It’s an old truism that generals always fight the last war, which is to be expected, really, as they can only really base their experience on the last war.
Still, if they’re going to fight the last war, shouldn’t they fight like the side that won?
A new approach to training Australian Defence Force reservists would be modelled on a five-week program to train Ukrainian nationals to fight Russian forces, allowing the ADF reserves to ‘rapidly scale’ in the event of a ‘crisis’.
To paraphrase Hudson from Aliens, maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, but they just got their asses kicked, pal! Sure, the war has been no swift, blitzkrieg victory for Russia, but the undeniable fact is that Ukraine has lost about 20 per cent of its territory and every counter-offensive, despite requisite media hoopla, has failed miserably.
Losing that badly is hardly the sort of strategy you’d want your army to imitate, surely?
In 2023 alone, Australian rotations trained more than 1200 Ukrainian soldiers in the UK under Operation Kudu. Ukrainian recruits graduate following an intensive five-week training course that teaches basic war-fighting skills, first aid, explosive hazard awareness and marksmanship.
And how’s that worked out for them, again?
The Albanese government has agreed to this “minimum essential training” model as part of the review and, once implemented, Australian reserves would ideally take no more than six weeks for initial training where it has previously taken up to two years.
“Operation Kudu (for Armed Forces of Ukraine recruit) provides a useful reference point in how to streamline and focus training to achieve priority capability effects in the most efficient way possible. It also highlights what critical foundation skills cannot be bypassed,” the review said.
The bureaucratic waffle is all well and good, but the grim facts on the ground don’t change.
So, what’s the strategy here, in the unlikely event Australia is invaded by a, ahem, hostile force from the north? Imitate Ukraine – by throwing recruits with five weeks’ training into the meat-grinder, while begging for an endless supply of weapons from the US and the EU?
Still, it can’t be denied that successive governments have left the ADF in a dire state.
A 78-page strategic review of the ADF reserves – the nation’s part-time soldiers, who represent 33 per cent of the total ADF workforce – found it was “understrength”, with a recruitment shortfall of more than 1070 personnel forecast for 2023-24. It noted that future recruitment targets would not be met “without significant reprioritisation and resource allocation”.
As a result, the government has vowed to improve the recruitment and retention of reservists, while also battling to turnaround a workforce crisis that has left the ADF understrength by 5000 personnel, threatening the rollout of new capabilities including promised nuclear-powered submarines.
As Australia enters the most complex strategic environment since WWII, the review says that, increasingly, ADF capabilities would not be distinguished by full-time (ADF) or part-time forces (ADF reserves) but only by the ability of the reserves to provide “an expansion base for the ADF in times of crisis”.
Perhaps they’d be better off peddling less of the woke nonsense, like prioritising ‘diversity’ in recruitment, or generals poncing about in high heels. Not to mention the spineless obsession with attacking a so-called ‘warrior culture’ in the ADF.
Which, speaking strictly as an amateur, would seem to be the entire point of a military.
What next? Taking tips off the French?
