A View from Canberra: Army beyond Afghanistan | ADM March 2012

A Special Correspondent | Canberra

The Army in particular has developed very substantial expertise in fighting an insurgent war in south-central Asia. Training and capability are all geared towards turning out battalion groups able to train native forces and conduct mounted and dismounted security operations in a coalition environment where the main threat comes from improvised explosive devices and attack by mostly small insurgent bands.

But one day that must end and conceivably, the next big thing will be something wholly different, perhaps even the pre-9/11 contingency that defence planners once considered the most likely of all – a services protected evacuation of Australians and others from PNG, possibly coupled with public order security operations against bandit gangs or military mutineers in Port Moresby. Maybe Australian forces will end up back in Dili or Honiara in big numbers.

As Afghanistan winds down, it’s starting to look as though defence will have less to do on foreign shores than at any time since the 1980s.

It’s likely Australia’s role in East Timor will end this year while the Solomons mission, now conducted by a company of reservists, will continue without causing too many ripples. Afghanistan will continue in some form post-2014 but it will likely involve small groups of specialist trainers and special forces.

Post-Vietnam, the army set into a long stasis – some would suggest decline – from which it only started to emerge in the 1990s as a changed world required very substantial investment to make stuff right.

Just as in the post-Vietnam period, it again seems defence investment will concentrate on new high end RAAF and Navy capability. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was new combat aircraft (F/A-18 Hornets), submarines and warships. Coming up is very substantial spending on new combat aircraft (JSF) and new vessels (LHD and AWD).

But Afghanistan isn’t over yet but as the wind-down gets under way, Defence Minister Stephen Smith has given some indication of Australia’s involvement post-2014.

In his latest Afghanistan update to parliament, Smith made it quite clear gave the government sees the commitment ending pretty much according to the established timetable – transition to Afghan-led security responsibility by the end of 2014 with Oruzgan province likely to be in the third tranche of provinces handed over, likely around mid-2013.

That was all set out at the Lisbon conference in November 2010 and the next major get-together is the NATO and International Security Assistance Force leaders’ summit in Chicago in May.

So Australia’s role could start to wind down in that period, conceivably in not much more than a year’s time. This is all pretty nebulous, with various government statements suggesting it could be over by 2014 – which to your correspondent’s mind suggests January 1, 2014 – or even in 2013, presumably late 2013.

But as Smith said in his recent statement to parliament, US defense secretary Leon Panetta and other NATO and ISAF defence ministers made clear in Brussels in early February, ISAF forces will need to remain in support and be prepared to undertake combat operations in support of Afghan security forces “until the end of transition in 2014.” Maybe this will all become clearer at the Chicago conference.

There was much excitement when Panetta, in media comments at the Brussels conference, seemed to imply that the US would be ending its combat role late next year and moving “to a training, advise and assist role”. The White House subsequently clarified all this and closer examination of his remarks shows there isn’t any particular departure from the established position. There’s still plenty of space for combat activities in the “assist” part the plan.

Smith said post-2014, Australia would maintain links with Oruzgan but there would be a more national focus. Currently Australia runs the Afghan National Army artillery school and Smith says further institutional training opportunities may emerge.

The possibility of some special forces remaining in an overwatch role remains but new one has emerged with the UK proposing Australia help out with the UK-led Afghan National Army Officer Academy. We probably will.

One issue the government hasn’t canvassed relates to the future of our own little Middle East outpost at the Al-Minhad Air Base in the desert not far outside Dubai city. This is referred to simply as AMAB and hosts AP-3C and C-130s operating in the Middle East, the Australian headquarters plus a range of support elements for forces moving in and out of Afghanistan.

Troops staging into Afghanistan undergo their final briefings, zero weapons and do IED and combat first aid refreshers. Those coming out do their psych and other debriefs. AMAB even has a purpose built morgue for those diggers making their last trip home.

AMAB was formed out of a rationalization of facilities at Qatar and Kuwait as the conflict in Iraq wound down and Afghanistan ramped up and involved a substantial investment of some $100 million in new facilities. It now supports the 1,550 or so Australian personnel in Afghanistan but post-2014, there will be a lot less than that, and the base’s utility will steadily diminish.

The government has given no indication of its vision for AMAB although the opposition says it strongly believes it should be retained and every effort made to work with the government of the United Arab Emirates to that end. It’s hard to see why. Australia retains another little outpost in Bahrain for support of warships in the Gulf region, which can get along perfectly well without AMAB.  

It’s not as though others nations want the place.

The US has its own Persian Gulf bases in Kuwait and Qatar while kindred coalition nations, particularly Canada, with whom Australia has shared AMAB, are intent on departing Afghanistan. More likely, the defence forces of the UAE will inherit some nice facilities, with Australia negotiating some sort of agreement allowing future use.