Search Results

Our final instalment within the #AFSTRAT series is offered by Wing Commander David Hood who pits the new strategic vision against strategist Colin Gary’s nine air power fallacies. Hood examines the ways in which the AFSTRAT recognises, and often breaks these fallacies while shaping the future force. However, beyond this foundational policy, there lies potential risk. Hood stresses that if there is a misunderstanding in interpretation, poor implementation, or unrefined vision, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) could fall into the historic failing of overpromising and under-delivering. The winner of the #AFSTRAT 2020 ‘Dr Alan Stephens Air Power Literary Prize’ will be announced on 13 Decembers 2020. Some pundits claim that the release of the RAAF Strategy 2020 (AFSTRAT) is ‘a key milestone […] in articulating the role air and space power play in generating strategic effects as part of a joint and integrated force’. But for this milestone to be of value, AFSTRAT must be based on solid foundations which enable the strategy it articulates to be practicably implementable. In Understanding Airpower – Bonfire of the Fallacies, renowned strategist Colin Gray sought to ‘prevent or reduce error in debates over all aspects of airpower’ by identifying major air power fallacies held by both air power’s advocates, and its critics.[1] While Gray wrote in the American context, these fallacies are applicable to air power more broadly and so represent a valuable lens through which we can review AFSTRAT and identify any flawed assumptions or claims within it. Critiquing air power strategy is important for two reasons. First, air power strategy has a chequered history of over-promising and under-delivering.[2] Second, Australia’s current strategic outlook means that we cannot afford to get air and space power strategy wrong. So how does AFSTRAT stack up against each of Gray’s fallacies? ‘The era of conventional warfare between great states and coalitions has passed. The [RAAF] needs to abandon the paradigm of large-scale regular warfare.’ AFSTRAT recognises this as a flawed assertion by acknowledging that while ‘high-end, state-on-state warfare – is a rare state in our geopolitical system,’ it ‘remains critical that Air Force is able to credibly respond […] with high-end warfighting capabilities’. However, AFSTRAT places greater emphasis on ‘shape’, ‘deter’ and ‘respond’ effects outside the conflict zone, although what these effects are, or should be, is ambiguous. The RAAF is a relatively small force. AFSTRAT does not mention the need to judiciously identify and prioritise which effects can and should be accomplished at any one time – a reality that must be understood by all practitioners of air and space power, at all levels. Consequently, the risk for AFSTRAT is not that it abandons the possibility of large-scale regular warfare, but that in seeking to provide a diverse range of strategic effects over a very broad ‘competition continuum’, it becomes less able to provide strategic effects coherent and most appropriate for the circumstances. To avoid this, AFSTRAT should more clearly articulate the need for prudence in relation to what, when and how strategic effect is applied. AFSTRAT’s Lines of Effort (LOE), which constitute the ways strategic effect will be delivered, should explicitly reflect the need for disciplined application of scarce resources for strategic effect. Despite the investment in the 2020 Force Structure Plan, the RAAF cannot be all air and space power strategic things, all the time. ‘Airpower is an inherently strategic instrument.’ Gray argued that air power is no more uniquely strategic than other military instruments and cannot be independently decisive in peace or war. Rather, it is the consequences of military actions that are strategic, not the tools themselves. AFSTRAT makes no reference to, or assertions regarding ‘strategic airpower’, identifying a need for Air Force to ‘minimize the focus on platforms and enhance the focus on the strategic outcome’. This promising sign is backed by its LOE’s consistent emphasis on the consequences of activities, not the attributes of platforms or materiel. For example, LOE1 recognises that Raise, Train and Sustain activities can generate strategic effects in the joint environment, while LOE3 promotes domestic and international relationships and engagement to shape the strategic environment and provide positive effects through awareness and reputation. More fundamentally, LOE4 seeks to evolve culture to optimise the intellectual diversity through which Air Force can generate strategic effects. ‘The development of airpower is driven by technology not ideas.’ Gray asserted that ‘ideas […] have led technical achievements […] Airpower in all its shapes and forms has always been the product of a specific vision, or visions, of utility’. AFSTRAT agrees. It applies the concept of ‘horizontal integration’ to ‘look past an individual’s narrow technical expertise to identify those with the potential to contribute to delivering of strategic effect’. LOE2 seeks to develop an intelligent and skilled workforce, recognising that the deep specialist knowledge required to use technologically advanced systems creates only the potential to generate strategic effect. The need to foster innovation and ideas is so important that AFSTRAT states a requirement to review the RAAFs organisational structure, to optimise horizontal integration. LOE5’s governance framework facilitates this intellectual edge to ensure ‘Air Force [is] prepared to respond to problems, threats, and opportunities, and encourage ideas that benefit Air Force or the achievement of strategic effects’. While this sounds very positive, there remain two great, but polar opposite, dangers. First, AFSTRAT could still be confounded by the desire of air power practitioners to focus on the technology itself. Such ‘tacticisation of strategy’[3] risks the attainment of strategic effects. Second, if pursuit of ideas and an intellectual edge is taken too far, the imagined strategic effects may not be achievable within available resources. Both these extremes represent a failure to align ends, ways and means, and the right balance between ideas and technology is critical for air and space power’ optimum utility. ‘Airpower is about targeting.’ AFSTRAT seeks to apply strategic effects across a vast competition continuum, clearly viewing air and space power as far more than targeting for kinetic effect. Indeed, its strategic end state, better integration with the joint force in support of Whole-of-Australian-Government efforts to shape, deter and respond to opportunities and threats, suggests that the majority of air and space power efforts should be devoted towards non-kinetic ‘targeting’ for strategic effect. This is not to imply that ‘shape’, ‘deter’ and ‘respond’ efforts should be applied in a linear fashion, only that kinetic response is likely a last resort option for Australia. This shift to a more mature understanding of targeting is supported by the LOE construct; only LOE1 speaks directly to targeting, and even then, far from exclusively. ‘Airpower must always be subordinate to land power.’ AFSTRAT does not address this age-old fallacy, remaining silent on subordination to other forms of military power. Instead, recognising the Australian Defence Force’s continued evolution to an integrated Joint Force, LOE1 details air and space power’s provision of strategic effects in that context. ‘Joint’ appears 83 times in AFSTRAT; ‘land’ or ‘ground’ not at all. This reflects the Chief of Air Force's Intent which states ‘Air Force does not generate air and space power for itself […] We provide air and space power options as a component of [joint] military power […] in support of Government objectives’. While the days of petty and invalid arguments about subordination of one military component below another may be gone, AFSTRAT must also be wary to ensure that its air and space power zealots cease their long-held belief of the opposite, that air and space power can be the panacea for all evils. To achieve this goal, 100 years of RAAF cultural elitism, parochialism and tribalism must be overcome – a difficult task. LOE’s 2, 4 and 5 will be crucial enablers for LOE1’s objective of effectively integrating air and space power into the joint force. ‘The theory of strategic airpower is fundamentally flawed.’ This fallacy overcorrects in response to zealots’ claims that air power is capable of delivering ‘victory’ independently, asserting it can never achieve this. Gray argues this view is incorrect, as the theory of strategic air power is sound if one ‘lowers the bar’ in terms of interpretation. Air power can in some cases deliver strategic effect independently, particularly to shape the environment in order to decide which belligerent will win. AFSTRAT’s heavy focus on generating strategic effects as part of the joint force appears to prudently avoid addressing this fallacy, seemingly adopting the more nuanced interpretation. Gray himself acknowledged that air power has proven independently decisive only in rare circumstances. Examined closely, examples such as Kosovo involved a significant overmatch between belligerents, a condition a small force such as the RAAF is unlikely to experience. Consequently, AFSTRAT is right to focus on providing effects as part of the joint force in the majority of circumstances. ‘The institutional independence of the [RAAF] is a major hindrance to the development of a truly joint, coherently integrated, [Australian] theory of, and doctrine for, warfare.’ Gray described the institutional independence of an Air Force as a ‘regrettable necessity’ because the air domain’s distinctive geography requires an ‘airmindedness’ which can only be obtained by specialists, immersed exclusively in that geography. This argument presents a challenge to the balance of expertise sought by AFSTRAT. Large components of LOE’s 2, 3 and 4 involve generating individuals with joint experience, and refining RAAF culture to support this. The underpinning intent is not clear and could be interpreted as a drive to trade the current levels of ‘airmindedness’ held by air and space power practitioners, for greater ‘jointmindedness’. This might render them less able to employ the right air and space power into the joint environment, at the right time, for best strategic effect. Implementation of AFSTRAT will require great care to ensure an appropriate balance between jointmindedness and specialisation in air and space power is retained. One option to maintain the right balance is to create a specialist mustering for air and space power practitioners. These individuals would specialise in the application of air and space power and could then advise those with joint experience, how to best apply air and space power into the joint environment. ‘Airpower can never be other than a minor player in the conduct of counterinsurgency [COIN] warfare.’ Gray acknowledged that COIN is inherently ground-centric in nature. However, he also asserted that air power ‘will always be quite literally essential’ in support. AFSTRAT does not explicitly mention COIN warfare, but it clearly forms part of the ‘competition continuum’ that AFSTRAT seeks to address. Air and space power are ideally suited to strategic efforts to shape, deter, and respond in a COIN environment, from Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare, through to Command, Control and Communications and kinetic effects. The reach, strategic visibility and flexibility of air and space power make it an attractive strategic option for a style of warfare that will extract large costs on ground forces in its absence. Perhaps the greatest contribution air and space power can make would be to shape and deter COIN warfare from occurring at all, a strategic effect well supported by AFSTRAT. ‘The twenty-first century is the missile, space, and cyberspace age(s); airpower is one of yesterday’s revolutions.’ Gray’s framing of this fallacy centred on the growing obsolescence of ‘manned airpower’, which would be replaced with effects from and through other domains. Even so, this argument remains largely irrelevant in terms of AFSTRAT for two interrelated reasons. Firstly, AFSTRAT’s approach to both air and space domains is premised on effects ‘in, from and through’ these – whether manned or unmanned, including missiles. Secondly, this effects-based approach emphasises the need to move beyond platform-centric thinking. Together, these mean that it does not particularly matter whether manned aircraft, or any other platforms or capability become obsolete or not – the vehicle providing the strategic effect is unimportant compared to the effect itself. Conclusions On paper, AFSTRAT 2020 fairs well when evaluated against Gray’s nine air power fallacies. The real challenge for it will be its implementation. Only through the disciplined application of AFSTRAT’s LOE will the RAAF avoid air power’s historic failing of overpromising and under-delivering. To this end, an AFSTRAT V2.0 could begin by providing greater clarity in the areas discussed above to ensure its intent is understood by the practitioners, at all levels, who are charged with turning strategy into reality, not fallacy. Wing Commander David Hood is an Aeronautical Engineer working for the Royal Australian Air Force. He holds a Master of Gas Turbine Technology (Cranfield, UK) and a Master of Military and Defence Studies (Australian National University). Wing Commander Hood is currently Commanding Officer of Air Training and Aviation Commons Systems Program Office (ATACSPO). [1] Colin S. Gray, Understanding Airpower: Bonfire of the Fallacies, Research Paper 2009-3 (Maxwell Air Force Base, Air Force Research Institute, 2009), p. 2, 3. [2] See for example: Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); Carl H. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1996); Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Airpower; The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989); Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air Force Research Institute, 2012); Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris (eds.), Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016); David MacIsaac, ‘Voices from the Central Blue: The Air Power Theorists,’ in Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986). [3] Michael I. Handel, Masters of War – Classical Strategic Thought (London: Routledge, 2001), Appendix E.

In this week’s #AFSTRAT instalment, Squadron Leader Chris Kourloufas takes a deep dive into creative forces. Looking past the rhetoric of ‘creative geniuses’, Kourloufas dismantles the realities of creative success and highlights the necessity of failure tolerance. Moving forward, isolated solutions will no longer be enough, with cross-domain creativity being vital for lasting long-term impact. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) must also ensure that people know that their actions matter, no matter how small the idea. However, for an organisation that can pay for failure in blood, the challenge exists for RAAF to reach beyond the status quo and ‘dangerous comfort’ to a culture of psychological safety and disruptive innovation. The Air Force Strategy (AFSTRAT) 2020 directs command teams to be novel, creative and think critically to challenge the status quo. This is necessary in order to adapt to the continually changing geopolitical environment as well as to maximise air and space power effects for the government. Statements like these will excite and inspire progressive and creative thinkers. It may also draw criticism from the realists who will ask, ‘why isn’t this happening already?’ This article explores creativity in the RAAF and examines what may have hindered such creative forces in the past. This is discussed with the view to understand how we can realise the strategic vision set out before us by the Chief of Air Force (CAF). I first discuss the nature of creativity, then the difficulty of challenging the status quo, the catalysts for change and finally present some concepts that may support the strategic vision. The Nature of Creativity When bringing to mind creative success, we are likely also to tie this with creative ‘geniuses’. This perception is not only misguided, but it also limits the opportunity to take on a creative pursuit. The reality is that a creative breakthrough is not something bestowed upon someone; rather, it is obtained through maximising simple factors of success. So how can the orthodox be unorthodox? The first factor is the sheer volume of creative ideas. Creativity is a random and unpredictable process.[1] Put into an artistic context, for every masterpiece that hangs in a museum, there are likely hundreds of studies made by the artist – all perfecting an element or playing with concepts until they made the critical, creative breakthrough. These studies are a glimpse not only into the creative process that leads to critical acclaim, but also an insight into the hidden failures, or weaker ideas, that never made the canvas. Put another way, a predictor of a breakthrough idea is the volume of work.[2] So, if creating original ideas is what the RAAF wants, then we need to be doing lots of it. I would ask; how often do we allow ourselves to be creative, and secondly, what do we create? In my experience, being creative is something we are often asked to do – usually within the military appreciation (i.e. planning) process and complex decision making. I wonder whether we genuinely create or simply follow a template or process out of ease. Or does our technical mastery merely equate to reaching into previous examples and applying worn-out tactics? This is perhaps where military art comes into the fore. It might seem like a worn-out cliché, but creativity remains the critical element to future success within the profession of arms.[3] Picasso created more than 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, 2,800 ceramics and 12,000 drawings (as well as countless prints, rugs and tapestries). Only a fraction of these works have been considered worthy of acclaim. Mozart composed more than 600 pieces before his death at 35, with a handful considered amongst the greatest of all time. In his book Originals, Adam Grant recommends tripling your usual output of ideas to unleash originality.[4] The second factor is the intersection of a broad array of ideas or concepts. Military professionals must maintain a wide scope of experience and knowledge on topics other than just warfare. Single-discipline breakthroughs are becoming less frequent, and this is apparent within the academic community – where multidisciplinary collaborations are the norm with most publications (and even degrees) being a combination of fields.[5] The most creative and innovative breakthroughs occur at the intersection of fields. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) reports that disruptive technologies rarely create an impact in isolation. It is the convergence or overlap of technology domains with the physical, information or human domains where disruptive and breakthrough advances will occur.[6] This is partly because of the exponential number of possible combinations of concepts that occur within the intersection of fields. Knowing this, and actually being willing to apply it, will increase our chances of a creative breakthrough. This is another way to view what AFSTRAT calls ‘horizontal integration’. CAF implores us to look past the artificial barriers we have constructed (e.g. Force Element Groups, mustering/specialisation, service, group), and come up with new and creative ways to generate effects for the government. These need not be high-tech innovations; breakthrough ideas are typically new combinations of existing ideas. These innovations are the ones that make you think, ‘why hadn’t anyone ever thought of that before?’ Innovation can occur within doctrine, tactics, employment of technology or new technologies. Put another way by the author and director of the Centre for Security, Innovation and New Technology, Audrey Cronin; ‘technology need not be exquisite to have a broad and long lasting impact’.[7] In my experience as an engineer, the creative process is the easier bit. Once we have an idea, we have more to overcome before it is a reality. The difficulty in challenging the status quo It is often hard to rationalise being original with military pursuits because many lessons are paid for in blood. We are conditioned to take the tried and true approach rather than the road less travelled. This is passed down through doctrine, regulation, procedure, or tacit knowledge. As acknowledged by the CAF, we have created narrow ‘silos of tactical excellence’, with these ingrained ways of thinking rewarded by accolades and promotion. Dangerous comfort Our coveted and comfortable conservatism to follow the status quo is growing more dangerous due to the non-linear strategic threat environment. The current context of competition between superpowers, proxies and non-state actors coupled with the explosion of technology and sharing of information cannot be appreciated fully through our conservative lens. The strategy update drops us all into a contradictory situation: leaving the comfort of the known, and venturing into the risky unknown, which may threaten an individual’s status and reputation. This paradigm makes it dangerous for the individual’s career, wellbeing, and social status to speak up and make a change. The difficulty in making this strategy a reality will be the resistance from those who stand to lose the most from leaving the status quo. This will be felt hardest from those in the middle – a well-demonstrated phenomenon known as ‘middle status conformity’. The hesitation by those in middle management in taking ideas in original directions has been quantified by psychologists Michelle Duguid and Jack Goncalo. In their studies, those in the middle-generated 20-25 per cent fewer ideas and 16 per cent fewer original ideas than those in the high or low-status positions.[8] As Grant states, ‘the fall from the middle is too far for some’.[9] Practice may make perfect, but it does not change the status quo The technical masters the organisation has produced to date may fail to recognise the incompatibility of their experience with future complex problems. This is because our experience and intuition that comes from this practice only help us when cause and effect are consistent. That is, our intuition is not reliable when dealing with complex and non-linear situations. Put another way, blind obedience to process for the sense of security that it offers us may expose us to danger. This strategy update, therefore, is striking at the core of our organisational psyche and perceived competence and will thus feel dangerous and uncomfortable. Instead of reacting to the discomfort by being dismissive of the call to challenge ourselves, we must ask ourselves two questions, ‘what is the cost of our comfort?’ and, ‘are we defending national interests or the status quo?’ The obstacles to military creativity are numerous and presented comprehensively by Milan Vego. They include: the military hierarchical command structure; authoritarianism; bureaucracy; templated approaches to operations; conformism; service parochialism; dogmatic views on war and peacetime activities, and, intolerance of divergent views[10] Catalysts for change For the workforce to act, it must first see the need to change. The catalysts for change may be extrinsic (e.g. imposed by/reacting to government direction, public pressure, technology advancement or adversary actions) or intrinsic (e.g. workforce dissatisfaction with the status quo). For extrinsic motivations, a strategy of risk management and opportunity seeking is employed by the organisation. That is, resources allocated toward the pursuit of proactive measures to manage risk or seize opportunity from the top down. To address intrinsic motivations, Adam Grant offers a model for dealing with dissatisfying situations that is relevant to this discussion. He states that there are four reactions to a dissatisfying situation: exit, voice, persistence, and neglect. He positions them against two axes; control (or agency to act) and commitment (Table 1). At its core, the 2020 AFSTRAT signals that there is a high degree of agency in addressing dissatisfying situations. As such, the key variable is the commitment of the individual to the organisation to do something – thus emphasising two options more for the workforce to consider – ‘exit’ or ‘voice’. That is, those with high commitment to the organisation will stay and voice their dissatisfaction, those with low commitment will eventually exit. ‘Exit’ in my observation may take the form of a posting, deployment, or separation from service. Leadership is a key factor in influencing commitment and control – especially the type of leadership that is adaptive to complex situations and fosters ‘psychologically-safe’ organisations. Supporting the Originals It is worth noting that challenging the status quo is difficult in any organisation; however, there are many ways the RAAF can support critical thinkers and originals willing to voice their concerns and make a change. Encouraging creative dissent Your first responsibility as a leader is to create atmosphere. Major General (Ret.) Duncan Lewis AO DSC CSC The creative dissent necessary to challenge an unhealthy reliance on the status quo must be encouraged. As discussed, challenging the status quo is risky from a social perspective with those that attempt to speak up or change the status quo being met with resistance by those who have the most to lose from change. To meet this challenge, quality leadership that views the complex challenges holistically and is willing to work toward positive strategic outcomes is required. It is a style of leadership that does not seek to force-fit ready-made solutions to every situation. This leadership is hard to come by in a military-driven to ‘solutionise’. Ronald Heifetz calls this type of leadership ‘Adaptive leadership’. This style empowers those around the leader. Empowerment is different to delegating. An emphasis on this leadership style is critical to supporting those people who are inspired to challenge the status quo. As previously discussed, many of the challenges before us will not be solved by applying the tried and true methodologies – this is precisely the context to apply adaptive leadership and manage complexity. Second, direct supervisors have the most influence on the individual’s sense of commitment and control when dealing with a dissatisfying situation. This is an important insight when developing organisational reforms to support this strategy. That is, supporting leaders to instil a sense of loyalty or commitment to the organisation may be the catalyst to individuals speaking up. Ultimately, what is good for the individual is good for the organisation. The people need to know the bigger picture as well as know that their actions matter. This will help the people who care enough to do something about it. The vision for the organisational culture must be one that fosters an environment of psychological safety. According to authors, Hans van der Loo and Joriene Beks, ‘Psychological Safety’ is a term gaining interest worldwide. They describe it as ‘feeling at home’, whereby there is a foundation of connection and trust, boldness and authenticity.[11] The recent RAAF safety month theme of, ‘Creating High Performance Teams’ and the introduction of the psychological safety concept to the workforce is a positive step. Generating such an environment enables an individual to seek opportunity and take a risk. It promotes a perception that ‘I may fail, but I’m not a failure’. It enables people to speak up when circumstances are unsafe. It is what supports innovators to pick themselves up and try again – to keep creating until they have found an effective and original solution. Furthermore, importantly, as summarised by Air Commander Australia, it is the enabler to high performance and effectiveness in complex and dynamic operational environments. Untapped potential Finding ways to break down artificial barriers helps RAAF tap into the potential that already exists within its organisation. At an organisational level, greater flexibility is needed to facilitate secondments, out of category postings, industry placements, and academic collaborations so that our smart and motivated people can bring value to a new problem or combat domain. Another suggestion by Grant is shifting from exit interviews to entry interviews.[12] That is, instead of waiting to ask employees leaving the unit/service their ideas on improvements, ask those with fresh insights and not encumbered by unit or service culture. It is also worth reflecting on how creativity is measured and valued within the recruitment process. Interestingly, researchers at Michigan State University found that the odds for Nobel Prize winners relative to typical scientists were proportional to their engagement with the arts. Specifically, those who used their artistic pursuit to view their scientific work through another lens were most likely to be leaders in their fields. For example, a scientist with painting as a hobby was 7x more likely to win a Nobel prize than the typical scientist. For performing arts as a hobby, the likelihood was 22x greater (Grant, 2016). Valuing candidates who also have artistic pursuits alongside their specialist domain is another way to build a workforce willing to come up with original ideas. At an individual level, we can challenge ourselves to get out of our comfort zone. This can be as simple as peering over the partition and finding out what our colleague is up to or going to the mess and talking with someone new. How can we expect to challenge the status quo if we are unwilling even to hear a new perspective or are too confronted by someone’s opinion? Activities that encourage us to take a new perspective are also valuable – like learning another language, exploring another culture, trying out a new cuisine or taking up a creative hobby.[13] A great initiative is Jericho’s Maker Labs – where Airmen are provided the equipment and skills to tinker with modern manufacturing technology. Maintaining a positive narrative A narrative must be maintained that compels every airman/woman to try to effect change. Unless we can convince our workforce that the status quo can be changed, they will not believe that there is control in a dissatisfying situation. More can be done to promote real examples and tangible outcomes as a witness to the great work the originals are doing already. It will take time because this is a generational change and trust must be slowly and carefully earned. What do we measure? The organisation needs to protect the innovators from adverse impacts that may arise from speaking up and attempting to change a counter-productive or unsafe status quo. It will need to carefully build a tolerance for the right kind of failure and dissent within its performance and reporting system. We must not only reward successful ideas but work out how to protect those who try and fail. The nature of creativity means that failure and fruitless ideas outnumber successful ideas. Perhaps we judge personnel performance by the attributes and behaviours that enable creativity and critical thinking that contribute to strategic outcomes. The innovation process Investing in refining the Capability Life Cycle process to be effective for accelerated innovation is necessary. In my experience, we have useful processes for prototyping but less effective mechanisms for converting the prototypes into sustainable capabilities or enablers. The link between Jericho-type initiatives and the Integrated Investment Program can be strengthened and articulated in a better way to those who seek to innovate. We must persist with making the process adequately robust and capable of producing outcomes that remain relevant when eventually delivered. Conclusion The RAAF is being challenged to shift its locus of organisational security from the status quo to the psychological safety borne from leadership. This means we will know when the tried and true is not enough, or even dangerous, we will feel safe speaking up and be empowered to do something about it. This reframes the AFSTRAT from an existential crisis to an opportunity for us to better serve the nation. Once we see opportunity for change and cultivate psychologically safe teams, the addition of creativity will spark innovation. Many initiatives and concepts have been presented that will either promote critique of unhealthy status quo or support creativity to innovate. Achieving the vision set out by AFSTRAT will lay the foundations for the RAAF to better contribute air and space power effects for the next generation. Squadron Leader Chris Kourloufas is an Aeronautical Engineering Officer in the RAAF. He holds a Master of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Master of Engineering Research. He currently works within Logistics Branch - Air Force in a role dedicated to Maintenance Strategy and Innovation. His creative pursuits include Jazz improvisation and landscaping. [1] F. Johansson, The Medici Effect (Boston, MA: Havard Business Review Press, 2017). [2] A. Grant, Originals (London: WH Allen, 2016). [3] M. Vego, ‘On Military Creativity,’ Joint Force Quarterly 70 (2013), pp. 83-90. [4] Grant, Originals. [5] Johansson, The Medici Effect. [6] NATO, Science and Technology Trends 2020-2040: Exploring the S&T Edge (Brussels: NATO Science and Technology Organisation, 2020). [7] A.K. Cronin, Power To The People (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). [8] M.M. Duguid, and J.A. Goncalo, ‘Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 109, no. 4 (2015), pp. 589-603 [9] Grant, Originals. [10] Vego, ‘On Military Creativity.’ pp. 83-90. [11] Hans van der Loo and J. Beks, ‘Psychological Safety: an introduction,’ Psychological Safety, 6 May 2020. [12] Grant, Originals. [13] Johansson, The Medici Effect.

History is a story written by the victors – but how do we formulate the story when history has not happened yet? The narrative surrounding any future vision of success must captivate an entire organisation if we are to expect everyone to come along on the journey and visualise themselves within the tale toward success. This week on The Central Blue, Wing Commander Marija ‘Maz’ Jovanovich highlights how the #AFSTRAT holds the key for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) to write that creative and inclusive tale beyond simply platform-centric thinking and semi-formed conceptual understandings. The #AFSTRAT is an important step forward in the RAAF’s journey into the future, but how can we be more proactive in shaping our narrative of success? Big changes require bold ideas and actions. In September 2020, in response to profound geostrategic changes, the Chief of the Air Force released a new Air Force Strategy document that was a bold reframing of how we think about our purpose and our environment. This key document followed the earlier release of the Defence Strategic Update 2020, which did a similar thing for the broader Defence enterprise. Nested underneath the Defence Strategic Update, the Air Force Strategy does exactly what it set out to do, in that it ‘outlines how [the RAAF] will posture for responsive, agile and potent air and space effects across the operational spectrum.’ Whether it does everything a strategy should do is a more difficult question, one that requires consideration of what strategy is and who it is for. Across the board, the newly released Air Force Strategy is a welcome departure from and a big improvement over previous iterations. It acknowledges that previous iterations were ‘anchored to the right side of this [the competition] continuum,’ in the realm of openly declared military conflict. It purposely broadens the ‘options air and space power provide to the joint force to include operations below the threshold of direct military conflict.’ It also recognises political warfare and influence as key factors, leading to the requirement for the RAAF to ‘provide an enduring contribution to statecraft.’ In other words, it moves beyond traditional, platform-centric concerns and looks towards a bigger picture, in which the RAAF ‘must be part of Australia’s ability to synchronise and mobilise all aspects of national power.’ So far, so good. With its coherent and comprehensive lines of effort, the Air Force Strategy is an excellent and exciting plan. However, is that all a strategy should do? To answer that question, we first need to decide what the role of strategy is. The question ‘what is strategy’ is itself a hotly contested topic of discussion. Pose the question to 10 practitioners of strategic thought, and 12 different opinions will likely result. Some, of course, are more enduring than others, and two concepts stand out. The first is strategy as a ‘theory of victory’ – or, adapted for activities below the threshold of armed conflict, a ‘theory of success’ – put forward by a range of luminaries, including the late Colin Gray and Eliot Cohen. The second is the concept of strategy as a relationship between ends, ways and means, probably best encapsulated by Colin Gray as ‘direction and use made of means by chosen ways in order to achieve desired ends.’ Although the latter has been fairly criticised as one-sided and overly formulaic, combining it with the ‘theory of success’ concept provides a useful framework for analysing strategy. Both concepts suggest that, in order for a strategy to be effective and complete, we must know what we want to achieve and what success looks like. In other words, we need some defined end-states. Of note, ‘defined’ need not mean ‘finite,’ a common misapplication of the ends-ways-means idea – ‘success’ can be a prolonged state of ‘succeeding.’ So, in addition to providing the plan for how to get there, it should articulate a vision of what success looks like. This becomes critical during periods of rapid change when future success might look significantly different to the current state. It should also communicate that vision in a universally understandable way that gets everyone on board. After all, at least half of communication happens at the receiving end; if some of us can ‘see’ the desired future but most of us cannot, how do we ensure we are all pulling in the same direction? Moreover, how do we articulate that desired future to others and make sure it meshes with theirs? Take the concept of a fifth-generation air force. The term ‘fifth generation’ does not appear in the Air Force Strategy, but it is implied throughout as a desired end-state. The RAAF website explicitly draws the connection, stating that the ‘Air Force Strategy outlines [the RAAF’s] intention to become a fifth generation Air Force.’ However, what does ‘fifth generation’ actually mean? I have had more than one conversation with practitioners of air power whose answer to this question was a shrug and “I don’t know, F-35 and stuff.” In reality, the definition on the RAAF website is not much more enlightening. If one of the desired goals of the Air Force Strategy is a fifth-generation RAAF, should we not do a better job of visualising and articulating what that looks like – particularly for those who do not work on the F-35? After all, the ability to explain our future to ourselves is a prerequisite to being able to explain it to others, on the way to our goal of achieving strategic influence. Even our idea of what ‘fifth generation’ looks like in today’s RAAF is flawed. The RAAF website envisions ‘a fully-networked force that exploits the advantages of an available, integrated and shared battlespace picture to deliver lethal and non-lethal air power’ – and then directly relates that word picture to the F-35. Capabilities like the E-7 and the P-8 are occasionally mentioned in broader discussions too. Arguably, the most ‘fifth generation’ platform currently in RAAF operational service, at least in terms of connectivity, access and contribution to an ‘available, integrated and shared battlespace picture,’ is a 50-year-old aircraft with a bunch of very modern systems in the back, the AP-3C(EW). Nevertheless, the focus on the anointed fifth-generation platforms has meant that for a decade now the AP-3C(EW) has remained a platform that many in the ADF do not realise the RAAF even possesses, let alone understands what it does or how. Our strategy says that we aspire to ‘consider effects rather than aircraft, thereby resisting platform-centric thought,’ yet to date even our conception of a fifth-generation RAAF seems platform-centric. However, the fifth-generation concept is just an example. The underlying issue is that the Air Force Strategy was conceived and delivered as a plan. As such, it does not do enough to articulate what success looks like before it dives into what we need to do to get there. Why it lacks a vision of success is itself worth considering, although the scope of that question exceeds the scope of this analysis. As a starting point, the Air Force Strategy is inherently limited by overarching documents. TheDefence Strategic Update postulates the ‘shape, deter, respond’ triad as its strategic objectives. However, although these are high-level concepts, they are essentially courses of action, and therefore ways, not ends. A readily visualisable desired end-state remains elusive. Given that the Air Force Strategy must aim ‘inside’ the Defence Strategic Update, it is understandable it has fallen into the same trap. However, the Air Force Strategy may itself contain the seeds of its own salvation. In another welcome divergence from previous iterations, it identifies novelty and creativity as ‘central characteristics when engaging in an environment of strategic competition.’ Applying this idea reflexively, to the strategy itself, might allow us to imagine and clearly articulate our vision of success. The power of narrative, long the darling of psychology, increasingly features in strategic thought. After all, stories are how humans think, how we order information and how we communicate with each other. Harvard icon Joseph Nye articulated the power of narrative in the military context when he observed that: conventional wisdom has always held the state with the largest military prevails, but in an information age it may be the state (or non-states) with the best story that wins. Because of the centrality of narrative in how people think, this idea applies not only externally but internally: the better our shared story of success, the better our chance of achieving that success. All the Air Force Strategy needs to do is take its own advice. The RAAF – and, more broadly, the Australian defence establishment – should apply the creativity bubbling away inside the enterprise to come up with a narrative that clearly articulates our vision of success, both to ourselves and others. What does delivering 21st-century air and space power as part of the joint fight, above or below the threshold of military conflict, look like? Make this narrative a compelling insight into the future, that makes concrete some of the abstract ideas shaping our environment during this period of rapid change, told from multiple viewpoints to allow people to place themselves within that future, and we will have the vision to go with our excellent plan. Wing Commander Marija ‘Maz’ Jovanovich is a Royal Australian Air Force aviator. She is a graduate of both the USAF Test Pilot School and USAF Air War College who is about to assume command of No. 10 Squadron.

The Royal Australian Air Force is breaking through nearly a century of Western militaries’ operational focused 'air force strategy.' In this installment of the series, Dr Heather Venable brings her wealth of knowledge to the #AFSTRAT. Heather casts the AFSTRAT against its predecssors, providing historical context for the change in Western air force strategies. The importance of what the AFSTRAT has done differently is coupled with why these changes are important and how RAAF can continue to break out of the operational mold and into a highly relevant and effective strategic service. Western air power 'strategy' - if one can even call it that - stresses above all how to employ air power jointly, especially using networks, to act as a force multiplier. These capabilities are essential to modern warfare, but they also are not enough as they largely support the operational level of war. Meanwhile, air forces tend to ignore the strategic level of war, which entails considering how one can achieve the desired effect upon one’s enemy, in part because it has become so joint minded. That is not to say that air power practitioners should NOT be used jointly; rather, it is to point out that a focus on jointness lends itself to thinking operationally rather than strategically because the emphasis is on the how rather than the why. In effect, Western air forces have lost their strategic thinking, generally stressing 'ways' than 'ends.' Unfortunately, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is not an exception to this tendency. However, there are signs that it is emerging from the group-think of recent Western air power thinking as can be seen by comparing Air Force Strategy 17-27 (2017) to Air Force Strategy 2020. The currently abysmal state of air power strategic thinking is ironic. Shortly after the First World War, for example, the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the future US Air Force (USAF) took decidedly strategic visions in developing theories (albeit imperfect ones) designed to win wars. This approach does not mean that they were inherently strategic because they pursued strategic bombardment or seeking to avoid the battlefield by flying directly to an opponent’s homeland. Rather, they demonstrated strategic thinking because they pursued a theory of victory regarding how to use air power to have a strategic effect. By 1936, for example, the U.S. Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) developed a strategy that targeted the 'vulnerabilities' of 'modern industrial nations' aimed primarily at one point of Clausewitz’s triangle: the people. ACTS advocated the destruction of carefully selected points in societies to cause 'moral collapse' – or effects on the population – as the immediate effect of strategic bombardment. As one airman explained, the nation’s 'will to resist' could be found 'centered in the mass of the people.' Airmen theorized that attacks on 'vital elements upon which modern social life is dependent' allowed for a focus on an opponent’s will rather than the more circuitous and inefficient focus on its means. It is essential to point out that these theories had significant problems, including making erroneous assumptions. One instructor, for example, struggled to connect the effect on the people to any 'express[ion] through political government.' Nevertheless, at least they were thinking strategically, and the Combined Bomber Offensive ultimately made significant contributions to the Allied defeat of Germany, such as achieving air superiority, that enabled other key joint operations. By contrast, current air power thinking - indeed, Western military theory writ large - lacks a theory of victory beyond joint networks. As the US military has turned its focus from the Global War on Terror to great power conflict, it has stressed multi-domain operations (currently joint all-domain operations) above all. Multi-domain operations emphasize the 'ways' in which the U.S. military needed to connect its various branches of warfighters. 'Ends,' it seems to assume, must wait until an actual conflict unfolds. Strategy, however, is not only a wartime endeavour but a peacetime one as well. An air force strategy should not only strengthen the institution but also prepare for future warfare. However, the USAF, which has led the charge for networked command and control in the US, largely has neglected strategic thought. This is epitomized by how it largely ceased producing its own strategic documents, at least for public consumption. This trend partially reflects the US military’s greater comfort with the operational rather than the strategic level of war. This embrace of the operational level of war began largely in the wake of the Vietnam War when military officers sought to insulate themselves from civilian interference due to what they saw as micromanagement. This approach continues today. In some ways, Western air power has become unmoored from its early theoretical foundations, and that is a positive development because it is no longer wedded to theories of strategic bombardment. On the other hand, air power strategy now rests somewhat awkwardly on the untested and untried theory of John Boyd’s OODA loop. Western air forces - and militaries - essentially seek to foist multiple dilemmas on an opponent before it can react. Critics, however, have suggested that Boyd cherry-picked his historical examples. As Lawrence Freedman further explains, the military thinking that coalesced during this time period, which continues to inform current thinking about maneuver warfare, 'reflected an essentially romantic and nostalgic view of strategy, unhampered by the normal constraints of politics and economics.' Regarding Australian air power strategy - or the lack thereof - it is important to note that the RAAF has not sounded terribly different from the USAF or the RAF. Like recent defence documents in the West, its documents have stressed agility and speed as Boyd did. Western air forces tend to pursue a one-size-fits-all operational plan to create 'fifth-generation warfare,' or what the RAAF described in Air Force Strategy 2017-2027 as a 'fully networked force that exploits the combat-multiplier effects of a readily available, integrated and shared battlespace picture.' This, it asserted, would enable the RAAF to compete in 'increasingly complex and lethal threats of warfare in the Information Age.' One of the problems with this thinking, though, is its emphasis on what it can do rather than the effect it can have. In effect, it is about 'us' rather than 'them,' or how it enables the RAAF to create effects more than what effect those actions will have on an opponent. As the Strategy further explained, the information age’s key attribute is supposedly transforming the 'speed at which large amounts of information can be generated and disseminated,' thus requiring Western nations to stay 'ahead of the ever-quickening decision-making cycle of our adversaries.' The RAAF is not alone in this thinking. It provided a brief quote from a 2016 Australian Defense White Paper calling for the need to apply force 'more rapidly and more efficiently.' While it is essential to adopt a joint posture, it is also important to consider how air power can best contribute to future warfare. In other words, the 'end' of Australian air power strategy is not creating a fifth-generation air force. Rather, the appropriate 'end' is a strategy that puts ideas at its heart as to how to defeat its most-likely opponents and its most-dangerous ones. A hint of the most dangerous threat comes through briefly in the strategy, with the RAAF stating its assumption in Strategy 17-27 that it would be 'outnumbered' and facing a 'shrinking technological edge.' However, it offered no specific strategy to combat this significant threat. Networked jointness is essential now and into the future, but jointness does not mean that air power cannot be used independently to support jointness. The pursuit of better jointness, moreover, should not be a substitute for national strategy or air power strategy. An air force must envision how it can use air power most effectively, because that provides one of the greatest services to the joint force. In this light, the most promising aspect of the RAAF’s recent Air Force Strategy 2020 is that it seeks to get outside the overarching trends in Western air power thinking by seeking 'creative and non-prescriptive compositions of platforms, capabilities and priorities to address complex grey-zone threats.' This emphasis on creativity should be intensified at the strategic level in the Indo-Pacific theatre beyond grey-zone threats to envisioning how to apply airpower for strategic effect during a range of conflicts. In that way, the RAAF can really get its #AFSTRAT back. Dr Heather Venable is an associate professor of military and security studies at the U.S. Air Command and Staff College and teaches in the Department of Airpower. She is the author of How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874–1918. She also edits for  The Strategy Bridge and is a non-resident fellow at Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity.

The Central Blue welcomes Josh Vicino, who is sharing his thoughts in The Central Blue’s latest series, ‘What is the Air Force Strategy?’ – a series designed to build on Australia’s long-standing tradition of commitment to strategic thought. Josh delves into the importance of changing mindsets with the implementation of new governance structures to meet the challenges presented by the #AFSTRAT in turning an organisation focussed on preventing accidents to the effective generation of air and space power for strategic effects. When Heraclitus famously said that “the only constant in life is change,” he would have been hard-pressed to imagine the sheer pace of change in the 21st century. However, if, in response to this ever-changing environment, your strategy calls for fundamental change in one area or another, is modernising frameworks enough to bring about that change? In the world of aviation safety, the introduction of a new framework is, in and of itself, not enough to reform aviation safety practises. For real change to occur, members across the defence aviation safety community must reform their normative behaviours to truly reap the benefits on offer concurrent with the introduction of the new framework. In other words, achieving positive outcomes within a new system relies not just on the system itself, but also on the cultural norms and behaviours of those that are implementing it. This idea transcends the aviation safety context and speaks to ‘agile and coherent governance’ in line with Line of Effort 5 (LOE5) of the newly released Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Strategy publication. In 2016, the introduction of the Defence Aviation Safety Regulation (DASR) represented a paradigm shift in airworthiness regulations. The intent was for the framework to be ‘outcomes based’, which would replace the ‘process driven’ Technical Airworthiness Regulations (TARegs) and therefore allow members of the aviation safety community ‘to determine what processes and actions suit their business to satisfy a regulatory objective’.[1] Born out of European Military Aviation Requirements, the adoption of the DASR was intended to ‘optimise effect while reducing administrative burden and unnecessary bureaucracy’.[2] This new, outcomes-based governance system was introduced as a replacement for the process-driven TARegs, which themselves were introduced to meet a need borne out of accidents in the 1990s that warranted a process-driven regulation system.[3] Although it was never the intent of the authors, the process-based TARegs and the existing narrative around them led to the unintended consequence of creating conservative behaviour. In particular, engineers and technicians perceived that they were required to memorise processes by heart rather than showing an understanding of the ‘why’ behind the governing philosophy and ideas that underpinned the system. Comparatively, the DASR based system saw a shift in focus to effective outcomes, supported by an understanding of the core ideas of safety, an ability to generalise thinking across varying situations, and a demonstration of sound judgement and application of policy for a given situation. Today, with an established safety culture that supports the effective generation of air power, the outcomes-based DASR provides a sound basis for an agile and coherent governance system. At the Air Warfare Centre (AWC) in 2017, this very approach under the DASR was used to beneficial effect. The Chief Engineer who introduced the regulatory framework made excellent use of the new system to instil a generalised concept of safety amongst the workforce and an accompanying accountability chain that fostered a rigorous yet dynamic engineering development process. On numerous occasions, this new way of thinking led to decreased development timeframes, all the while providing an exemplary level of safety assurance. In the context of LOE5 outlined in the Air Force Strategy, which aims for ‘optimising effect while reducing administrative burden and unnecessary bureaucracy,’[4] the AWC was ahead of the game. When undertaking developmental engineering tasks in support of Aircraft Research and Development Unit flights, the organisation was able to both ‘curate leading edge research’ while ‘honing ideas through to realisation in a safe environment that is failure tolerant.’[5] It was a perfect manifestation of LOE5 in an engineering context, albeit some years before Air Force Strategy 2020 came into being. Interactions with external contractors and Force Element Groups, however, revealed that not everyone in the aviation safety community had adopted the new mindset. Whereas under the new system organisational approvals could be leveraged to demonstrate compliance and facilitate ease of assurance, it was often found that such third parties had retained their TARegs based methods of thinking which forced cumbersome and unnecessary processes. In numerous cases, the choice to re-assess all the analysis that the engineers in the AWC had already conducted caused timeline delays with no tangible benefits. This occurred because in adopting the DASR system, those parties external to the AWC had simply retained the existing process structure of the TARegs and mapped terminology and positions between the old and new systems without understanding the need to shift their behaviours in adopting the new safety framework. Whilst the Defence Aviation Safety Authority recognised this as an efficient way to adopt the new system, it provides only one of many potential implementations that were intended to be refined as organisations matured under the new framework. Moreover, this singular implementation is one that does not make use of the flexibilities available to ‘develop and implement a range of lower-cost management solutions while achieving the same level of aviation safety outcomes.’[6] What this example shows is that to utilise the flexibilities, agility, and benefits of a given system fully, those responsible for its application need to embrace not only terminology and position requirements but also the required change in mindset. The introduction of an appropriate framework is a necessary precondition for agile and coherent governance, but evidently not sufficient in and of itself. The new framework must be accompanied by a change in mindset, approach, and narrative that seeks to exploit the new guidelines without reverting to old practises fully. Failing to do so will only ensure that the overly conservative compliance and conformance focused culture will be unable to step outside of the boundaries that were established some 30 years ago. As a broader concept, this is something that can be generalised outside of the aviation safety context. An extraordinary amount of experience exists within our organisation; the RAAF needs to ensure that it pays careful attention to how this experience is leveraged as it moves forward into new governance structures lest it falls into old habits. Only by bringing a cultural shift and a change in thinking in the pursuit of agile and coherent governance can the RAAF ‘create space for the organisation to grow and operate while ensuring safety and regulatory compliance.’[7] Flight Lieutenant Joshua Vicino is an Electronics Engineer working in the Royal Australian Air Force. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Electrical Engineering from The University of Melbourne. He is currently the Officer in Charge of Maintenance at No. 10 Squadron. [1] Department of Defence, 10 Ways to Better Aviation Regulation: Assuring Safety of Defence Aviation, 2016, p. 33. [2] Ibid. [3] Department of Defence, Introduction to Defence Aviation Safety, Edition 2.1, 2019, p. 5. [4] Department of Defence, Air Force Strategy Key Highlights, 2020, p. 14. [5] Ibid. [6] Department of Defence, 10 Ways to Better Aviation Regulation: Assuring Safety of Defence Aviation, 2016, p. 33. [7] Department of Defence, Air Force Strategy Key Highlights, 2020, p. 14.

Brian Weston 'On Target - 'Go hard, or go home!' in Australian Defence Business Review, July/Aug 2020 pp 70 One of the themes of recent On Target columns has been how recent force structure decisions have shaped the evolution of the RAAF into a potent middle-weight air force, well-suited to operations in the Indo-Pacific region. But there is a substantial difference between having a capable force-in-being, and being able to sustain a creditable tempo of operations for lengthy periods. This is not a new a new issue. Indeed, in 1944 in the South- West Pacific Area theatre, RAAF operational units were confronted with such an issue which, expressed bluntly, was to either go hard, or go home. At the time, the Commander-in-Chief of the South-West Pacific Area, Gen Douglas MacArthur was pursuing a strategy of by-passing substantial Japanese-occupied territory to expedite his rapid advance towards and through the Philippines. The strategy largely rendered the by-passed Japanese forces ineffective, expedited the advance, and also avoided incurring the large numbers of casualties that would have resulted had Allied forces been tasked with clearing every concentration of Japanese forces. But MacArthur’s strategy depended heavily on the effective employment of air power by the air forces commanded by Lieutenant General George Kenney (USAAF). At the forefront of MacArthur’s advance was No 10 Group, the RAAF tactical strike group which evolved into the RAAF First Tactical Air Force. No 78WG – comprising 75, 78 and 80 SQNs equipped with the P-40N Kittyhawk (picture below) – was the largest unit within No 10 Group which was commanded by AIRCDRE (later AVM) Frederick Scherger. With the pace of the allied advancement largely tied to the operational capacity and tempo of the allied air forces, and with limited availability of airfields, Kenney did not wish to allocate any airfield space to units that could not sustain a high operational tempo. That policy soon had the RAAF’s obsolete Vultee Vengeance units returning to Australia. With the assault on the Admiralty Islands pending, Scherger was called to a meeting with Major General Ennis Whitehead, Commander of Kenney’s Allied Air Forces, Advanced Echelon Headquarters, in Port Moresby. Whitehead bluntly informed Scherger that 78WG was to be broken up, with its three squadrons dispersed to Dobodura, Finschhafen, and Nadzab – a decision which would have effectively transferred the Kittyhawk squadrons to the rear. Scherger strongly objected and, after some hours of argument, Whitehead reluctantly agreed 78WG could remain on the front line, but only if its squadrons could generate 1,000 flying hours per month the flying rate of an equivalent USAAF squadron. RAAF operational squadrons were organised in accordance with RAF doctrine, and that organisational construct allowed a RAAF Kittyhawk squadron to generate 600 flying hours per month. Scherger, noting the differences between RAF and USAAF operational organisation and doctrine, set about radical change following a visit in March 1944 by Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, AIRCDRE John McCauley. The most obvious change was an increase in the establishments of the Kittyhawk squadrons to 24 aircraft and 30 pilots, but many other changes were also implemented. Scherger also noted the disruptive impact of the RAAF practice of rotating pilots continually through the squadrons, a consequence of the RAAF setting the length on an aircrew operational tour at nine months. In contrast, the USAAF set the length of their aircrew operational tours at 18 months, interspersed with two three-week breaks for rest and recuperation. Scherger thought the American system was “infinitely superior with spirit, morale, and operational efficiency increasing all the time. (In contrast) our efficiency graph was like the serrated edge of a saw … with none of the peaks very high”. On this, it is useful to note that George Odgers, the RAAF Historian, noted, “there was by no means unanimity in the RAAF on the question of tours of duty”. But it is unclear whether this was debate between a highly-experienced and respected operational commander and staff officers residing well away from the operational front. There can be no doubt Scherger’s initiative achieved the desired change as, in June 1944, 75, 78 and 80SQNs flew 1,318, 1,405, and 1,614 hours respectively. But while it is appropriate to reflect on 78WG’s remarkable achievement the point of this column is to ask how will the 21st century RAAF generate the significant and sustained increases in operational effort that will be required should a nearer-term contingency arise in the Indo-Pacific? Brian Weston is a Board Member of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation. He served tours in Defence’s Force Analysis Division and the HQADF Force Development Planning Branch. Download pdf

The Central Blue welcomes first-time contributor Matt Kelly, who is the first to share his thoughts in The Central Blue’s latest series, ‘What is the Air Force Strategy?’ - a series designed to build on Australia’s long-standing tradition of commitment to strategic thought. Matt delves into the challenges presented by the #AFSTRAT in turning an organisation of technical specialists into strategic thinkers. He also examines potential pathways for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) to move forward from this important first step in cultural change and onto phase 2 implementation. How do you convince fourteen thousand technical experts that they should spend less time on the ‘tools’ and more time thinking about the bigger picture? That is just one of the challenges the RAAF has set itself with the release of the Air Force Strategy (AFSTRAT). The AFSTRAT lays out how the RAAF plans to evolve in the wake of the 2020 Defence Strategic Update. One of the most significant proposals in the AFSTRAT is a systemic approach to developing the strategic acumen of RAAF personnel. The most encouraging aspects of this initiative are the inclusion of all ranks and its enabling function for other proposals in the AFSTRAT. However, the RAAF is likely to face several challenges in achieving this goal. The AFSTRAT believes that strategic acumen will help tackle the complexity of the future operating environment. This argument is supported by significant academic evidence. Goldman and Casey argue that strategic thinking skills enhance organisational performance. Wheatley asserts that the need for strategic acumen is moving beyond senior levels and deeper into organisations. The AFSTRAT acknowledges this trend and aims to start developing strategic aptitude at junior levels, which will ‘normalise’ strategic thought and ensure that strategic acumen is organic to individuals by the time they reach senior enlisted or commissioned ranks. Strategic acumen will also enable another AFSTRAT objective: horizontal integration. Horizontal integration resists platform-centric thinking and encourages RAAF personnel to reconsider ‘how it manages the composition of platforms, capabilities and missions to achieve air and space power effects.’ This will enable what Hunter views as the ‘innovative ideation’ necessary to employ air power effectively in the contemporary environment. The skills required to achieve horizontal integration align with the ability to think strategically; as individuals must think beyond their immediate environment and form connections with other elements to achieve organisational objectives. While the development of strategic thinking skills makes sense in theory, several challenges must be overcome before the RAAF can reap its benefits. The first is the need to convince RAAF personnel ‘why’ strategic thinking is essential. The RAAF has traditionally placed a premium on the technical qualifications and specialist skills of its personnel, often at the expense of a collective ‘air force’ sense of belonging. The RAAF is not flying solo here; Laslie also found that a collective identity does not exist in the United States Air Force. Consequently, the development of ‘non-technical’ skills such as strategic thinking has often been regarded as a lower priority and less deserving of time and effort. RAAF leaders will need to reverse this mindset so that the organisation can fully embrace strategic acumen. The second challenge will be determining ‘how’ strategic thinking skills are developed. This is not a one-off task; it is a gradual process that is infused throughout an individual’s career. The RAAF must consider how the strategic thinking continuum is broken down across all ranks. Should this be incorporated into promotion courses or are new courses required? What is the balance between training and experience? Does it need to differentiate between senior enlisted and junior officers, and if so, how? When does the continuum start, and when does it end? Answers to these questions will set the conditions for the development of strategic acumen. There is no panacea to developing strategic acumen; however, there are areas that can be focussed on. The first is to take a holistic approach in this endeavour. Evidence suggests that strategic acumen depends just as much on innate talent as it does on organisational development. Accordingly, the RAAF could start by screening for strategic acumen early on in people’s careers. From there, strategic acumen can be ingrained via training, education and experience of incrementally higher complexity. This does not mean that our junior enlisted and officer ranks need to start quoting Clausewitz, but they should realise how their role contributes to section capability and how their section contributes to unit capability. In this context, a bespoke course or a handful of strategic postings will not be sufficient; a RAAF-wide approach is necessary to achieve RAAF-wide benefits. Which brings us to perhaps the most important requirement; the RAAF must prioritise strategic acumen in promotion, selection and recognition (honours & awards) processes. Training and education will be meaningless unless personnel can see the organisation demonstrably valuing strategic acumen. At present, an individual’s strategic acumen is only considered at higher levels of the organisation (see, for example, the most recent (albeit dated) review on Defence strategic leadership: The Chiefs). Even then, it is evident that strategic acumen is of less value than an individual’s corps, category or specialisation during consideration for senior officer appointments. This will need to change if the RAAF is to convince its personnel that strategic acumen worth the investment. The RAAF has taken an impressive first step by recognising the need to focus on strategic acumen. Time will tell whether the organisation can ‘walk the talk’ and translate the AFSTRAT into meaningful action. Squadron Leader Matt Kelly is a Logistics Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. He holds Masters Degrees in Business and Strategic People Management. He is currently a student at the Australian War College. The views expressed are his alone and do not reflect the opinion of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Department of Defence, or the Australian Government.

At the end of 2016, I made the hard decision to leave my role as a Logistics Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). For a little over two years (27 months to be exact) I gained experience working overseas and with various other Government and Non-Government Organisations; much of this work linked in some way to security, defence and diplomacy. During this time, I remained connected to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) through friends and colleagues, loosely keeping up to date with an evolving strategic direction. In 2019 I returned to the RAAF. It became immediately apparent how my external experiences afforded me a greater Whole of Government perspective and helped me see ADF’s contribution to the bigger picture of national security. I found a break in service immeasurably beneficial; both in the process I went through to decide to leave, and the actual time away. If you, or someone you know, is at a crossroads – questioning whether the ADF remains a viable option, or another pathway is equally tempting, read on. Alternately, if you are a supervisor or leader looking to guide those seeking external experiences but are unsure or would like to maintain a connection to the ADF, this discussion could provide some important insights. Know your ‘why’ The first question that must be asked is ‘Why are you considering leaving?’ Time out of uniform can be very beneficial when you do something that results in personal or professional growth. Even better if it achieves both. Leaving the ADF because you feel disillusioned, disgruntled, or merely bored will rarely address the critical issue. Know the core of that feeling. Without honest self-reflection, you risk finding yourself in another job for another organisation, still suffering from the same complaints because the underlying issue has not been identified and addressed. Know why you are leaving; know where you want to go. Without this self-reflection, your potential for personal and professional growth is limited. This does not need to be a complicated reflection. I am not suggesting a specific job, company or even career path is necessary; rather a process of contemplation whereby you understand your intrinsic motivations and the ideas that you want to test. From my own experience, I was bored with my role and lacked a feeling of purpose and meaningful contribution. I had a long-held goal to work within the Humanitarian or Development sectors I wanted to contribute in some way to peace, stabilisation or humanitarian missions. I had gained enough education and work experience and at the 10-year mark and so decided I was in a good position to take leave without pay and seek other employment. My decision was not a passing thought; I consulted with several trusted advisors and churned over the concept for several years. When I did leave, I only had a rough idea of where I wanted to go; not a blueprint but at least a mud map to follow. Make your time count to achieve your ‘why’ Some members of the ADF leave abruptly because, for years, they have been growing quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, disenchanted with the organisation. They reach a point where the grass looks so much greener on the other side that they jump at the first offer or easy option that comes along. The individual makes a quick escape, often without introspection to identify what it is they are escaping from or want to run to. They then find soon enough the same feeling of dissatisfaction experienced in uniform. The territory is likely unfamiliar, the support network and community of the ADF may be unavailable or distant, and often the remuneration is sub-par in comparison. The roles my friends and acquaintances have left the ADF for are wide and varied. They include a consultant in Defence Industry; a Supply Chain Specialist in corporate New York; a Logistics Operations Officer at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters; a Gender Adviser in a Non-Government Organisation; a new mum studying to become a psychologist; and a bus driver working in the local community able to spend some very happy days with family. Despite the vast array of roles, these individuals all hold great value in how they are now spending their days. Some are still involved within the ADF on a part-time basis; some are not; however, they all look back on their service with gratitude. They all knew their ‘why’ and are making their time count toward achieving that purpose. Leave the window open There are many options for employment within the ADF which are not continuous and full time, including part-time service; long service leave; leave without pay; amongst others. Not all options will fit all circumstances; perhaps a complete discharge is the best call for you and your preferred lifestyle. I chose to take leave without pay (LWOP). I was in the fortunate position of having a partner employed overseas and was not in a critical trade. Both factors helped me. Other options for those in critical trades may include transfer to Service Category (SERCAT) 5, commonly known as ‘a reservist’. This option has enabled a friend to travel to Europe and explore potential training and employment options with the UN and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Using this flexibility, he has been asked to undertake the UN Staff Officer’s Course as a student and then come back to teach. With any luck, this opportunity will lead to a UN deployment and allow him to thrive in the space he set out to work in. That is a win. In acknowledging the flexibility available within the ADF, it is always worth considering if there is an arrangement available that could benefit both the organisation and your individual goals. Could you secure an education opportunity that would benefit the organisation and propose a period of paid study leave; perhaps working with the career manager to go into a relevant position soon? Maybe a secondment to industry could be something the career manager would consider? Are there remote roles available on ForceNet? Get creative. If the ADF is unable to support an alternative arrangement, that is ok. It would be a bold assumption to expect the organisation to be responsible for supporting pathways for our own individual fulfilment at the cost of capability. However, if there is a need the organisation has, and you can propose a way to fill it or value-add, it could work well for both parties. In place of discharge from Service, I would recommend leave without pay or a SERCAT transfer in the first instance. I had no intention of returning to full-time continuous service within the RAAF but, as we all know, a lot can change in life. Just look at how COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on society. It is entirely possible you will have surprises and experiences come up that you could not have predicted. Create your own luck I have time and again attributed my positive external experience to being in the right place, at the right time, with the right person. That, and an insatiable thirst for coffee, chats and making new friends. Recently, however, I had a mentor pull me up on this mantra. They reminded me ‘You made sure you had the chances – own that, you created luck.’ It was through my humanitarian course instructor, and now dear friend, that I was put in contact with a world-renowned independent security analyst (and all-round decent lady) running an analysis workshop at the same centre in The Hague where I was to do my UN course. By virtue of this contact, I developed another friendship and was invited to after-work drinks with the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre staff. On the final night of my course, I mentioned to the Lieutenant Colonel that I had a couple of months to spare, and by the next Tuesday, I had signed a contract for an internship. Aside from my time volunteering in Timor (which I had secured through a formal application process), every job opportunity came about because I showed an interest and was not afraid to talk to people. You get 100% of what you do not ask for. During my LWOP, I maintained contact with my career manager and formally advised the ADF of all employment and overseas travel. I checked in regularly with trusted mentors and maintained an awareness of how the organisation was evolving. As my formal education and experience in the Humanitarian and Development Sectors progressed, I used my connections with RAAF and the ADF more broadly to understand where the future opportunities may exist. I also maintained contact with senior ADF Gender Advisors, CIMIC officers and contacts within International Engagements. I wanted to understand the needs of the ADF and the windows of opportunity that may be opening up for me. Some of these contacts were pre-existing, while others I would ‘cold call’ via email. I would briefly explain my situation and what I was interested in understanding about their area of expertise while always acknowledging that their time was limited. Every one of them provided advice via email, over the phone or in person. I was and still am very grateful to these leaders for their time and investment in my journey. Why go back? Many ADF personnel depart service life due to personal circumstances the organisation could not support, poor leadership or a lost sense of purpose. In assessing whether you should return to service life, consider asking yourself the following questions; What knowledge or experience have I gained? Has my time away afforded me a new or reinvigorated purpose? From this new perspective, is it possible to add value and feel gainfully employed? In contemplating these questions, take time to reflect while engaging with mentors in and out of the ADF who will provide frank and fair advice. Always make the decision that feels right for you, though it may take time to figure that out. Such reflection may reinforce the desire to remain a civilian, but it may also lead to a rejoining as a different mustering, service or SERCAT. You may also decide that there may not be a place for you doing what you enjoy or are good at in the ADF. There are two possible reasons for this conclusion. The first is simply that sometimes there is no need for the skills you have to offer. The second is that the organisation is still developing the robust systems required to identify skills, talent and experience, and the mechanism to feed that back into the organisation in a way that exploits maximum benefit. Always make lemonade The decision on whether to take a break, change your service contract or bow out completely is entirely unique to the individual and their circumstances. For me - I would do it all again in a heartbeat. While I can offer my perspective, unfortunately, there are no flow charts to follow. My personal and professional development is exponentially greater for having varied my career path. It is one of the best decisions I made. I may be in the ADF for a little or a long time; either way, I am once again happy to be on the ride. I hope that by sharing this, individuals who identify with what I have been talking about can feel confident that there is no wrong decision, only an experience to be had and learn from. Flight Lieutenant Samantha Hewitt is a Logistics Officer currently posted to the Joint Movements Coordination Centre. While on Leave Without Pay, she worked with various Government and Non-Government agencies in Australia, the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, and the Netherlands. Her focus has primarily been in the Humanitarian and Development Sectors; where she has a strong interest in Civil Military Cooperation training and education. Samantha will post into the A4/7 position in 2021 where she hopes to support Combat Support Group and broader RAAF using the experiences she has gained with Government, Non-Government, International and Joint environments.

Advanced missile threats (AMT), characterised by payloads that achieve manoeuvrable flight profiles and speeds above Mach 5 have created a wicked problem for Defence forces. The scale of the technical challenge that they pose seems immense - how can something that small, that fast and that is specifically designed to exploit the seams of missile defence systems be shot down? How can it be found, fixed, tracked, targeted and engaged when the command, control and communications environment itself is contested? AMTs require reconsideration of entire approaches to Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) because ensuring a projectile can reliably hit another projectile risks compromising too many other areas of the ADF. The nature of missile threats as a whole has become more nuanced than the cruise/ballistic missile paradigm presently in use. In addition to purely ballistic threats, which still exist, now there are those that begin with a ballistic trajectory, but are capable of manoeuvring during flight. Unlike their predecessors, missile warheads are no longer at the mercy of gravity – they may manoeuvre aerodynamically, add velocity, or in many cases, do both to disguise their true target. AMTs are able to defeat current missile defence systems because they do not follow a predictable trajectory. Development of defences against AMTs has only just begun and systems are unlikely to be fielded until the 2030s. When they are fielded, how effective will they be and at what cost? AMTs are not as insurmountable as they might seem at first glance. Most analyses to date focus only on one aspect of IAMD, the defeat of missiles in flight or ‘Active Defence’. When all layers of IAMD are considered, this reveals options available to Defence to protect against AMTs that may be more effective than pursuing a strategy that relies on active protection. The 5 layers of IAMD are: Counter Proliferation Deterrence Counter Force Active Defence, and Passive Defence Counter proliferation is a whole-of-government (WoG) activity that utilises international agreements, government policy and statecraft to prevent the spread of weapons and weapons technologies to certain actors. While Defence does not lead counter proliferation activities, it has an important role in identifying those threats that Government must prevent from proliferating, and options that Defence could undertake to help prevent proliferation. In addition to denying technology transfer to actors that could pose a threat with advanced missiles, Australia should act to reassure nations in the region that it will support their security and sovereignty. These activities help ensure that regional nations do not see the need to either acquire their own advanced missile systems or host those of a third party. Deterrence is an activity conducted to convince an actor to not perform a certain course of action, generally pursued through deterrence by denial and deterrence by punishment. Deterrence by denial aims to increase the difficulty of a potential adversary achieving their strategic goals to the point where they consider it too costly or too risky to act. Deterrence by punishment works by convincing a potential adversary that there will be significant consequences for pursuing certain courses of action, be they military or through other instruments of statecraft. Deterrence is a WoG effect, to which Defence must contribute by demonstrating Australia’s ability and willingness to act militarily if required. Counter Force is the activity undertaken to prevent an adversary from conducting an attack. While this immediately conjures thoughts of strikes against headquarters, missile launchers and associated infrastructure, the reality is far broader. Counter Force activities include actions undertaken to prevent the adversary from completing their targeting process or to prevent commanders from authorising a launch. Self-evidently, Counter Force is not purely kinetic, but can leverage advances in cyber, electronic warfare and space. Active Defence is the physical destruction of a missile while it is in flight. This can be achieved through missiles, guns or even directed energy systems. Passive Defence aims to mitigate the effects of a missile impact. This includes physical hardening of likely targets, use of decoys (both physical and electronic) to deceive the enemy, and building-in resilience in essential capabilities. Passive Defence allows the force to minimise the effect of a successful attack. Active and Passive Defence also contribute to deterrence by denial. Activities in these IAMD layers increase the amount of effort that an adversary must expend to defeat our forces and may dissuade them from initiating such action. Meanwhile, Counter Force can contribute to deterrence by punishment by forcing an adversary to consider the potential damage we may inflict upon them. Current doctrine treats the five layers of IAMD as separate activities that occur within their own ‘cylinders of excellence’; this will not suffice to create a robust defence against advanced threats. Such a holistic defence requires Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities to fully combine these layers into a truly integrated defence system. In this context, C4ISR must understand the nature of both the threat capabilities and intent; not just how an adversary AMT works but how it will be employed. This information is critical in informing how activities are balanced across all IAMD layers to not just prevent missile impact, but to prevent missile attacks from having a decisive impact on operations. A broader understanding of the IAMD layers allows consideration of alternatives that might be more effective than reliance on active defence alone. Activities in Counter Proliferation, Deterrence and Counter Force provide effects that impact more than just air and missile defence. Counter Proliferation can also discourage a regional nation from hosting forces from a third party. Deterrence activities can dissuade a potential adversary from conflict. Counter Force activities can affect the targeting, command, control and generation of all aspects of the adversary force, not just its AMT capabilities. When all layers of IAMD are taken into account, the development of complex and expensive active defence systems can be prioritised to those threats that cannot be countered in other layers. This broader approach also allows Defence to consider ways that it can help develop unique solutions to counter the AMT. Such solutions could create opportunities for Australian industry to develop capabilities suitable not only for Australian requirements, but suit export clients as well. As an example, could greater investment in Passive Defence research provide more effective solutions to counter AMTs? High-fidelity decoys that lure enemy missiles, redundant systems that allow infrastructure to continue functioning, and rapid-repair capabilities that ensure that damaged facilities do not remain offline for long periods will preclude such missile attacks from having a decisive impact on operations. As a result, this contributes to Deterrence by Denial by making use of AMTs by an adversary less effective. Although the consideration to develop a force able to withstand successful missile strikes is not within the ADF or National psyche, it is clear that it can no longer be ignored . When advanced missile threats are considered across all layers of IAMD the technical challenge they pose is less daunting. However, creating such a defence requires an organisation that is able to determine the activities required across all layers to achieve effective protection. This will allow force design to balance acquisition to protect the force, and understand what must be requested of other government agencies. Without concerted effort, this is likely to be just as difficult as hitting a bullet with a bullet. Squadron Leader Robert Vine is an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government.

During a period of unprecedented change, the Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld, AO, DSC recently released The Air Force Strategy (AFSTRAT) to transition the Royal Australian Air Force from a bespoke force of standalone capabilities to a networked force capable of delivering air and space power effects for the Joint Force. It comprises the following five lines of effort to evolve the Air Force to face the challenges of an increasingly competitive and less predictable geopolitical environment: Delivering air and space power as a component of the Joint Force; Developing an intelligent and skilled workforce; Deepening relationships and strengthening the Air Force’s engagement; Evolving the Air Force culture; Building agile and coherent governance. The concept of strategy has always attracted a great deal of interest from military thinkers and scholars alike. In this context, where does AFSTRAT fit? To respond to this question, The Central Blue is proud to announce its latest series ‘What is the Air Force Strategy?’ The series aims to build on Australia’s long-standing tradition of commitment to strategic thought by inviting contributions from all parties - from any rank in any Defence or military, academia, think tanks or policy commentators. Contributors are asked to provide their perspectives on AFSTRAT; specifically, if and how it will ensure the Royal Australian Air Force generates sustainable and resilient air and space power within the Joint Force. Some themes on which contributors may wish to write might include: What is AFSTRAT’s purpose, and what barriers might it face in achieving it? What difference will it make, and is it even necessary? Is it visionary or a roadmap, an abstract aspiration or actionable plan? Who would implement it, and how? How well aligned is it to Strategic Update 2020 and the Joint Force’s future Air and Space Power needs? Authors can also choose to write about their perspectives on the practical implementation of a specific line of effort. Contributors’ insight and analysis for this series will inform the understanding of AFSTRAT by not only the Joint Force but also the wider Air Force. There is no better time to start or join this conversation by sending your thoughts to: thecentralblue@gmail.com. Contributions should be no more than 2,000 words (see The Central Blue’s submission guidelines for more details). Submissions are already open and will continue to be accepted until 30 October 2020.

A core objective of The Williams Foundation is to encourage informed discussion and debate on future air power capability. Accordingly, the Foundation is committed to supporting our future leaders and the development of their ideas. One way in which this occurs is through submissions to The Central Blue, an online forum encouraging informed discussion on air and space power, and the related force design issues affecting Australia. A foundational member of The Central Blue, Dr Alan Stephens has a long history of supporting this cause. Previously a lecturer at UNSW, RAAF historian, adviser in federal parliament on foreign affairs and defence, and a member of the RAAF, Dr Stephens has published and lectured extensively. In 2008 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his contribution to Royal Australian Air Force history and air power strategy. In partnership with The Central Blue, The Williams Foundation will award a A$500 prize for the best essay or article discussing the author's perspectives on #AFSTRAT. Specifically, if and how it will ensure the Royal Australian Air Force generates sustainable and resilient air and space power within the Joint Force. The winning essay or article will be published on The Williams Foundation website on 6 December 2020. Refer to the Call for Submissions for further guidelines.

The 2020 Defence Strategic Update establishes a new policy framework on the foundation of the key principles: ‘shape, deter, respond’, and includes consideration of several capabilities as a means to achieve its strategic outcomes. Dr Moloney considers the meaning of deterrence and the role that hypersonic weapons may play in the implementation of a deterrence strategy for Australia. Our region is in the midst of the most consequential strategic realignment since the Second World War, and trends including military modernisation, technological disruption and the risk of state-on-state conflict are further complicating our nation’s strategic circumstances. The Australian Government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently released its 2020 Defence Strategic Update (2020 DSU) stating that the Indo-Pacific is the centre of an increasingly contested, apprehensive and deteriorating environment particularly since the release of 2016 Defence White Paper. The Update describes the challenges of this emerging environment and provides a new strategic policy framework to ensure ‘Australia is able – and is understood as willing – to deploy military power to shape our environment, deter actions against our interests and, when required, respond with military force’; a more assertive strategy than Australia has ever adopted before. The Government, therefore, intends to take a greater responsibility for its own security and must seek capabilities that match this ambition. Within the capability priorities set out in the Update are plans to acquire long-range missiles, with the potential inclusion of hypersonic weapons. The inclusion of such capability, specifically hypersonic weapons, will provide a new challenge to strategy and the way we think about and implement a deterrent strategy. There are strategic decisions that must be made before these weapons are a reality, not afterwards. The threat of hypersonic weapons increases the likelihood of compellence or coercion by risk as defined by Pape and Schelling due to their speed and manoeuvrability, which could alter the calculus of deterrence and the ability to attack, or hold at risk, high-value targets. The integration of the offensive use of hypersonic weapons capability into operational doctrine, for example, can create serious escalatory dynamics. This will be true for the Indo-Pacific, considering the major actors stationed in the region have programs and capabilities under development; possibly adding to the great power conflict and an ensuing arms race. Advances in hypersonic technology and the future deployment of such weapons across the region will have a large and possibly irreversible impact on Australia, and far-reaching consequences for the international system, state behaviour, escalatory dynamics, and the distribution of state power. To put the challenges Australia faces in context, we must grasp the principles of deterrence and how emerging hypersonic technology could change our comprehension of an Australian deterrence strategy. Deterrence is about the role of threats in global affairs and especially the threat of the use of force. In short, a relatively simple idea; convince your adversary that the costs of attacking you will outweigh any potential gains. There are two common assumptions of how this can be done, denial and punishment. The former tends toward control, although it has elements of coercion; and describes a threat that controls the situation effectively enough that it denies the adversary strategic options to achieve its military and political goals through aggression. The latter requires pure coercion where the adversary is not denied choice but incentivised to only choose a certain option or outcome – or impose unacceptable costs to an adversary in response to unwanted actions. There are, of course, costs to be considered in creating these conditions no matter what strategy is chosen; but there must be no reason for the adversary to doubt that threats could not be realised. If Australia is to develop a strategic deterrence posture, it must consider whether it wishes to pursue a strategy of denial or punishment and then what capability will deliver the most credible threat. Having a nuclear deterrent threat is generally considered a more credible capability because of the magnitude of the weapon. This is not an option for Australia considering its long-held policy on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. A conventional warhead on a ballistic missile needs to be exceptionally accurate to be credible, as the destructive capabilities will be less than that of a nuclear warhead. Thus, a conventional hypersonic weapon could be the next best thing to a nuclear deterrent: fast, accurate and relatively ‘clean’. Hypersonic development is not new, but it is crucial. Why? Because these weapons are primarily designed to breach existing or forthcoming missile defence systems that currently ensure the ability to deter advances from adversaries. In addition to being able to reach speeds faster than Mach 5 hypersonics can manoeuvre. Unlike ballistic missiles, which follow a stable trajectory that allows for missile detection systems to estimate the missile’s destination, hypersonics that can manoeuvre at hyper-speed pose a new danger. Two systems of interest with this capability are hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles. The former is a high-velocity booster, where the missile separates and uses momentum in the upper atmosphere before zeroing in on its target. The latter utilises a SCRAMJET propulsion system to reach its target. Russia, China, and the United States all have hypersonic development programs. (The US has declared the Global Precision Strike Missile program is only for conventional use.) Russia is at the forefront of fielding this capability, having tested its Avangard glide vehicle in December 2019. Further tests were conducted near Crimea on 9 January 2020, when Russia practised the launch of the hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile Kinzhal from two MiG-31K fighters. Both are now considered ‘in service’ and thus deployable capability for the Russian military. The agility and manoeuvrability of hypersonic weapons make them an ideal candidate to support modern military coercive strategy and tactics. For example, a surprise, the fast-conventional attack still allows for an operation to progress (i.e., the adversary is not annihilated) and coercive tactics can still be used towards the adversary to change their behaviour. This uncertainty is useful as part of a strategy of deterrence by denial. However, this raises the level of risk, and therefore, the question becomes is Australia ready for the possibility of this type of dynamic within our region? It is all well and good for Australia to focus on the acquisition of long-range missiles and the potential development of hypersonic weapons, but the emergence of this technology will remain a challenge for strategic thinkers and policymakers and for the way we think about deterrence. This technology demands that we reconsider our approach to deterrence and defence posture. In the twenty-first century, the doctrine of deterrence has been reinvigorated due to the rising tensions reappearing among great powers; the continuing threat of terrorism; and the changing character of war to include hybrid, asymmetrical, cyber and information warfare. The recent successful testing of Russian hypersonic missiles means that this is not an abstract conversation to have on a theoretical or academic level. Nor is this just a concern or an idea raised in the Prime Minister’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update. If this capability is built under the funding boost announced then Australian hypersonic and deterrence strategy is not a theory anymore but a real threat that would be operationalised to defend Australian interests—or used as a coercive tool to change great power politics in our region. Dr Cathy Moloney is the Head of the Centre for Defence Research at the Australian Defence College. She has over a decade of academic experience in International Relations and National Security having held roles as a senior research assistant, lecturer, course convener and supervisor in International Security and International Relations at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She holds a PhD in Nuclear Policy and International Relations (Griffith University), Master of International Politics (University of Melbourne) and a BA in International Relations (Griffith University). She is also the Editor of the Australian Journal of Defence and Strategic Studies.