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162 australian maritime issues 2009: spc-a annual
the MOLE warfighting concept was written in 2003 with reference to the 2000 White
Paper, it generally aligns with the expeditionary orientation articulated in the 2009
White Paper as it focuses on the ADF’s ability to deploy and fight in the ADF’s POE.
MOLE could be used as the foundations for a joint littoral manoeuvre concept because it
is able to accommodate the new ADF capabilities outlined in the 2009 White Paper such
as the ADAS System. Furthermore, while MOLE is predicated on the ADF’s POE and is
a warfighting concept, the elements of the MOLE concept could be utilised in all four
of the ADF’s principal tasks and in more benign operations such as the non-combatant
evacuation and humanitarian aid operations outlined in the 2009 White Paper. 38
The recently released AC-FLOC 2009 states that:
Given the littoral character of the POE and the vast spaces between areas
of human habitation, Land Force can only be applied in concert with
maritime and air forces. The Land Force will need to have an expeditionary
orientation, seeing itself increasingly as an air and sea borne force that is
almost completely reliant on the other Services for its reach and its ability
to shape, manoeuvre, and sustain itself within the POE and beyond. 39
AC-FLOC recognises the littoral character of the ADF’s POE and the requirement for a
joint expeditionary focus to ADF operations. Accordingly, the future success of MOLE
requires further joint consideration, validation and revision in light of single Service and
joint concepts and doctrine if it is to represent a coherent and valid joint concept and
successfully exploit the true joint nature of littoral operations. This challenge requires
the application of intellectual rigour, inter-Service understanding and dialogue and
the appointment of a joint sponsor to give a joint littoral manoeuvre or expeditionary
doctrine the requisite joint operational depth and clout. As a starting point, from a
single Service or joint maritime perspective, MOLE should be reviewed to include the
tenets of maritime manoeuvre in the littoral, STOM, DO and sea basing.
In addition to developing a robust joint concept to enable the ADF to operate seamlessly
in the littoral environment, considerable changes to the ADF’s structure, procedures and
culture will be needed. Such changes align with the joint aspirations in the ADF’s capstone
concepts (FJOC, FMOC and AC-FLOC), including: common C2 architectures as an enabler
to NCW, tailored and integrated logistics systems and processes to facilitate reachback,
developments in joint fires to meet emerging capabilities such as the ‘maritime-based
land-attack cruise missiles’, individual training to develop corporate knowledge of
amphibious and littoral warfare, and joint collective training and preparedness evaluation
to enable critical joint capabilities. 40 The MOLE concept accurately identifies some of
the ADF’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities in trying to make the concept operationally
executable. In that sense MOLE is a starting point, but requires a joint driver to achieve
the required structural, procedural and cultural change, and for this reason can only
work as a joint concept with a high level joint sponsor, and buy-in from each of the three
Services. The requirement for accelerated development in these areas is currently being