Page 90 - Australian Defence Mag Sep 2020

90 FROM THE SOURCE SIMON STUART
SEPTEMBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
MAJOR GENERAL SIMON STUART
HEAD OF LAND CAPABILITY
Army is going through a renaissance when it comes to their capability. From their core business of warfighting through to humanitarian aid and disaster relief, they are being asked to do more by government. ADM Managing Editor Katherine Ziesing caught up with Major General Simon Stuart to talk about how the capability space is supporting the shape, deter and respond policy approach
ADM: How would you characterise Army’s performance over the past 12 months given the extended bushfire sea- son and now COVID-19 response alongside the tradition- al exercise, training and deployment cycle?
STUART: I think Australians can be really proud of their army and their soldiers as part of the ADF for the response dur- ing the national bushfire disaster and during COVID. At the heart of everything we do are our people and I think they have stepped up, as they always do. There’s a real sense of pride individually and collectively that
The next was Army in Motion, which is our organisa- tional response to say, ‘we need to be very adaptive, we need to be able to form teams quickly and create certainty where there is uncertainty.’ I think that’s one of the things that Army offers to the community here in Australia but also in every mission that we do.
When things are volatile, uncertain, complex, or ambigu- ous, people want that confidence that comes from having an Australian soldier there who can deal with ambiguity, can deal
we can help our communities in their time of need. It’s also important to note that our people includes families. Do- mestic deployments of this nature place unique pressures on families and they deserve special recognition for their contributions. It’s also our obligation, our duty and our job. While the cur- rent circumstances are pretty extreme by comparison to what we would nor- mally experience, it’s not new. Whether it’s supporting things like the Com- monwealth Games, flood relief, cyclone recovery or fires in Victoria in the last decade, this is something that we have done and will continue to do.
ADM: What I’m trying to emphasise is that it has been a sustained high demand period for the ADF, but par- ticularly Army. How are you balancing that with core business?
STUART: As you’d be aware from your
conversations with the Chief of Army,
he talked about a couple of concepts.
One was Accelerated Warfare, which is really describing the intersection of geopolitics, climate, technology, ma- lign actors and the uncertainty and the ambiguity that these factors create in our environment.
with not having all the facts, can deal with adversity, can form teams, bring people together and solve problems. I think that’s why Australia can be really proud and confident, that in their time of need, we’ve got that attitude and people with those skills.
ADM: On the Army capability front, are the Tiger and Taipan helicopters performing their intended roles to your satisfaction, particularly in light of the Tiger replacement approach confirmed in the Force Structure Plan (FSP)? What does battlefield aviation look like going forward?
STUART: First, Next Generation Rotor- craft will see us working with our col- leagues in DST Group, industry, the US (Editor’s note: Future Vertical Lift Program) and others. We think that those kinds of technologies will prob- ably result in something that’s com- mercially available in the early 2040s.
Our approach is to make sure that we understand the technology, we un- derstand our requirement so that when it does come time to make a decision, we’re an informed customer and can
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PROFILE
2020 Head Land Capability 2017 Commander Multinational
Force and Observers
2015 Director General Land Mobility Systems Branch
2014 US Army War College
2012 Commander Combined Team
(Uruzgan)
2011 Director Coordination – Army
2010 Commander Joint Task Force 631, East Timor
2008 Commanding Officer, the 8th/9th Battalion, RAR
2002 UK Joint Services Command and Staff College
2000 Company Commander, the 2nd Battalion, RAR
1990 Platoon Commander,
the 2nd/4th Battalion, RAR