Ibid - Australian Army

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Land Warfare Studies Centre 50 surveillance forces; an inner layer of forces to locate and identify enemy targets; and a final protective layer providing a tactical response to defeat hostile forces. 203 MLW One 2.1 also described TRF operations, ground-based air defence and the use of special forces. 204 Restructuring the Australian Army and the Impact of the 1997 Strategic Review The years 1997 and 1998 were marked by fundamental challenges to the Army’s doctrinal thinking as it had evolved through the 1977, 1985 and 1992 editions of the Fundamentals to the 1995 A21 Review. Most of these challenges stemmed from the formulation of new strategic guidance. The development of Australian Army doctrine after 1997 can only be understood in the context of revised strategic thinking at the political level. In March 1996, the Labor Government, which had been in office for thirteen years, was defeated by the Liberal–National Coalition. It soon became evident that in the post–Cold War era, the Coalition Government considered Australian defence policy to be too insular and insufficiently integrated with foreign policy objectives. This was an approach that the Army largely failed to anticipate. What the political scientist F. A. Mediansky has described as the Australian ‘conservative diplomatic style’ based on a nexus between international role and military strength began to exert influence on defence policy-making. 205 According to Mediansky, the essence of this style is that ‘a nation’s foreign policy must be closely integrated with that of defence . . . Indeed the military strength of a nation may largely condition the means employed by foreign policy in seeking to achieve its purpose’. 206 This approach 203 204 205 206 Ibid., pp. 1–6, para. 1.18 and chap. 2. Ibid., chaps 3–6. F. A. Mediansky, ‘The Conservative Style in Australian Foreign Policy’, Australian Outlook, April 1974, II, i, p. 51. Ibid.
51 Study Paper No. 301 was reflected by the close coordination between the new Government’s 1997 foreign policy and strategic policy documents, In the National Interest and Australia’s Strategic Policy 1997 (ASP 97). 207 Initially, the Coalition Government appeared to accept the main principles and concepts of the A21 Review to guide what was now called the Restructuring the Army (RTA) scheme. 208 In December 1996, a CGS Directive pushed ahead with procedures for the development of Task Force trials doctrine based on the concepts of the A21 study. 209 The key defence priority of the Australian Army remained the development of military forces for the defence of the continent. However, in February 1997, in the Army’s publication, Restructuring the Australian Army, the Minister for Defence, Ian McLachlan, announced that he intended to steer the RTA plan in a direction ‘to better meet the Government’s strategic posture’. 210 The Government stated that, while defence of Australia remained a foremost concern, ‘the Land Force must be capable of conducting offshore operations, either unilaterally or as part of a coalition’. 211 In December 1997 the Government’s strategic posture became clearer with the publication of ASP 97. The new strategic review began a shift away from the narrow policy of defence of Australia towards a broader maritime concept of strategy that placed the Asia-Pacific region as central to Australian security. 212 Although 207 208 209 210 211 212 Commonwealth of Australia, In the National Interest, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra, 1997; Australia’s Strategic Policy 1997, Department of Defence (irectorate of Publishing and Visual Communications), Canberra, 1997. House of Representatives, Ministerial Statement, ‘Defence Policy’ by the Hon. Ian McLachlan, AO, MP, Minister for Defence, 15 October 1996, pp. 1–4. CGS Directive 13/96, 20 December 1996. Ian McLachlan, Message from the Minister, preface to Restructuring the Australian Army, p. iv. Restructuring the Australian Army, p. 3. Australia’s Strategic Policy 1997, pp. 7; 44.
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v ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS A21 AA
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