By Justin Goldman
The current Army chief will leave the service better prepared for future challenges.
As Lieutenant General David Morrison, Australia’s Chief of Army, approaches the end of his command, his three years have seen the Army conclude multi-year deployments in Afghanistan and East Timor. Initiatives taken under his leadership have an Army better prepared for tomorrow.
Army Structure
Plan Beersheba, which Morrison announced in December 2011, would bring about a major restructuring of the Australian Army over the next ten years. At the heart of it is the requirement to transform the 1st, 3rd and 7th Brigades into three multi-role maneuver brigades. Transitioning to this common structure has facilitated better training, more effectively leveraging the experience of deployed units by those conducting exercises at home. The commonality will facilitate a 36-month force generation cycle, addressing the challenge of the need to sustain a deployed force for prolonged periods.
Speaking in February at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Morrison stated the Army “will have, within the next three years, a force structure that will allow a Brigade Group to deploy and be replaced by a like organization should the protracted nature of operations require it.” The nature of the East Timor crisis had a profound effect, with Morrison explaining that “we had great difficulty deploying, commanding and sustaining a fairly modest Australian Force much less the multi-national coalition we led.” The 2nd Division, commanding all of Army’s reserve brigades, is now more oriented towards providing surge forces to complement the active component should that scale be required.
The vision is for a mechanized combined arms team to be the basic unit of action, but not all programs have gone forward with that vision, including the 2012 decision to cut the self-propelled howitzer. As the Army prepares to undertake a Force Structure Review it is important to remember that as General Morrison described it, “for a significant part of my time as a soldier, the Army was consigned, by design, to be the weakest component of the ADF.” Thoughts of a peace dividend following the end of operations in Afghanistan should be informed by the deficiencies found within the force when the East Timor crisis began.
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