With the news that Australia will be pulling out the vast
majority of its assets from Afghanistan by the end of the year, questions about
what will happen to the capabilities built during this experience are being
asked. Will joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) remain? What assets are
we bringing home or leaving there? What about the future of short term contracts
that have become so very useful, such as the Heron RPA?
The lessons learned phrase is used liberally throughout the
Defence organisation and there are a huge number of resources dedicated to
making sure that lessons are learned rather than just experienced or observed.
But “human beings, who are almost unique in having the
ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent
disinclination to do so” said Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy. While not exactly known for his military thinking, Adams
nonetheless hits the nail on the head. Humans tend to want to make their own
mistakes rather than read about the same mistakes made by others before them.
The lessons learned loop is as much an individual issue as it is an
organisational one.
We only learn lessons when things change as a result of our
new knowledge. Until then, we have merely identified an area where the organisation
is not living up to its potential. In a successful learning organisation,
lessons are identified and turned into lessons learned effectively and
efficiently; the organisation’s Lessons Learned capability enables the
organisation to reach its full potential. It is the ability and motivation of
each individual in the organisation to learn and change that make its Lessons
Learned capability successful, according to the NATO Lessons Learned Handbook
from NATO’s Joint Analysis Lessons Learned Centre.
A defence organisation has more motivation than many other
types of organisations to really learn lessons; the front line user generally
doesn’t get repeatable chances to fail.
So what lessons have been learned from the past decade of
ADF operations? Ground forces are a lot better supported thanks to $1 billion
worth of Force Protection measures that mainly happened outside the DCP
process. Protection and armouring solutions were paramount. The campaign for
hearts and minds matters. UAVs provide an excellent source of tactical and
planning information and intelligence. Joint and coalition operations have
their ups and downs but generally work well, thanks to people on the ground. An
asymmetric threat from a relatively unskilled adversary, like IEDs, are still a
threat.
But again, these are yet more words written on a page. I
dread to think how many millions of words the Defence organisation as a whole
produces on an annual basis in reports, reviews and other documentation. I
suspect there are enough Defence documents produced that we could papier-mache
the entire Hornet fleet, old and new, if the urge struck.
Defence as an establishment is used to doing things,
achieving an outcome at the behest of the government of the day. People get
things done, not the tools they employ. Tools are just part of the people
capability. Various operations over the past decade have showed us what tools
are more valuable than others. UAVs in particular have come a long way over
this period.
After a few fits and starts, JP129 finally procured a
tactical UAV with the Shadow 200 (search the ADM online archives for the full
history of that program) and the rapid lease of the Heron RPA has proved to be
a great success. But as I asked earlier, what now? The future of the Heron
lease is currently undecided but there are signs that this could be continued
in a more concrete way going forward.
The practical experience from UAV operations in Afghanistan
has been hard won and it would be a shame to lose these skills. Air 7000 Phase
1B will also see the introduction of Australia’s first high altitude long
endurance capability. There is no doubt that this capability will operate very
differently from both the Shadow and Heron; experience from these two programs
will be a great asset.
The future of unmanned platforms both weaponised (see P18
for more on this) and for ISR roles is yet undefined and is limited only by
imagination and budgetary pressures.
Other considerations for unmanned platforms are those that
operate on land and underwater. The ADF currently utilises both for mine
clearance predominantly, above and below the water. Again, imagination and
budgets will control how these capabilities progress.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith outlined in a recent speech
to ASPI that he is keen to avoid the same mistakes post-Afghanistan that were
made post-Vietnam. This is a welcome sentiment that I hope is turned into
concrete action.
