Page 158 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep-Oct 2022

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FROM THE SOURCE
LTGEN SIMON STUART
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
We have some other very practical things we need to fo- cus on under the heading of modernising the employment offer. What that really means is making sure that our con- ditions of service and the way that we train, educate, devel- op and support our people reflects the demands of modern life for people and their families.
We’ve got a lot of initiatives underway and in fact one of the design principles of our modernisation plan is leveraging the power and the potential of our total workforce. I’m re- ally keen to make sure that we remove barriers to entry and barriers to continuing to serve and, of course, making sure that the pay and conditions are incentives for service as well. So, a broad range of things, they’re some of the key areas of endeavour at the moment.
ADM: How important is the land domain in the Indo-Pacific? LTGEN STUART: I think several millennia of history prove – and we intuitively know – that war is a human endeavour. People live on the land, over two-thirds of the world’s pop- ulation reside in the Indo-Pacific region. Ultimately that’s where wars are decided, a contest between people. That has not changed; we need to apply all elements of national power, we need to be relevant and credible in all domains, including in the land domain.
LEFT: Soldiers from the 2nd/14th Light Horse Regiment (Queensland Mounted Infantry) in Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle conduct a battle run in the Townsville Field Training Area
BELOW LEFT: Riflemen from the 6th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment fires a .50 cal heavy machine gun during an Integrated Gun Line Practice
ADM: Is the combined arms concept of Plan Beersheba still relevant in the current threats and geography that we face?
LTGEN STUART: I think there’s two separate aspects to your question. Plan Beersheba was about solving the problem of the time. It was about how do we most efficiently gen- erate forces for the operational demand of the time. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the support and stabi- lisation operations in our region. Combined arms is the way we work. The theory, of course, and the practice is that the sum of the parts is more than what they represent individually. At the Joint Force level, we apply the same concept, we want to be relevant and credible in all do- mains, so we can apply strengths and protect weaknesses. So that remains the way we continue to work and is part of the design principles of our adaptation and modernisa- tion efforts.
So, the geography doesn’t change but the threats con- tinue to adapt. As they adapt, so do we.
ADM: What early lessons have been drawn from Ukraine so far?
LTGEN STUART: You make a good point, it is early to be drawing firm conclusions. We are certainly very focused and seeking to learn and exchange our interpretations with our allies and partners. I would answer your question in three parts.
Looking at it strategically, what we’ve seen is the most dangerous of circumstances and that’s where an aggressor overestimates their own capability and strength and under- estimates the capability and strength of their opponent. I think the calculus that was made by the Russian leadership was optimistic and, of course, it’s very easy to be drawn into thinking that a war can be short but I think history tells us otherwise. I really like H.R. McMaster’s quote of 2012 where he said along the lines of, “we (the human race) have a perfect record of predicting future war and that re- cord is zero per cent”. So once that calculus has been made
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