conference proceedings - Australian Army

More documents

Recommendations

Info

280 THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY AND THE VIETNAM WAR 1962–1972 from cuts to defence and it lost many of its functions. More importantly, it failed to develop new capabilities. Australia’s ability to project land power has been diminished ever since. To understand Australia’s strategic situation today, it is necessary to examine the consequences of the war for Australia’s land forces. Australia’s role in the Vietnam War represented the longest involvement in a single conflict that Australian forces have been required to sustain. Approximately 50,000 Australians served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1973 and for more than a decade Australia’s military resources were devoted to sustaining this effort. The task of fighting a counter-insurgency campaign in South Vietnam shaped Australian military planning for more than a generation; its influence is still felt 30 years later. The immediate post- Vietnam period saw a shift in strategic thinking from the concept of forward defence to a policy focused on the territorial defence of Australia. Working backwards from the end of the Australian Army’s involvement in the war, this essay analyses the influence of the Vietnam experience on Army planning. It focuses on the strategic, operational and tactical consequences of Australia’s ten-year war. Reading (and Misreading) the ‘Lessons’ of Australia’s Role in Vietnam For those who study such things, the generally high esteem that the ADF enjoys in the eyes of the Australian public, following its successful role in helping establish peace and security in East Timor, is somewhat ironic. The popularity of the Services marks the end of a period of 30 years during which the prevailing attitude to the military was at best indifference and which, more often, questioned the need for the continuing existence of an Australian warfighting capacity. Since the end of the Cold War, the Australian Defence Force has been involved in an escalating tempo of military operations ranging from Somalia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and the Gulf to Bougainville, the Solomons, Afghanistan and, most notably, East Timor. Most of these operations have required a substantial land force component. Australian troops are, once again, serving in an expeditionary capacity overseas and have made a significant contribution to regional security. The conditions of insecurity arising from the War on Terrorism appear to guarantee that Australian troops will continue to serve—in coalition with other military forces—in regional and extra-regional theatres. The era of strategic paralysis that followed Vietnam appears to be ending, but the generation of policy-makers who emerged in the aftermath of the war need reminding that the latter stages of Cold War stasis were the exception in Australia’s strategic circumstances. Both before President Nixon proclaimed the Guam Doctrine and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international scene was dominated by conditions of protean insecurity. In the 1950s and 1960s Australia needed agile, deployable and effective land forces to serve its national interests in cooperation
THE AUSTRALIAN ARMy AND THE VIETNAM WAR IN RETROSPECT with other states that shared those interests. That need has re-emerged and it is no longer possible to determine national security policy by reference to a populist misreading of the lessons of Vietnam. After Vietnam, successive Australian governments concentrated the efforts of the defence force on the territorial defence of Australia, a trend that long-time Indochina correspondent Denis Warner described as ‘a retreat rather than an advance in Australia’s relations with Asia’. 2 That policy is now moribund, though its partisans continue to fight a rear-guard action. The Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Hill, recently spelled out the reality of Australia’s current strategic situation in a speech at the Australian Defence College. In that speech, he concluded that the: defence of Australia and its interests does not stop at the edge of the air-sea gap. It probably never made sense to conceptualise our security interests as a series of diminishing concentric circles around our coastline, but it certainly does not do so now. We are seeing a fundamental change to the notion that our security responsibilities are confined largely to our own region. The ADF is both more likely to be deployed and increasingly likely to be deployed well beyond Australia. 3 In strategic terms, the Minister’s statement reflects a dramatic shift in Australian policy and marks the end of the negative legacy of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. This essay considers some aspects of the nature of that legacy as well as the reasons that the debacle in Vietnam limited our national strategic vision. Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War ended up becoming deeply unpopular with the broader Australian community. This fact, together with the slurs heaped on those who were sent to fight the war, has served to disguise the fact that the defence forces were also deeply wounded by the war. As the war progressed those who fought it were increasingly the subject of sustained attack from a variety of groups in society. The antipathy towards the Army that arose from the war was to last for more than a generation. This hostility was particularly evident in the new left movements in the 2. Denis Warner, ‘General Coates opens the door’, Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, April-May 1992, 16-18 at 18; see also Statement by L.H. Barnard, MP, Minister of Defence, Australian Defence: Major Decisions Since December 1972 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1975). 3. Senator the Hon. Robert Hill, Minister for Defence, ‘Beyond the White Paper: Strategic Directions for Defence’, Address to the Defence and Strategic Studies Course, Australian Defence College, Canberra, 18 June, 2002, , downloaded 25 June 2002. 281
Page 1 and 2:
THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY AND THE VIETNAM
Page 5 and 6:
Contents Preface vii Contributors x
Page 7 and 8:
Preface Vietnam was Australia’s l
Page 9 and 10:
PReFACe whose behalf and alongside
Page 11 and 12:
CONTRIBUTORS which he was joint edi
Page 13 and 14:
CONTRIBUTORS Command and General St
Page 15 and 16:
CONTRIBUTORS Barry Smith was conscr
Page 17 and 18:
Introduction Lieutentant General Pe
Page 19 and 20:
The Vietnam Syndrome: A Brief Histo
Page 21 and 22:
THE VIETNAM SYNDROME: A BRIEF HISTO
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP support in
Page 37 and 38:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP had stated
Page 39 and 40:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP This patte
Page 41 and 42:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP of the Fed
Page 43 and 44:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP targeting
Page 45 and 46:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP was intere
Page 47 and 48:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP Between Mc
Page 49 and 50:
CONVERSATIONS AT THE TOP least your
Page 51 and 52:
The Higher Direction of the Army in
Page 53 and 54:
The hIGheR dIReCTION OF The ARMy IN
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
The TrAInIng oF The AusTrAlIAn Army
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
TRAININg foR SeRVIce IN SouTh VIeTN
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
PRePARING ARMOuReD uNITS FOR OVeRSe
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
THe deVeLoPMeNT oF THe AusTrALIAN A
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
dOCTRINE, TRAININg ANd COMBAT WITH
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
AUSTRAliAN TASk FORce OPeRATiONS iN
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme Vietnam. for
Page 159 and 160:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme By 1963 the A
Page 161 and 162:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme of Staff, ‘
Page 163 and 164:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme To the south,
Page 165 and 166:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme Bewildered by
Page 167 and 168:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme the ARVN was
Page 169 and 170:
fIGHTING AGAINST TIme Decreased fun
Page 171 and 172:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS and under the
Page 173 and 174:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS military build
Page 175 and 176:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS out of America
Page 177 and 178:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS was no comfort
Page 179 and 180:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS Until the summ
Page 181 and 182:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS Korean soldier
Page 183 and 184:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS in the south.
Page 185 and 186:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS children to gi
Page 187 and 188:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS South Korean u
Page 189 and 190:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS in the Lunar C
Page 191 and 192:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS remark, which
Page 193 and 194:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS estimate, he h
Page 195 and 196:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS to official gu
Page 197 and 198:
THE mAKING OF TIGERS the 70s, Korea
Page 199 and 200:
NeW ZeALAND’S COMMITMeNT OF INFAN
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Meeting the Challenge of Training a
Page 219 and 220:
MEETING ThE ChALLENGE OF TRAINING
Page 221 and 222:
MEETING ThE ChALLENGE OF TRAINING I
Page 223 and 224:
MEETING ThE ChALLENGE OF TRAINING T
Page 225 and 226:
MEETING ThE ChALLENGE OF TRAINING F
Page 227 and 228:
ANZAC Battalions: Australian Experi
Page 229 and 230:
ANZAC BATTALIONS: AUSTRALIAN ExPERI
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
Page 247 and 248: The Role and Impact of Civil Affair
Page 249 and 250: THe ROLe AND IMPACT OF CIVIL AFFAIR
Page 253 and 254: Liaison Detachment THe ROLe AND IMP
Page 259 and 260: THe AUSTrAlIAN ArMy TrAININg TeAM V
Page 267 and 268: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM In late 1961,
Page 269 and 270: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM eventually de
Page 271 and 272: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM Compounding t
Page 273 and 274: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM After arrivin
Page 275 and 276: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM ARVN’s lack
Page 277 and 278: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM reports that
Page 279 and 280: ADVISoRS AND oPTIMISM war was unwin
Page 281 and 282: Becoming the 3rd XV: The Citizen Mi
Page 283 and 284: BECOMING THE 3RD XV conventional wa
Page 285 and 286: BECOMING THE 3RD XV the time did no
Page 287 and 288: BECOMING THE 3RD XV The CMF’s his
Page 289 and 290: BECOMING THE 3RD XV out and the CMF
Page 291 and 292: BECOMING THE 3RD XV thus discharged
Page 293 and 294: BECOMING THE 3RD XV January 1967 an
Page 295 and 296: BECOMING THE 3RD XV the distant pos
Page 297: The Australian Army and the Vietnam
Page 301 and 302: THE AUSTRALIAN ARMy AND THE VIETNAM
Page 321 and 322: HoW HISToRy WoRKS: AFTERTHoUGHTS Al
show all

conference proceedings - Australian Army

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?