ADF
How will the ADF Get the Technology Edge it Needs to Win? Fast-moving technology clearly gives the advantage to militaries that can obtain new systems quickly. And it’s a major source of damage and danger to those whose organisations aren’t delivering these powerful capabilities into the hands of the soldiers, sailors and aviators. This was brutally demonstrated when the Azerbaijani military used cheap, deadly, unmanned systems to destroy scores of Armenian tanks and to attack camouflaged vehicles, headquarters and command locations. The Armenians, fielding traditional manned platforms and operating in conventional ways, lost. These unmanned systems needed targeting and intelligence information and so didn’t operate alone. But the lesson is that militaries that don’t have fast acquisition processes, and that
are without leaders who understand the required pace of change, can expose their people—and the governments and populations that rely on them—to enormous risk. It’s an obvious lesson that many in defence organisations across the world already know. But sometimes it takes brutal public demonstrations of things that have only been appreciated intellectually to make people act on what they know. The process of getting fast-moving technology to the Australian Defence Force is at best mixed, slowed by the understandable conservatism about the promise of new technologies balanced against the power of wellunderstood solutions and approaches. To any military chief in 2021, now seems not the time to give up on highly capable, complex, crewed
surface ships, submarines, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft and leap into the unknown world of autonomy. And no chief of the army, navy or air force wants to live the rest of their life and service reunions as the person who gave up armoured fighting vehicles, frigates, crewed submarines or crewed fighters. That’s absolutely rational, and the huge psychological and emotional barrier any service chief would face is obvious. The problem isn’t that this sensible conservatism sees the bulk of the defence investment budget spent on small numbers of very expensive, complex traditional platforms— although there are arguments that the outcomes don’t justify the costs. The real problem is there are few champions of the ADF’s urgent need Representing the capabilities of No 4 Squadron, a Combat Controller and Pilot stand with the fleet of PC-21 aircraft operated by No. 4 Squadron that now carries the names of Royal Australian Air Force Victoria Cross recipients at RAAF Base Williamtown. Defence image.
AUSTRALIAN PEACEKEEPER
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