Ibid - Australian Army

Land Warfare Studies Centre 36
Army Doctrine in the 1990s: From Continental to Maritime
Concepts of Strategy
The 1990s began with the evolution of Army doctrine for the
defence of continental Australia; they are ending with radical
transformation in that the Army has adopted new doctrine to
support a maritime approach to operations. The case of Australian
Army doctrine for continental operations is a cautionary tale of how
the development of detailed planning for a doctrine of war can
become so ingrained in the logic of its authors that it becomes, as
was the case with the French Army during the 1930s, an elegant but
abstract dogma unrelated to broader political realities. 144 In the mid-
1990s, the Australian Army was confronted by a crisis of
anticipation in, and adaptability to, new politico-strategic
conditions.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Army planned to develop
doctrine against a background of two important factors. The first
factor was the growing influence of joint-service doctrine on Army
thinking, which had been given impetus by the publication of the
1987 White Paper. The second factor was the need for further
restructuring for low-level land force operations in defence of
Australia. Both the doctrinal focus on joint operations and low-level
warfare were reinforced by the strategic guidance documents that
emerged between 1990 and 1994. These documents included a
force structure review in 1991, two strategic planning reviews
between 1990 and 1993, and a new White Paper in 1994. 145
144
145
See Robert A. Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of
French Army Doctrine, 1933–1939, Archon, Hamden, Connecticut,
1985.
Commonwealth of Australia, Force Structure Review 1991,
Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1991;
Australia’s Strategic Planning in the 1990s, Australian Government
Publishing Service, Canberra, 1992; Strategic Review 1993,
Australian Government Publishing Service, 1993; Defending