In his April address—the third in a series of four keynotes on the state of the army profession—the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, outlined the aims of this new theory. It will build on what the army already is, and what it wants to be: a littoral fighting force ready to compete and fight to secure strategic land positions and logistics supply lines, and protect remote airfields and ports in northern Australia, the Pacific islands and the archipelago to Australia’s north.
However, littoral manoeuvre is designed for high-end scenarios and violent stabilisation missions. If a crisis were to escalate to war, the army would have to figure out how to deploy ground troops and materiel forward inside adversary anti-access and area denial ranges. And supposing army units and formations would be prepositioned, many grey-zone or hybrid threats would put Australian soldiers in harm’s way. Accordingly, the new theory will have to spell out for the Australian public how the army intends to deter adversary forces from greater distances, and how it will manoeuvre, fight and resupply on islands with scant infrastructure or local capacity to supply military needs.
The army that begins a war will not be the same one that sees the end of it. Considering this, the army and society must both have the will and the capacity to sustain forces at war.
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