190%202013%20Mar_Apr

34
However, the exact nature of a defence of Australia campaign – the central issue in Australia’s
‘great debate’ between expeditionary and continentalist schools – remains highly contentious
yet typically not framed by Australia’s preparedness and mobilisation principles.
Australia’s ‘Great Debate’: Expeditionary v Continentalist
Contrary to Palazzo’s (2012) contention that the Australian Army, and by extension Defence, is
not engaged in a future war debate, these discussions occur regularly and with similar passions
as the ‘great debate’ in the US between the Gentile (conservative) and Nagl (crusader) schools
(for more see Bacevich 2008). For one, the expeditionary and continentalist approaches have
broadly defined Australian defence debates since Captain William Creswell and Colonel Hubert
Foster first clashed over a century ago.
Continentalists point to Australia’s geography to emphasise the importance of ensuring the
Navy and Air Force have the capabilities to defend the north and north-western approaches, or
point to the apparent failings of expeditionary campaigns (for example, Stephens 2007, p. 40)
to support their contentions. In contrast, expeditionary proponents suggest that Australia’s
borders and land mass are too large and the ADF too small for a ‘fortress Australia’ campaign.
These ‘force projectionists’ assert that the projection of land forces northwards is the key
to Australia’s defence and, moreover, the development of expeditionary forces reflects the
dominant trend in 21st century warfare (that is, counter-insurgency and hybrid warfare),
therefore posturing the ADF for its most probable future operational contributions (Evans
2007, p. 9).
Australia’s ‘great debate’ continues but the realities of joint 21st century warfare are rendering
the ‘puritans’ of either school increasingly obsolete. Moreover, the lack of consensus regarding
the optimum strategic solution—whether expeditionary, continentalist or a hybrid—requires
a hedging approach framed by Defence’s preparedness and mobilisation principles.
While the expeditionary-continentalist debate is intellectually interesting, the strategic and
operational reality is that a defence of Australia campaign against conventional military forces
will more than likely require a combination of both force projection and ‘fortress Australia’
principles. Indeed, the two schools of thought are, and indeed must be, compatible in a
joint defence of Australia campaign. Air and naval capabilities will need to deny adversaries
access and control through the north and north-western approaches. Equally, land forces will
inevitably need to project into the region, especially onto the ‘land bridge’ to Australia’s north
to not only deny and control land access but assist and reinforce the effects of the adjoining
air and naval campaign.
To effectively hedge strategic risk to deal with the strategic and operational constraints of a
defence of Australia campaign, Defence’s preparedness activities and mobilisation planning
should avoid an over-commitment to either school of thought. Perhaps a more useful debate
would be how expeditionary (force projection) and continentalist (fortress Australia) principles
could be unified in a joint campaign within Defence’s preparedness and mobilisation framework.