia and its interests, particularly access to trade and commerce, the lifeblood of an island continent. This includes denying an enemy the freedom to operate within our extended approaches.
The ability of our Army to contribute to a strategic deterrence effect as part of our maritime strategy will increase with the development of an amphibious capability centered on two Landing Helicopter Dock ships. How Army, as part of a broader team, might support a maritime posture and the potential for the Army to contribute to access and area denial in the approaches to Australia needs also to be carefully considered.
Third, the Army makes a substantial contribution to the headquarters that might be expected to lead operations aimed at assisting or maintaining the stability of states within our extended approaches.
In the next 10 years, the Army will see substantial investment in protection and mobility, with projects focused on mission command systems, the introduction of protection from blast for our fleet of light, medium and heavy trucks and the replacement of our combat reconnaissance vehicle and armoured personnel carrier.
These projects combine to deliver vehicles that are more than replacements for their predecessors — they provide protected weapon systems, which are also a hub for communications, information, sustainment and fire support, enhancing the capacity of a ground force to absorb surprise and achieve tactical success in an era of democratised lethality.
Understanding the broad parameters of future land warfare environments, and the operating concepts applicable to them, can produce valuable insights to focus our development and enhance the Army’s strategic utility and tactical effectiveness in the defence of our nation and its interests.
Angus Campbell is Chief of the Australian Army. This post is an edited version of the speech from Lieutenant General Campbell delivered at the ASPI Army’s Future Force Structure Options Conference on 25 June 2015.
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Now may be a good time to reconsider further reductions in U.S. overseas force structure in Europe and Asia. Though not the proximate cause, the events in Ukraine imply a loss in the deterrent ability of the United States. While it may be too late to maintain a large deterrent force in Europe, there may be a lesson for the United States with regards to current and near-term force structure and posture decisions. This is especially true for the U.S. Army. The drawdown of U.S. forces from Europe has been ongoing since the late 1980s as the justification for almost 250,000 U.S. Soldiers no longer existed with the demise of the Soviet Union. The fact that U.S. Soldiers have been permanently assigned overseas points to some key considerations regarding land power.
The case for land power rests on the warning that in war, technology supports, not augments, people. Current events make the case for land power. The nature of land power provide a reassurance to allies and can effectively deter aggression. If called upon, land power can also compel decisions, all as part of an interservice effort. The dazzle of new technology can be blinding for some people, and that may discount the importance of the soldier in strategy development.
Swiping at other forms of warfare is still not a positive argument for land power, what it does, and why it is important. To suggest land power as the pinnacle of military force discards joint complement, which empirical examination of warfare does not confirm. Ultimately, the contribution of land power to net strategic effect is just as subject to friction as every other blunt instrument of military might — to suggest otherwise is dangerous.
Landpower is the central element of military power. While other forms of military power — naval, air, space, and cyber — are vital to national security, land is where people live and where decisions happen. Technology has advanced so much and is more lethal than ever, but if we lose sight of the importance of the soldier, or marine, on the ground, we do so at our own risk. Capable land forces never lose sight of the importance of the soldier, and sound strategy never loses sight of the importance of landpower.
When a political decision requires a definitive, more enduring answer, land power will likely be the main element of national power employed — there’s a reason the key theorist of war and land power focused on destroying an adversary’s armed forces, occupying his country, and breaking that nation’s will as his three main objectives in war.
The U.S. Army will not be very successful in the coming operating environment unless it develops a sense of strategic understanding in its officers (and senior non-commissioned officers). For the purposes of this essay, strategic understanding is defined here as: awareness, comprehension, and ability to communicate broad purpose for the use of force and the relationship between tactical action and national policy. Trends tell us two things that demand this characteristic: first, landpower is inherently attributional; second, the Regionally Aligned Forces model ensures that the American Army will go to more places, faster, in smaller numbers, than ever before.
Once again, the Army is attempting to transform itself. The question the Army can’t seem to answer is, “why?” Yes, the world is becoming more complex and competitive: China’s rise, a resurgent Russia, an unstable Middle East, and the continued threat of the metastasizing cancer of Al Qaeda spanning from North Africa to Central Asia are all challenging America’s global leadership position. However, no single threat has emerged as existential to the U.S. or its vital national interests.
