On Ops: Lessons and Challenges for the Australian Army since East Timor
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On Ops: Lessons and Challenges for the Australian Army since East Timor
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| ISBN-13: | 9781742242453 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | UNSW Press |
| Publication date: | 06/14/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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On Ops
Lessons and Challenges for the Australian Army Since East Timor
By Tom Frame, Albert Palazzo
University of New South Wales Press Ltd
Copyright © 2016 Tom Frame and Albert PalazzoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74224-245-3
CHAPTER 1
THE ARMY AND NATIONAL INTEREST
JOHN HOWARD
There was an enormous increase in the military operations in which Australia was involved during the time that I was Prime Minister from March 1996 until August 2007. I have to say at the outset that it was not entirely what I expected. Politics is a combination of the widely anticipated (often, in reality) and the totally unexpected. When I was elected Prime Minister I had no idea of what lay ahead for this country and I dare say very few of our foreign policy, strategic or military advisers had any idea either. Nobody could have envisaged the intervention in East Timor. I certainly do not believe that anybody would have foreseen the coming of terrorism in the form of attacks on Washington and New York in the September of 2001. There was an entirely different attitude in official circles on both sides of politics about active interventions in Pacific Island countries, such as the Solomons, and we were still living in the long shadow of the Vietnam conflict's aftermath, although that war had ended more than twenty years before my government was elected. Nonetheless, it was a period of time in which there was, in my judgement, a subdued level of public consciousness about potential military involvement in a range of situations abroad as the conflict in Vietnam had evoked enormous controversy in the community. There remained intense feelings about it – not about the quality of the military contribution by Australian forces, but about the strategic wisdom of the involvement and the continuing consequences of that involvement – and this influenced public attitudes towards the use of Australia's military capabilities in any context.
When the Coalition parties came to government one important decision we took was to ring-fence Defence from any expenditure cuts in our first budget. It is fair to say that was an attitude that was substantially maintained during our time in office and, of course, in addition there were significant increases in many areas of Defence expenditure. We ordered a review – there are always reviews when governments come to power, whether it is in Defence or anywhere else – into the financing and management of the forces. The first Defence Minister in my government, Ian McLachlan, announced that an inquiry led by Vice Admiral Chris Barrie (who later became the Chief of Defence Force) would seek to use the language of the trade, to shift resources away from 'the back office to the sharp end'. I will leave others to decide whether or not that was successful. But our initial commitment to exempt Defence from expenditure cuts was the basis of the Coalition's commitment to national security. There would be no defence on the cheap; it needed to be properly funded.
The turning point for me and the whole government in relation to defence was the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) operation. It required careful decision-making that was conscious of both the long- and short-term political and diplomatic consequences of Australian action, and it demanded substantial additional investment in supplies and equipment. This was not the first occasion on which the Coalition Government had deployed Australians abroad – and this is often overlooked. In response to the continued refusal of the Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein to comply fully with the United Nations resolution on weapons inspections, we had sent a Special Forces contingent to the Middle East in 1998. They were deployed with strong bipartisan support. Together with Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, I met the contingent in Western Australia before they departed. Their mission was to co-operate with other allied forces in helping to enforce the air space and flying restrictions associated with implementing the resolution. A deal was subsequently brokered by the Secretary-General of the United Nations with the Iraqi regime, and the Australian personnel came home. But there was a fundamental change of mood in the political arena of our own region in 1999.
The origin of this mood change was the very unexpected decision of the President of Indonesia, Dr BJ Habibie, to contemplate significant change with respect to Indonesia's policy on the continuing occupation of East Timor. I wrote to Dr Habibie, who came to office following the resignation of General Suharto early in March 1998. My letter urged him to hold a plebiscite on the future status of East Timor within Indonesia. He certainly surprised us when he agreed to hold such a plebiscite without delay, and to include the option of complete separation from Indonesia. This went beyond our government's expectations.
This proved to be a deeply unpopular decision in some sectors of Indonesia, especially within their armed forces. In the months before the vote there was widespread violence committed by rogue elements of the Indonesian military in East Timor. The situation deteriorated to such a degree that by the early months of 1999 it was obvious to many of us in the government that military intervention was a very real possibility. Should force be required to reinstate order and to restrain local militias, the government was aware that Australia would be expected to play a substantial role in any intervention. After all, we were the largest and most prosperous nation in the region. I made it clear that if we were to play a major role in the intervention it would include overall leadership. I had come to the conclusion that this was the sort of operation in which Australia needed to be in a position where we could exercise maximum control and direct influence.
History records my intense disappointment with President Bill Clinton when he told me the United States was unable to provide any ground forces to be part of an intervention in East Timor. I genuinely thought at the time that a contingent of American ground forces would be needed and, in my naivety, I thought they would be provided, given the shared history of our two nations. Despite my personal dismay, and that of the entire government's feeling of being let down, Washington's response did have a positive dimension. The expressed American inability to provide ground forces did Australia an enormous favour in the long run, because it meant a more comprehensive commitment from us than might have been.
Australia provided the bulk of the forces with important contributions from many other countries, particularly New Zealand, Thailand and South Korea. It was very much a regional operation. But the greater assumption of responsibility by Australia meant we were able to identify many deficiencies in both our planning processes and operational procedures. From my perspective, the intervention revealed the serious deficiency we were facing when it came to any kind of sea and airlift capacity. Without much of the logistic support that was subsequently provided by the United States the whole operation would not have been as successful. As a footnote and in fairness to the Clinton Administration, once they were aware of the depth of our disappointment at their inability or unwillingness to provide ground forces they were certainly quick to provide other kinds of assistance, including considerable diplomatic support. On reflection and notwithstanding the mistakes and inadequacies the intervention revealed, Australia is entitled to look with a great deal of pride and satisfaction on the quality of its diplomatic and military effort in East Timor after 1999.
In sum, the East Timor intervention had two important consequences. The first was its transforming influence on the mindset of the Australian people about the contemporary role of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in national life. There was an almost universal wave of support for both the government's decision to play a major role in East Timor and the widespread affirmation of the quality of the ADF's contribution. We were greatly assisted, of course, by the absence of significant battle casualties – always a vital issue when it comes to military involvement. The transition of East Timor from Indonesian sovereignty to the protection of the United Nations and then to independence and self-government had attracted international commendation and domestic approval. The only critics were from among what I would loosely call the Jakarta-centric sections of the foreign affairs commentator community, who operated on the principle that you never even think about offending Jakarta.
The overall reaction of the Australian community to our involvement in East Timor was one of pride. The intervention rekindled the defence community's continuing but perhaps subdued belief in the capacity and the commitment of our uniformed men and women. In the broader community, it generated pride in the capacity of ADF personnel to represent the country in an effective and generous way. In addition to their warfighting ability, Australians could see that uniformed personnel were also intricately involved in humanitarian and peacekeeping work as part of their duties. East Timor provided us with a very significant example of that dual capacity.
After the post-Vietnam hiatus in which the ADF retreated into the background of national life, once again their activities were front and centre in popular consciousness. This was, in my judgement, an overwhelmingly positive development, but it meant there would be continuing focus on expenditure within the Defence portfolio. There would be renewed debate about the extent of Commonwealth outlays and where the money would be spent. While the East Timor intervention had almost overwhelming political support, subsequent military operations were not to attract that same level of support, and I will come to them in a moment.
Never having served as Defence Minister and certainly claiming no special experience as a defence expert, I didn't pretend to have a detailed knowledge of all the deficiencies that came to light in 1999, and in the years that followed. We learned some very salutary lessons because we were forced to assume the ultimate responsibility in the absence of American involvement. It was the first time that we had been involved in any kind of contested military operation for decades without some kind of operational involvement from United States forces. Therefore, we were obliged to look very closely at our own capability gaps.
The deficiencies in our airlift abilities later led to acquisition of Boeing C-17 Globemaster III large transport aircraft, which have proved so valuable in a range of contingencies, most recently during the operation that followed the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH-17 over the Ukraine. It's good to remember, too, that the standout vessel of the Timor operation was the wave-piercing catamaran HMAS Jervis Bay. It had been a commercially constructed vessel known as Incat 045, built by an outstanding Australian company for civilian use. Jervis Bay is now a metaphor for what East Timor taught us about our capabilities, and we should be very grateful for these lessons. The government learned a lot from that experience, and we invested heavily over a period of years in equipment of this kind.
The other lesson that East Timor taught me, and which impressed itself on other members of the government, was that Australia would need to play the sort of role we were obliged to play in East Timor whenever that sort of eventuality arose in our region. The success of the East Timor intervention meant that the rest of the world in a sense breathed a sigh of relief. International bodies noted that Australia had the ability and the willingness to play a major role in operations of this kind in our part of the world.
Several years later Australia was asked to play a significant role, albeit in different circumstances, in the Solomon Islands, as the lead nation in a Pacific Forum force that sought to restore law and order in the former British colony. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) also involved the Australian Federal Police (AFP). As in East Timor, Australian was able to demonstrate our capacity to take a lead role in the region but we were also reminding the rest of the world that Australia could be relied upon to be a good international citizen.
By this time I realised that ADF operations were at the high and low ends of military capability. At the high end we were partnering coalition allies in operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the lower end we were taking the lead in our own region. It was partly because of these varied demands that we decided towards the end of our term in office to establish two new battalions. The need for flexibility also influenced the decision to enhance the Army's tank capacity and on other equipment acquisition of a lesser magnitude.
As I look back on that period of my prime ministership, I can see it was marked by a high level of operational tempo for the ADF. But it was also a period in which I believe we learned from our mistakes and took stock of our deficiencies. Although we (and I use that work collectively here, to include everyone involved at a political and a military level) have emerged to a situation where public regard for the ADF is as high as I have known it in my lifetime, it is important that we try to understand just what lessons were to be learned and what deficiencies revealed. As I look back at what I can remember of the attitude of the Australian people in the mid 1990s, it was not so much of indifference but that the Army's place was far from the forefront of public consciousness. Twenty years later that is certainly no longer the case.
Let me make some specific observations of the Army based on the particular vantage point that I enjoyed both as Prime Minister and more particularly as the Chairman of the National Security Committee of Cabinet. During my time in office the National Security Committee of Cabinet became a very active part of the Executive Government. It had the authority (as it still does) of the full Cabinet, particularly from the time of the East Timor intervention. Its membership included the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister and the Attorney-General, with other ministers co-opted when necessary. Also included, except on very rare occasions, was the Chief of the Defence Force, the Secretary of the Department of Defence, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, the Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Director-General of the Office of National Assessments (ONA), which is the chief distillation point, if I can put it that way, of intelligence that comes to government. At other times, officers such as the Commissioner of the AFP contributed to the deliberations.
It was far and away the most effective Cabinet committee during my time in government and I can best measure that effectiveness by the constant requests I received from ministers outside the National Security Committee to join. They were regularly calling on me or my Chief-of-Staff Arthur Sinodinos with well-documented arguments as to why their contribution to the National Security Committee of Cabinet could enhance its output. I steadfastly rejected all of those requests because I thought the group brought together precisely the people who could make the right decisions.
From the view of operational decision-making I cannot emphasise too much how valuable it was to have present at all of those meetings (other than on rare occasions when raw party politics was being discussed) the continued presence of these senior advisors and our capacity to argue, among other things, the merits of detailed acquisition decisions. There were many energetic discussion about the acquisition of particular pieces of military equipment and, of course, vigorous debates between the Treasurer and the Defence Minister about the escalating costs of all this.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from On Ops by Tom Frame, Albert Palazzo. Copyright © 2016 Tom Frame and Albert Palazzo. Excerpted by permission of University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Contents
CONTRIBUTORS,ACRONYMS,
LESSONS AND LEARNING Tom Frame,
PART 1: THE BIGGER PICTURE,
1 The Army and national interest John Howard,
2 The emerging strategic environment David Horner,
3 Combat ready? Peter Leahy,
PART 2: VIEWS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL,
4 Lessons from East Timor Craig Stockings,
5 Islander perspectives: Bougainville and the Solomon Islands Reuben Bowd,
PART 3: OPERATIONAL AND READY?,
6 Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terror Amin Saikal,
7 Improvements and challenges for Army's ISR enterprise Scott Gills, Ben Alward and Tim Rutherford,
8 Logistics and the failure to modernise David Beaumont,
9 Logistics and emerging technology Allison Sonneveld,
10 The costs and complexities of health support Anthony J. Chambers,
PART 4: VIEWS FROM THE MEDIA,
11 The military and the media Brendan Nicholson,
12 Balancing information and reputation Leanne Glenny,
13 Public interest and Defence information Michael Harris,
PART 5: ON ETHICS AND MORALITY,
14 Intervention – a duty to protect? Stephen Coleman,
15 The challenge of moral injury Tom Frame,
PART 6: FINAL ASSESSMENTS,
16 The Army and government objectives John Blaxland,
POSTSCRIPT Albert Palazzo,
NOTES,