Tag Archive for: Anzac Day

Anzac Day 2017: learning from our past

Tomorrow is Anzac Day, the 102nd anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. The occasion presents us with an opportunity to consider how our history informs our understanding of who we are and what we’ve learned from our past military experiences.

The ADF has now been operationally committed in one significant form or another for over 18 years. The experience has impacted the organisation in so many ways that it’s difficult to fathom the breadth of technical, cultural and organisational change across that time.

Last year the Australian War Memorial began producing a new multi-volume official history series documenting the ADF involvement in East Timor (1999–2012), Afghanistan (2001–14) and Iraq (2003–11). Under the leadership of Dr Craig Stockings, the project has six years to produce six volumes that will traverse three significant operational theatres through 15 years between 1999 and 2014.

At a glance, the scale, scope and timeline of the venture is daunting. Charles Bean’s official history of Australian involvement in the First World War comprised 12 volumes and took 22 years to complete. Gavin Long’s 22 volume epic covering the Second World War took 25 years and Peter Edwards’ nine volume series on Australia’s involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts (1948–1975) started in 1982 and its final volume wasn’t published until 2012.

The challenges for Dr Stockings and his team of eminent historians go well beyond the practicalities of managing resources, time and space. The decision to commission official histories for all three operational theatres was the focus of considerable political and public debate. The contemporary nature of ADF operations in the Middle East, diplomatic sensitivities involving regional and alliance partners and the reputational risk to key decision makers from the government down, all delayed the decision to produce these official histories.

Notwithstanding the complexities and sensitivities associated with a project of this type, there’s now more than ever a need to embark on this project. Not only are all three episodes important matters of Australia’s historical record, they represent an opportunity to critically reflect on the business of military commitments in an age of growing strategic uncertainty for the nation and our military.

Unlike some of our close allies, Australia doesn’t have a strong tradition of detailed and informed public discourse about its military commitments or an appreciation of how contemporary ADF operations are prosecuted. Perhaps unduly influenced by the social schism created by the Vietnam War or a predisposed cultural avoidance of public introspection about our foreign and defence policies, our ability to learn from our experience in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq has suffered as a result.

There’s something to be said for giving political, policy and operational decision-makers the space to operate when matters of national security are at stake, but in any venture involving the national interest and the lives of our service personnel, there comes a time for considered and dispassionate reflection.

Australia has a small number of respected and well-informed public commentators on national security and military matters and there’s a small but growing number of veterans prepared to put their experiences to print. But the public narrative in Australia is missing the detail that’s allowed Australians to learn about our past military commitments overseas. This official history project is unique in the freedom of access it has to official documents as well as a vast veteran community now accessible through social media.

Historical study is often complex. What gets discounted is often as contentious as what gets included but, done well, the official history project will go a long to addressing the gap in public awareness about the ADF’s recent commitments. Public awareness also includes those involved in deployments as well as the key decision-makers who influenced them. Bringing together a detailed account of the 15 years—a period spanning five prime ministers (one who served twice), nine ministers for defence and five CDFs—is as much about understanding how Australia’s national security framework evolved through that period as it is about knowing what actually occurred.

For the current and future generations of military strategic decision-makers, there’s a growing imperative to develop a deeper understanding of the journey that our recent military commitments have taken us on. Just as the experience of Gallipoli shaped Australian military thinking about subsequent military missions through to 1999, it’s likely that a better understanding of our experiences in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan will shape our approach to our next major military commitment, wherever that may be.

ASPI’s CT Quick Look and the Nice terrorist attack

Image courtesy of Flickr user ImAges ImprObables

ASPI’s Counter-terrorism Policy Centre (CTPC) recently launched a new series or reports, the CT Quick Look. The reports will be brief and easy-to-read, and will follow significant terrorist incidents and counter-terrorist actions. Each will be just a few pages long, highlighting key issues and assessing their relevance for stakeholders and Australia.

In ASPI’s May 2016 election brief, Agenda for Change 2016: Strategic Choices for the next government, and a range of op-eds, we’ve argued the need for timely lessons learned in the counter-terrorism environment. The past two years has seen a dramatic change in the tempo of terrorism and counter-terrorism: 75% of Australia’s post-9/11 terrorist attacks and disrupted plots have occurred in this time.

The international threat environment also reflects this pressure, with countries such as Belgium, France and Turkey reeling from attacks. We need to ensure we understand what happened in these attacks, and other key incidents, and what this might mean for the future. But the turnaround times are tight. Australia needs a more agile response.

The CT Quick Look is ASPI CTPC’s contribution to this process. It aims to provide CT policy makers and practitioners with rapid information to learn from and adapt more quickly, and to protect Australians from what Prime Minister Turnbull described last week in his National Security Statement as ‘the most immediate security challenge that directly affects us all: our military and police; our communities; our youth’.

In developing our understanding of an event and its significance, the CTPC will engage with relevant stakeholders. But, as always, any conclusions and recommendations within the CT Quick Look are the personal views of the authors.

The first edition of the CT Quick Look analyses the Bastille Day terrorist attack in Nice on 14 July 2016.

The Nice attack is significant for several reasons. First, it was low-cost and unsophisticated, using a rented truck as the primary weapon. Second, it was carried out on a national day of celebration against a large gathering in a public space, with the aim to kill or injure as many people as possible. Finally, the driver bypassed municipal police barriers and the lightly armed officers lacked the necessary firepower to prevent or quickly halt the attack. French national police eventually shot dead the driver, after he had driven the truck a further 2km, ultimately killing 86 people and injuring more than 300.

It was no surprise when the so-called Islamic State (Daesh) claimed responsibility for the attack on its Bayan Radio news bulletin. Whether Daesh orchestrated the attack, or perhaps ‘inspired’ it, the terrorist group will claim it as its own to enhance its image and further the strategic narrative of its strength. While Daesh is being militarily defeated in Iraq and Syria, attacks outside the combat zone—particularly in peaceful and secure countries of the West—allow it to retain some strategic initiative.

What should Australian authorities take away from the Nice attack?

The simplicity and effectiveness of the attack indicates the capacity of terrorists to adapt their methods to available ‘soft’ targets and to use a range of tactics and weapons depending on the environment and availability. Australian governments and businesses already recognise the increased risk of terrorist attacks on national days of celebration, such as Australia Day and ANZAC Day, and at large public gatherings, such as high-profile sporting events. This was demonstrated by the effective disruptions of Daesh-inspired terrorist plots focussed on the past two ANZAC days. Sevdet Besim was this week sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his role in the 2015 plot.

As was the case in France, our high-readiness counter-terrorism units won’t be the first responders in a Nice-style attack. So it’s important for emergency services in towns and rural centres to assess their capabilities to respond to a range of terrorist threats. But regardless of training and equipment, they can’t be expected to be ready for everything all the time.

Protecting our population against terrorist attacks like Nice requires a multifaceted approach:

  • information sharing and public awareness campaigns to promote prevention initiatives to counter violent extremism
  • ensuring our first responder capabilities—police, fire and ambulance—are well equipped and rehearsed to respond to a range of terrorist threats, including low-level and unconventional attacks
  • testing command, control and communication capabilities at all levels

Nice was a tragic reminder of the challenges we face from an unprecedented terror threat. Appropriately, Australia’s terror alert level remains ‘PROBABLE: a terror attack is likely’. Our intelligence and security agencies are doing a good job, but they’re stretched. A holistic review of national counter-terrorism arrangements, with particular focus on security requirements for large public gatherings and the role of various agencies within domestic counter terrorism, would help mitigate a large-scale attack on Australian soil in the future, and to improve the effectiveness of responses should attacks occur.

ASPI suggests

Monday was a public holiday across the country, providing Australians with some solemn space to reflect and give thanks for the contributions and sacrifices made by our defence force personnel. Lest we forget.

Onto this week’s picks, Luhut Panjaitan, Indonesia’s security minister, recently announced a symposium to investigate the atrocities that took place in 1965–66 as then-General Suharto seized power, when more than half a million Indonesians accused of being Communists were massacred. The Economist has run an fine historical piece on the event, and considers the significance of the Jokowi administration’s moves to reopen old wounds. Human Rights Watch takes a look at one of the symposium’s key outcomes—documenting the location of mass graves—and how it has the propensity to incite anti-Communist sentiment, while Natalie Sambhi and Nadia Bulkin sat down to discuss Indonesia’s violent history and its transformation to nationalistic democracy in the latest CIMSEC podcast (42 mins).

This week in photography, Foreign Policy highlights snaps of the US–ROK military exercises that caused concern in Pyongyang; and a few weeks back, The Atlantic surveyed Chernobyl in advance of the 30 year commemoration last Tuesday.

The future of crime fighting was revealed at China’s Chongqing Hi-Tech Fair last week—and it won’t be messing around with reading you your Miranda warning. According to The People’s Daily, the 1.49m AnBot ‘will play an important role in enhancing the country’s anti-terrorism and anti-riot measures’ with a remote-controlled cattle-prod-like taser. And fight terror and crime it will—unless the lawbreaker ascends a flight of stairs. Then the AnBot is in trouble.

Hopefully this suggestion goes some way to soothing the near complete absence of art history here on The Strategist… One of Picasso’s most well-known and contentious works depicts the 1937 bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. This NYRB piece traces the war politics of the day, the painting of Guernica in 1939 and the art world politicking that followed.

Game of Thrones, the hit show which draws together bloody combat and bloodier politics, was back on screens stateside this week (though that seems not to have stopped Australian pirates). The Economist’s 1943 Magazine has a snappy piece for finance fiends which claims that the twists and turns of life in the Seven Kingdoms can be traced to economic health and international fiscal policy. And still in Westeros, the University of Connecticut’s Stephen Dyson has used the success he had teaching his students with drawing parallels between Westeros and real life to judge which beloved GoT characters most closely resemble the current line-up of presidential hopefuls.

Podcast

China watchers shouldn’t miss the chance to catch up with the happenings at a recent ANU event where some top thinkers from China and Australia dived into ideas around Chinese power, influence, capabilities and intended contributions to international security (1 hour 40 mins).

Videos

Australia’s 25th Prime Minister, the Hon John Howard OM AC, popped up in Queensland last week to deliver the Griffith Asia Institute’s inaugural Asia Lecture (1 hour).

Straight outta Syria and Iraq, these two videos to provide a glimpse into the fighting reality as Western military units battle Islamic State. A clip from France 24 shows US special forces acting in an observation role as they assist the Syrian Democratic Forces as they battle for the town of Shadadi in February (21 mins). (Check out this analysis of the kit carried by the US troops in the video.) On the other side of the coin, VICE News got their hands on headcam footage (7 mins) taken by an IS militant who died fighting the Peshmerga in northern Iraq in March. The vid ‘shows chaos, panic, and the fighters retreating’—disarray we don’t see in official IS propaganda.

Charlie Rose’s discussion with David Cohen—the deputy director of the CIA—is excellent viewing for the intel wonks out there. In the interview, Cohen touches on Syria, US intelligence collection practices and financial warfare. Watch it here (30 mins).

Events

Canberra: As part of its Power, Ethics and World Order Seminar Series, ANU’s Coral Bell School will host Professor Toni Erskine on 9 May for a discussion on the international community’s obligation to protect vulnerable people when their own governments are incapable of doing so, and which body or institution should be expected to make the big calls about the R2P doctrine. Register here.

Melbourne: At the AIIA’s Victoria headquarters, Tom Harley—joint managing director of Dragoman Global—will discuss how low oil prices will affect the future of Arabian Peninsula states, and how they might prepare for a ‘post-oil’ future. Mark your diaries for 5 May.

The 100th Anzac Day: war, politics and remembrance

Lest we forget….

When Charles Bean first envisaged his plan to build a memorial to commemorate the commitment and sacrifice of Australia’s servicemen and servicewomen, he wanted to ensure that the people making the decisions to send Australians to war—the politicians—had that commitment uppermost in their minds.

That’s why the Australian War Memorial is in direct line of sight of the Australia’s Parliament House.

The thinking was that as Prime Ministers, Ministers and MPs debated the decision to send Australians to war, the War Memorial presented a visible and salutary reminder of the gravity of those decisions and the costs borne by ordinary Australians and their families.

Such decisions are never taken lightly. But they’re informed by the best intelligence, military, strategic and diplomatic advice on offer.

I’ve found that, over many years in many roles, you have to make your own decisions in the end. In doing so, you seek and listen to the advice of experts in the particular field in which you’re working.

It was on my watch as Defence Minister that Australian soldiers went to Afghanistan.

In the end, you must apply intellectual rigor to the process of exercising judgement in the very best interests of those you lead and represent: Australians.

While Bean wanted to ensure that parliamentarians were aware of the human cost of sending Australians to war, he also wanted to highlight the major driver that sustained the Anzacs while they were fighting for King and Country as members of the Australian Imperial Force.

In those foreign lands, in inclement conditions, under fire in the trenches, awaiting orders to go over the top to face a foe that was primed and ready…the thing that sustained the Anzacs most was mateship.

In his 1921 publication, The Story of Anzac, Bean wrote that the strongest bond during these hellish times was that between a soldier and his mate:

‘So far as he held a prevailing creed, it was a romantic one inherited from the gold miner and the bushman, of which the chief article was that a man should at all times and at any cost stand by his mate…

This was and is the one law which the good Australian must never break. It is bred in the child and stays with him through life.’

Bean highlighted mateship, one of many great Australian traits, with the following story which occurred at the Battle of Lone Pine where Australia suffered heavy losses and seven Victoria Crosses were awarded:

‘In the last few moments before the bloody attack upon Lone Pine in Gallipoli, when the 3rd Australian Infantry Battalion was crowded on the fire-steps of each bay of its old front-line trench, waiting for the final signal to scramble over the sandbags above, a man with rifle in hand, bayonet fixed, came peering along the trench below.

‘Jim here?’ he asked. A voice on the fire-step answered ‘Right, Bill; here.’ ‘Do you chaps mind shiftin’ up a piece?’ said the man in the trench. ‘Him and me are mates, an’ we’re goin’ over together.’’

Bean stressed the same thing must have happened many thousands of times in the Australian Divisions.

While musing on the pressures and influences Australian governments and parliamentarians must be under, I can’t help but think about that anecdote, and what those Australian’s were thinking about as they went into battle.

While it was King and Country that sent them to war, and while family and loved ones left at home must have been uppermost in their thinking as they waited for that final command to go ‘over the top’, it would have been the mates fighting alongside them that drove them out of the trenches and into action.

It’s a driver that I’m regularly presented with by today’s soldiers returning from their own Middle East and peacekeeping duties alongside their mates.

Those decisions to send our forces to war are never made easily, but they’re made in the national and international interest.

Once taken, I’ll never forget that it’s then up to the individuals at the front to fight the good fight on behalf of the nation but, more importantly, for the mate standing alongside you.

Lest we forget….