Holding the Door Open: The 1st Division and Deterrence

Can the Army’s 1^st Division deter conflict without fighting alone? This essay argues it's real power lies in signalling coalition resolve.

31/05/2026

> 30 min

Introduction

The 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) recommended that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) “maximise the deterrence, denial, and response options for government.”¹ In response, the National Defence Strategy (NDS) adopted a deterrence-by-denial strategy for Australia’s northern approaches.² Yet, as Gregory MacCallion and Courtney Stewart note, the NDS is unclear on how land power will contribute.³ This essay argues that the 1st (Australian) Division, as the Australian Army’s unit of action, contributes to Australia’s deterrence-by-denial strategy chiefly through communication. As a forward, operational-level headquarters, it functions as a ‘thick tripwire’, a small, robust forward presence that secures access and rehearses theatre throughput, making coalition reinforcement predictable and visible to an adversary.⁴ Its deterrent effect, however, is contingent on the perceived automaticity of an allied response, primarily from the United States, given the Division’s limits in mass and depth.

Firstly, this essay examines the theory of deterrence-by-denial and its application in Australia, with a focus on the centrality of collective deterrence. Next, it defines the division and examines the factors that drove the Australian Army’s return to this structure as its unit of action. This shift stems from the complexity of modern warfare and the need for coalition integration, a requisite for Australia’s denial strategy. It also asserts that the 1st Division, as the sole deployable combat division, is an operational-level headquarters capable of joint and coalition integration. Lastly, the essay assesses the Division’s contribution by applying the ‘three Cs’ of deterrence: communication, capability, and credibility. The communication analysis asserts the Division’s primary contribution is its signaling effect as a forward-deployed force. The capability analysis reveals that the Division's benefits as a joint integrator are outweighed by deficiencies in strategic depth, concurrency, and its inability to deter grey-zone activities. Finally, the credibility assessment argues the Division’s deterrent effect is contingent on an adversary’s belief in an automatic coalition response to any attack.

Deterrence-by-Denial: The Australian Way

Australia’s strategic position as a middle power facing great powers necessitates a deterrence posture based on denial, offering a more credible foundation than the threat of punishment. Deterrence is simply persuading an opponent that the costs/risks outweigh the benefits.⁵ A state achieves deterrence through punishment, which threatens retaliation after an act, or denial, which aims to convince an adversary that they will fail before they even begin.⁶ For non-nuclear scenarios, the literature generally judges denial as more reliable: tangible, observable capabilities are more credible than the more abstract threat of post-hoc retaliation.⁷ This is the case for a non-nuclear middle power like Australia. Great powers such as China hold ‘escalation dominance’ over it, maintaining a deterrence advantage because they can escalate beyond Australia’s capacity to match.⁸ This mismatch lays the basis for a coalition-centred approach to resisting Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.

The prevalence of states resisting Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific renders a regional strategy of denial, underpinned by a US-led coalition, the most viable approach. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) presents as the only peer competitor to the US, demonstrating both the intent and capacity to reshape the international order.⁹ Decades of force modernisation have significantly improved the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) power-projection capabilities, which it employs to coerce its neighbours through aggressive diplomacy, grey-zone tactics, and territorial expansion in the South China Sea.¹⁰ Elbridge Colby argues that punishment is far less credible in this environment: China’s potential regional gains, such as the seizure of Taiwan, would outweigh any costs imposed elsewhere, and the risk of vertical escalation would stiffen Chinese resolve.¹¹ China’s objective is to subordinate neighbouring states. Therefore, the coalition’s measure of success is to preserve the independence and alignment of those states, sustaining the regional balance of power.¹²

Australia operationalises this coalition-denial strategy through what Andrew Carr calls “archipelagic deterrence,” a posture that uses the northern approaches and surrounding island chains to complicate Chinese power projection.¹³ Within this collective strategy, Australia’s primary contribution is to act as a “secure southern bastion,” a resilient base from which a coalition can project power forward into the contested archipelagos.¹⁴ The 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS) codifies this approach, reorienting the ADF from a balanced force to one focused on deterring any attempt to project force through our northern maritime approaches. This has prioritised the acquisition of capabilities heavily weighted toward air and maritime power, including long-range strike, a sovereign guided weapons enterprise, and integrated domain awareness, all underpinned by deep integration with the United States.¹⁵ This is most evident in the expansion of the United States Force Posture Initiatives (USFPI), which increases rotational access for high-end American bombers, fighters, and nuclear-powered submarines.¹⁶ The clear strategic intent is to create a layered and lethal anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) network across Australia's northern maritime approaches. The NDS states that the ADF will achieve this through ‘integrated deterrence.’¹⁷ This US concept integrates instruments of power across domains, theatres, and, most critically, with allies and partners. As Michael Mazarr notes, this integration with allies is the central pillar of the concept, designed to convince adversaries “that the costs of their hostile activities outweigh their benefits”.¹⁸ Yet the NDS privileges maritime, air and long-range strike. This raises a critical question: within this denial construct, what role does land power, specifically the 1st Division, play?

The Return of the Division: The Australian Army’s Unit of Action

In 2023, the Australian Army's return to the division as its unit of action re-established a formation with a specific and doctrinally defined scale and purpose. In ADF doctrinal terms, the unit of action is the “organised command level that controls the application of land power”. The division is a “tactical combined-arms formation, commanded by a two-star headquarters that can conduct independent and sustained operations”.¹⁹ The 1st (Australian) Division concentrates the majority of the Army’s combat power in one formation, including its three combat brigades,²⁰ the 17th Sustainment Brigade,²¹ and the 10th Fires Brigade,²² as well as other niche enablers.

The complexity of modern war, in part, drove the Army’s return to the divisional structure. Most Western armies had been division-based forces since the First World War. However, in 2003, the US Army transitioned to a modular, brigade-based force to better contend with the operational tempo and distributed operations of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.²³ These wars revealed that modular brigades, though effective for distributed operations, lacked the capacity to synchronise the broader functions of modern campaigns: information activities, partner-force development, coalition coordination, political engagement, and long-term sustainment. Contemporary operations also demand command and control across large distances and in emerging domains, including space, cyber, and cognitive. Anthony King argues that these demands drove Western armies back to the division as a “collective command” with the necessary capacity at the two-star level.²⁴ Australian Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Simon Stewart, has explicitly stated that the Army reorganised most of its combat power under the 1st Division to “better command and control operations and establish permanent command relationships with the brigades they’ll fight with.”²⁵ This improved command function of the Division directly contributes to deterrence through enhanced capacity.

The need to preserve interoperability with the US provided an external driver for returning to a divisional organisation, as it is the most appropriate echelon for integrating into US campaigns. The 2024 NDS places interoperability with the US at the centre of Australia's strategy, stating our reliance on the US will “drive interoperability and interchangeability in the development of ADF’s force structure to enable Australian access to US systems and capabilities.”²⁶ In 2016, partly in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and increasingly aggressive actions by China, Iran and North Korea, General Mark Milley, the US Army Chief of Staff, refocused the US Army from counterinsurgency operations to defeating peer enemies in large-scale combat operations (LSCO).²⁷ This resulted in the US returning to the division as the primary fighting formation because it is the lowest viable formation capable of managing the tempo, complexity and risk of LSCO.²⁸ The UK followed suit, despite lacking many of the enablers to deploy and fight an entire division, a decision that only makes sense within an alliance context where interoperability²⁹ requirements often dictate force structure.³⁰ Indeed, the Army’s stated rationale for returning to the division follows suit; LTGEN Stewart noted that it “better enables the employment of Australian divisions within partner and coalition environments.”³¹

Military doctrine generally considers the division a tactical formation, but this essay argues that it resides at the operational level, given the contemporary complexity, planning horizons, and, in Australia’s case, scale. US joint doctrine holds that the levels of war are perspectives rather than fixed echelons and that purpose depends on the task and mission.³² In large armies, such as the US Army, multiple echelons above the division (corps, field army, and theatre army) carry out campaign design, employing divisions as large tactical manoeuvre headquarters. Yet, as King argues, the modern division’s “collective command” plans and synchronises over vast areas, integrates fires with air and maritime schemes, manages information and cyber activity, and runs a Future Plans function over time horizons extending into weeks and months, which are operational tasks in substance.³³ Further, the Australian Army fields only one combat division. With no intervening land command echelon between the 1st Division and Joint Operations Command, which serves as ADF’s theatre command headquarters, the 1st Division plans and executes land campaigns integrated with joint and whole-of-government effects. It is therefore reasonable to treat the 1st Division not merely as a tactical unit but as the Army’s principal expression of the operational level of war, capable of planning and synchronising joint effects across campaigns.

The Three Cs of Deterrence: Assessing the 1st (Australian) Division’s Contribution

The three core components of effective deterrence are known as the '3Cs': capability, credibility, and communication.³⁴ Capability refers to the ability or technical capacity to carry out plausible deterrence measures; in military terms, it is the materiel and skills within a force to execute military threats. Credibility is the visible intent and resolve to implement those measures. As Thomas Schelling’s work highlights, this is a fundamentally psychological challenge. Credibility is not the will itself, but the adversary’s belief in that will,³⁵ a perception reinforced by tangible factors such as organisational structure, the ability to command in complex environments, and power-projection capability.³⁶ Communication is the process of conveying capability and credible intent, which relates to the adversary’s perceptions.³⁷ Robert Jervis’s work on perception highlights the central challenge of communication: it is a complex two-way process where signals sent are not always the signals received.³⁸ This section argues that the Division’s primary contribution is communicative because its limited standalone capability means its credibility must be guaranteed by a coalition response.

Communication: The Division as a ‘Thick Tripwire’

The 1st (Australian) Division’s primary contribution to deterrence is communicative: it makes resolve visible. Colin Gray argues that land forces are uniquely ‘politically entangling’ in a way that air and maritime rotations are not.³⁹ Their comparatively limited mobility implies persistence, which gives weight to signaling political commitment and regional presence.⁴⁰ This is particularly relevant in the Indo-Pacific, where armies are the largest service in most resident countries, giving land forces unmatched influence in combined operational planning.⁴¹ Mälksoo argues that such ritualised presence works on allies as much as on adversaries.⁴² These repeated, scheduled engagements within the region are designed to build the trust and solidarity needed to translate partnerships into formalised access. Formalised access is the “permission to use another country’s territory or airspace for military operations.”⁴³ Such access can help host nations withstand coercion⁴⁴ and shape perceptions of the ADF’s capabilities and, ultimately, Australia’s political intent.⁴⁵

The Division’s enduring relationships in the region exemplify how this 'ritualised presence' translates into a tangible signal of regional commitment. Brown argues that these long-standing regional engagements are among the most significant contributions to the ADF’s deterrence effectiveness provided by the Australian Army.⁴⁶ For example, the Australian Army’s enduring relationship with Papua New Guinea (PNG), now managed by the 1st Division, is a prime example of a ‘ritualised presence’, built over decades of shared history through recurring operations and exercises, such as Wantok Warrior, Olga Warrior, and Pukpuk.⁴⁷ This has contributed to formal operational access to PNG. On 6 October 2025, the Papua New Guinea – Australia Mutual Defence Treaty (Pukpuk Treaty) was signed by the Prime Ministers of PNG and Australia,⁴⁸ overcoming significant last-minute political opposition and suspected Chinese interference.⁴⁹ Pending formal ratification by both parliaments, it will elevate the relationship to an alliance, joining only the US and New Zealand. It contains agreements on mutual defence, expansion of defence cooperation, “enhanced capability, interoperability and integration.”⁵⁰ Specifically regarding access, the Treaty enables the ADF to use PNG defence facilities for various defence activities, including the staging and deployment of forces, as well as the pre-positioning of equipment and supplies.⁵¹ Ultimately, land forces like the Division, “operating beyond Australia’s shores demonstrate a tangible message of resolve, maintaining their presence for extended periods in support of the integrated force,”⁵² contributing to the denial of access and influence.

The 1st Division achieves effective strategic communication not through political statements but by demonstrating operational access, which turns theoretical permissions into rehearsed capabilities. The recent consolidation of theatre support within the division, particularly the transfer of the 17th Sustainment Brigade as of November 2024,⁵³ strengthens this signal by co-locating the logistics, health, policing, and engineering services that enable access. The 17th Sustainment Brigade is the Division’s theatre-opening and sustainment arm, transforming access permissions into lift, storage, distribution, and support at the point of need. For example, during Talisman Sabre 2025, the Division’s theatre enablers in the 17th Sustainment Brigade formed a Force Support Group, operating sustainment nodes in both urban and field environments.⁵⁴ 10th Force Support Battalion cleared littoral access lanes and recovered heavy vehicles along the shore while cargo specialists ran port and airfield throughput with forklifts, cranes and movement control teams. The exercise’s PNG phase, culminating at Lae, demonstrated that access now extends beyond Australia’s coastline.⁵⁵ This is how theoretical permissions become measurable capability: through the visible sequence of opening ports, handling aircraft, lifting containers, and sustaining forward elements. When these enablers perform on schedule in public view, the message to an opponent is that permissions are rehearsed, not theoretical. Ultimately, this demonstrated capacity to open and sustain a theatre is not just a signal of Australian resolve, but the essential, practical guarantee that makes the promise of a follow-on coalition response credible.

The Division’s posture as a thick tripwire is its most critical communicative act. Strategic practice offers three forward deterrence postures: thin tripwires, thick tripwires, and forward defence.⁵⁶ For a middle power like Australia, a heavy forward defence is unsustainable, while a thin tripwire lacks credibility. Therefore, the thick tripwire—a small, robust force that prompts a shift from grey-zone pressure to overt attack—is the most logical choice. Similar to the US Army’s Multi-Domain Task Forces, a key wartime function of such a force is to set the theatre: hold key terrain and provide command and control (C2) so follow-on forces can enter and project power.⁵⁷ As Dayton McCarthy argues, the primary function of land forces in a strategy of denial is to secure the air and seaports of entry (APOE/SPOE) to “hold the door open” for arriving coalition forces and to project multi-domain fires.⁵⁸ This signals that ‘reinforcement will arrive on time,’ undermining hopes of a quick fait accompli. In effect, by establishing a regional forward presence, the Division assumes what Andrew Carr and Stephen Frühling call the “primary responsibility for signaling Australia’s political intent.”⁵⁹

A division-centric posture is a blunt instrument in the grey zone; it is built for decisive war, not the persistent ambiguity below that threshold. Grey-zone activities coerce while avoiding overt conflict.⁶⁰ China’s “Three Warfares” (psychological, public opinion and legal warfare) is an “integrated campaign to achieve political objectives while remaining below the threshold of outright warfare,”⁶¹ aimed at the permissions and narratives that underwrite access. They are calibrated to sit below the point at which a conventional division is a proportionate response. While Australian doctrine demands integrated planning across the spectrum of competition,⁶² the suitability of the 1st Division in this environment is questionable. As Michael Mazarr and colleagues argue, grey-zone deterrence relies on small, persistent, and proportionate tools, such as training, advising, security assistance, and local partner exercises, where specialforces and ISR platforms add the most value by illuminating and attributing coercive acts.⁶³ Making land power credible here would require enduring task groups focused on partnered operations to build the access that renders grey-zone activity visible.⁶⁴ The result is diminished deterrence credibility for the 1st Division, as it cannot deliver a timely, proportionate, and persistent presence in the very space where coercion actually occurs.

Even so, recent scholarship and operational practice indicate the Division can play a role in recognising and responding to these tactics. China’s campaign in the Solomon Islands exemplifies the “Three Warfares” strategy, which involves utilising state-owned companies to secure long-term leases on strategic islands, signing a security pact, and providing police equipment to build influence and secure access.⁶⁵ The US uses ‘campaigning’ to counter such actions, defined as “peacetime military activities that limit, frustrate and disrupt competitor activities.”⁶⁶ Within this approach, the 1st Division deepens partnerships through security-force assistance and rehearsed access, and develops proportionate combined response options with the United States and regional partners.⁶⁷ Countering grey-zone interference means making access resilient and establishing routine response pathways; the 1st Division’s role is to embed, rehearse, and demonstrate these pathways with allies and regional partners. As a forward operational HQ, the 1st (Australian) Division contributes through communication, transforming relationships into permissions and rehearsed throughput. This approach reads as a thick tripwire, but only where access instruments and authorities are approved and allied readiness is visible.

Capability: A Potent Integrator Lacking Strategic Depth

1st (Australian) Division’s distinctive value is as a forward, survivable integrated force enabler that coordinates coalition multi-domain effects, and synchronises joint fires where high-value platforms cannot safely persist.⁶⁸ Integration fuses maritime and air sensors into land strike via networked targeting.⁶⁹ This shifts signature-heavy strike to dispersed land nodes, reducing exposure for irreplaceable assets, such as strike aircraft and surface combatants. Former commanding general of the US Army Pacific has highlighted land forces’ unique value proposition: the “arsenal of the Chinese have designed is primarily designed to defeat our air and maritime capabilities. It is not designed to find, fix and target—attack—distributed, mobile, reloadable and networked land forces.”⁷⁰

The Division’s expanding ground-based long-range strike capability is an essential contributor to the ADF’s multi-domain strike system, but it will have a limited deterrent effect. The Army has procured the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), all of which will be assigned to the 10th Brigade, under the command of the 1st Division.⁷¹ These assets will enhance the ADF’s long-range strike system and, critically, have the potential for close interoperability with the US. However, MacCallion and Stewart argue that they do not achieve credible deterrence on their own; they are deficient in range, mass, and mobility to be sufficiently threatening to alter an adversary’s risk calculus.⁷² For example, HIMARS has a range of only 500 kilometres (with PrSM), rendering it strategically ineffective unless it is forward-deployed in the region, which carries its own security and escalation risks.⁷³ Regarding mass, the 10th Brigade will acquire only 42 launchers, which is insufficient to create credible denial effects on a large scale.⁷⁴ For mobility, the Division has yet to develop company-sized deployable units capable of operating HIMARS in a dispersed posture. Additionally, it lacks organic targeting and firing capabilities, which risks ‘firing blind’.⁷⁵ These limitations mean that the Division’s strike capability is not a credible standalone deterrent, reinforcing its coalition dependency.

The Division’s demonstrated competence in coordinating joint fires creates a proven and credible blocking capacity that complicates an adversary’s calculus. In 2021, the Australian and US Armies successfully shared joint fires targeting data through the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS),⁷⁶ representing a vital interoperability milestone and signal to adversaries. In 2025, 10th Brigade supported a US Army land-based SM-6 launch at Talisman Sabre that sank a target at sea,⁷⁷ highlighting growing integrated strike capability. The principal risks to integration are delays resulting from classification frictions⁷⁸ and contested communications, as well as the exposure that comes with firing signatures. Credibility, therefore, depends on rehearsed authorities, low-signature workflows, and dispersion/deception to keep the kill chain moving under pressure. Taken together, these proven, combined kill chains signal a credible and resilient blocking capacity resident within the Division, complicating an adversary’s calculus and strengthening coalition deterrence.

However, there is brittleness in the Division’s deterrent posture, which is a direct consequence of its lack of strategic depth: a single combat division cannot absorb shocks, manage concurrency, or regenerate quickly, creating a hard ceiling on its endurance. Dr Richard Brabin-Smith argues that during times of compressed warning time, a military needs to increase its core force and its expansion base, or institute rapid mobilisation pathways, to enable responses to military contingencies.⁷⁹ The Australian Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2024 states that the 2nd (AS) Div will provide a force expansion base for the Australian Army.⁸⁰ However, Ross Babbage contends that, in its current form, it is incapable of achieving this for war in our immediate region because it is configured for expeditionary operations and has its own strategic task of homeland defence.⁸¹ This leaves the 1st Division as the sole land power force capable of providing a forward deterrence posture, bringing the Australian Army’s lack of strategic depth and mobilisation mechanisms into stark relief. The gap between the ADF’s integrated campaign doctrine, which defines mobilisation as expansion, adaptation, and endurance,⁸² and the reality of a single deployable division creates a critical vulnerability that an adversary will consider in their strategic calculus, thereby undermining Australia’s denial strategy.

The challenge of concurrent operations highlights the unsustainability of a force structure centred on a single combat division. RAND modelling shows that continuous brigade deployments typically require a 1:2 deployment-to-dwell cycle, meaning that for any time spent deployed, twice that is needed at home for recovery, training, and reset.⁸³ In practice, this means that maintaining one brigade continuously forward requires a pool of three comparable brigades: one deployed, one preparing, and one recovering. Applying this model to the Army’s 1st Division of three combat brigades demonstrates the fragility of the posture; a single continuous forward deployment consumes the entire available force, leaving no capacity for a second contingency or a surge. This is further complicated by the Army’s decision to shift back toward a focused force, in which brigades have specialisation and are not immediately interchangeable.⁸⁴ Carr and Frühling assess that rotational forces “will require outsized resources for force generation that limit the feasibility of such a posture for smaller nations in particular.”⁸⁵

This sustainability challenge is more acute for the 1st Division’s enablers, which are the first to culminate. High-demand, low-density units, such as signals, ISR, aviation, engineers, and theatre sustainment (17th Brigade), are required for every deployment. As the hypothetical rotation in Table 1 demonstrates, the sustainable 1:2 dwell time for combat brigades becomes a compressed and unsustainable 1:1 tempo for the 17th Brigade’s only two supporting Force Support Battalions responsible for theatre logistics.⁸⁶ If there are concurrent operations, their dwell time plummets further because there are fewer units to rotate. The pressure becomes more acute as the number of units decreases for any given capability. The cost of lowering dwell to meet operational tempo leads to personnel retention issues, maintenance backlogs and training debts, which negatively impact future readiness.⁸⁷ A deterrent that stays forward only by accumulating readiness debt advertises its own limited endurance, making the division's deterrence signal credible in the short term but unsustainable over time. An adversary will observe this and use concurrency to coerce: by generating overlapping tasks, they can force the Division to culminate. These inherent limitations in the Division’s warfighting capability mean its deterrent value is found not in its capacity to win a fight alone, but in the credibility of the coalition response it guarantees. The Division’s capability contribution is coalition kill-chain integration and theatre opening, which constrains adversary freedom of action. This is effective only if intelligence and targeting data can be shared, C2 is resilient, munitions stocks, and integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) depth are adequate, and enabler rotations can sustain concurrency.

Dwell time mismatch between combat brigades and enablers in a hypothetical 12-month divisional rotation.
		Month 1-4	Month 5-8	Month 9-12
1st Brigade (Dismounted)		Deploy	Reset	Readying
3rd Brigade (Armoured)		Readying	Deploy	Reset
7th Brigade (Motorised)		Reset	Readying	Deploy

17th Sustainment Brigade	9 FSB	Deploy	Reset	Deploy
17th Sustainment Brigade	10 FSB	Reset	Deploy	Reset

Credibility: Contingent on Coalition Response

The 1st (Australian) Division’s credibility rests less on mass than on the believability of rapid US-led reinforcement, a problem rooted in alliance politics. What an adversary must believe is that this chain holds under friction. Nations manage alliance politics by mitigating two competing risks: abandonment, the fear that agreed-upon support will not materialise, and entrapment, the fear that a state will be drawn into an unwanted conflict.⁸⁹ Asymmetric military dependence between partners exacerbates these fears. Snyder argues that if one ally is militarily dependent on another, any reduction in mutual interest will, in turn, reduce the credibility of the alliance to an adversary.⁹⁰ While abandonment is typically more salient for Canberra and entrapment for Washington, both risks are mutually held and vary by contingency; either ally can worry about the other’s over- or under-commitment, known as an alliance dilemma.⁹¹ In a Taiwan contingency, Canberra may fear entrapment in a high-intensity war, while Washington worries about allied free-riding and having to act largely alone. In a defence of Australia scenario, the salience reverses: Canberra’s abandonment concerns rise while Washington’s entrapment concerns dominate. Because measures to insure against abandonment often heighten entrapment fears for the other party, the strategic task is to balance the two.⁹² The 1st Division’s posture as a thick tripwire seeks that balance by raising the political cost of abandonment, making a follow-on US response more believable to an adversary. It also signals burden-sharing, which recent US policy expects from allies,⁹³ thereby easing US entrapment concerns.

The Division is deficient in decisive mass to materially shift the military balance of power in the region. The NDS outlines Australia’s “primary area of military interest (PAMI), the immediate region encompassing the Northeast Indian Ocean through maritime Southeast Asia into the Pacific” as the area where the ADF must “possess sufficient capability to credibly hold at risk forces that could attempt to project power.”⁹⁴ Reiter and Poast contend that tripwire forces often have a limited deterrence effect because they lack the resident capability to carry through with military threats.⁹⁵ On this test, the Division, capable of sustaining one brigade forward, is unlikely by itself to change the local balance across Australia’s PAMI. The division’s credibility, then, is a function of how integrated and automatic allied reinforcement appears.

The Division’s ability to remain in the fight depends on allied enablers and permissions. The 2024 NDS explicitly focuses on force design to enhance interoperability and interchangeability with the US,⁹⁶ a prudent strategic decision that imposes operational constraints. In practice, a forward brigade from the 1st Division cannot sustain operational tempo without coalition support in strategic lift, high-end ISR and targeting networks, protected satellite communications and space capabilities, integrated air and missile defence, and munitions supply chains. This dependency is most acute in targeting. Although the Division provides the ‘shooter,’ the long-range ISR to find, fix, and track targets is largely US-owned, creating a vulnerability at the heart of the kill chain.⁹⁷ These deep enabler dependencies are the specific mechanisms that make the Division's endurance inherently coalition-dependent.

The credibility of a thick tripwire is not a function of its own military power, but of the perceived automaticity of the coalition response it is designed to trigger. The empirical record on small forward deployments is mixed to sceptical. Reiter and Poast, for example, argue that tripwires fail when an attacker can achieve a rapid fait accompli before a larger response can be mounted, citing historical cases such as North Korea’s invasion in 1950 and Germany's invasion of Belgium in 1914.⁹⁸ Similarly, Musgrave and Ward’s research, supported by historical events like the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, finds that public demands for escalation after troop losses are often too modest to guarantee a response.⁹⁹ However, these critiques are primarily drawn from contexts aimed at deterring a land invasion or assume a lack of public resolve, whereas the 1st Division’s tripwire function differs: to secure maritime access points within a pre-existing alliance framework. The more conditional view holds that deterrence improves only when forward presence is paired with explicit guarantees and rehearsed response plans. These signal a high likelihood of rapid coalition action in the event of an attack.¹⁰⁰ Such responses are only believable, though, when underwritten by sustained, combined training and rehearsals with allies that mirror the ADF’s own internal training cycle, rather than intermittent exchanges.¹⁰¹ In 2022, the Defence Minister stated that the division’s amphibious forces would deepen interoperability with the US Marines, moving from interoperability to interchangeability, which signals substantial progress toward shared C2.¹⁰²

However, integration with partners is a decisive credibility function provided by the 1st Division because Indo-Pacific denial ultimately hinges on coalition strength and regional partners rather than the capabilities of individual nations. The 2024 NDS explicitly highlights regional partnerships and the US alliance as core inputs to deterrence and force design.¹⁰³ Colby convincingly argues that the US, as the “cornerstone external balancer”, will likely constitute the decisive factor in any immediate conflict and in the broader success of an anti-hegemonic coalition in general.¹⁰⁴ The Australian Army’s response to the NDS highlights the importance of collective security, for which the 1st Division, as the primary deployable land power, provides the engagement spine for relationships with the US and regional partners.¹⁰⁵ It is the mechanism by which Australia gains credibility by transitioning from being a ‘deterrence taker’, a state that only receives the benefits of deterrence, to a ‘deterrence maker’. ¹⁰⁶

Accordingly, the Division contributes to the alliance precisely through its deep regional relational capital. MacCallion and Stewart posit that the US military “cannot replicate the social and cultural connections the Army has built with Indo-Pacific militaries, and those ties matter most when permissions and consent are contested.”¹⁰⁷ Furthermore, to maintain credibility with the US, the Division must convert these engagements into operational access, which comes with no guarantees. While Australia’s 'ritualised presence' fosters peacetime relationships, analysis by Pettyjohn and Kavanagh reveals that this does not guarantee a host nation will grant access during a crisis, rendering credibility a constant and context-specific challenge.¹⁰⁸ In summary, the 1st Division’s contribution to deterrence is enhanced when the thick tripwire reliably triggers predictable allied reinforcement, so an attack on the Division is an attack on the coalition. This holds only under the conditions of perceived US commitment, secured access and lift, and exercised timelines.

Conclusion

As Nick Brown said, “Historically, the Australian Army has been precluded from a role in deterrence.”¹⁰⁹ This essay has argued that, as the Army’s single deployable combat division, the 1st (Australian) Division plays an important role. Its contribution to Australia’s deterrence-by-denial strategy is essentially one of communication; its ability to posture forward within the region and maintain a strong, extensive relationship network with regional partners signals Australia’s commitment and political intent. This contribution, however, is tempered by its dependence on coalition support, particularly that of the US. Furthermore, the anticipated coalition response to an attack on its forward presence underwrites its credibility, as the Division lacks the required combat or logistics mass.

Within a coalition context, Australia’s denial strategy provides a secure regional base for an “archipelagic deterrence” posture alongside the United States. Within this framework, the need for an operational-level headquarters capable of managing the complexity of modern war and integrating with partners drove the Army’s return to a divisional structure. The subsequent analysis using the 3Cs showed that the Division’s primary contribution is not independent combat power, but a communicative posture that makes reinforcement predictable, and a capability contribution that integrates land-based fires into the coalition kill chain and opens the theatre. This works when access agreements and approvals are in place, lift and sustainment are scheduled, and allies have rehearsed the timelines. It is effective only if intelligence and targeting data can be shared, C2 is resilient, munitions stocks and integrated air and missile defence have depth, and enabler rotations can sustain concurrency. Its credibility rests not on the Division’s ability to win a fight, but on an adversary’s belief that any attack would trigger an automatic and overwhelming US-led response. Under those conditions, an attack on the Division is understood as an attack on the coalition. The Division’s contribution to denial is therefore less about repelling invasion by itself and more about making a wider conflict certain and prompt. Ultimately, its modern purpose is not to win a war alone, but to signal the strength of the alliance so effectively that a war never begins.

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176 The Australian War College – Geddes Papers

Footnotes

¹Stephen Smith and Angus Houston, National Defence: Defence Strategic Review (Department of Defence, 2023), 19.

²2024 National Defence Strategy (Department of Defence, 2024), 23, https://www.defence.gov.au/about/strategic-planning/2024-national-defence-strategy-2024-integrated-investment-program.

³Gregory MacCallion and Courtney Stewart, “Australian Deterrence: Land Power’s Contribution to the Integrated Force,” Australian Army Journal 20, no. 2 (2024): 48.

⁴Andrew Carr and Stephan Frühling, Forward Presence for Deterrence: Implications for the Australian Army, Australian Army Occasional Paper No. 15 (Australian Army Research Centre, 2023), 16.

⁵Lawrence Freedman, “General Deterrence and the Balance of Power,” Review of International Studies, Special Issue on the Balance of Power, vol. 15, no. 2 (1989): 200; Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton University Press, 1961), 3.

⁶Alex Wilner and Andreas Wenger, “Introduction: Deterrence by Denial,” in Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice, ed. Alex S. Wilner and Andreas Wenger (Cambria Press, 2021), 7, https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=242c1a36-4ff9-3c7b-b7aa-be7d4975d044; Snyder, Deterrence and Defense, 15.

⁷Michael J. Mazarr, Understanding Deterrence (RAND Corporation, 2018), 2, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE295.html.

⁸Aaron Miles, “Escalation Dominance in America’s Oldest New Nuclear Strategy,” War on the Rocks, September 12, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/escalation-dominance-in-americas-oldest-new-nuclear-strategy/.

⁹US Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2024, Annual Report to Congress (2024), V, https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2024.PDF.

¹⁰Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders, China’s Quest for Military Supremacy (Polity Press, 2025), 133.

¹¹Elbridge Colby, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (Yale University Press, 2021), 149–50.

¹²Colby, The Strategy of Denial, 151.

¹³Andrew Carr, “Australia’s Archipelagic Deterrence,” Survival 65, no. 4 (2023): 79, https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2023.2239058.

¹⁴Carr, “Australia’s Archipelagic Deterrence,” 79.

¹⁵NDS, 38–41.

¹⁶“Joint Statement Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) 2021,” Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2021, https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/united-states-of-america/ausmin/joint-statement-australia-us-ministerial-consultations-ausmin-2021.

¹⁷MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 50.

¹⁸Michael J. Mazarr and Ivana Ke, Integrated Deterrence as a Defense Planning Concept, Perspective (RAND Corporation, 2024), 1, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2263-1.html.

¹⁹A division consists of two or more brigades plus specialised battalions, about 7,000 to 22,000 troops, commanded by a major general, and includes all arms and services needed to conduct independent operations. ADF Land Power Ed 1, ADF-I-3, 3 Series - Operations (Australian Defence Force, 2024), 23.

²⁰An unclassified order of battle for the 1st (Australian) Division does not exist. Any order of battle or direct command relationship discussed in this essay has been deduced from open-source material. Australian Army, “Chief of Army Mid-Year Message 2023,” YouTube video, July 7, 2023, 6:43, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVU4bGmxQDA.

²¹Joanne Leca, “Big changes for 17th Sustainment Brigade,” Department of Defence, December 5, 2024, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-12-05/big-changes-17th-sustainment-brigade.

²²Ashley Collingburn, “Welcoming the 10th Brigade to the 1st (Australian) Division,” LinkedIn, November 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ashley-collingburn-am-dsm-b3ba14197_i-look-forward-to-welcoming-the-10th-brigade-activity-7253074326906707970-aW6O; Evita Ryan, “Lowering the Flag on 6th Brigade,” Department of Defence, December 2, 2024, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-12-02/lowering-flag-6th-brigade.

²³Dennis S. Burket, “Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Division Formation,” in Large-Scale Combat Operations: The Division Fight, 1st edition, ed. Dennis S. Burket, The Art of Tactics, volume 1 (Army University Press, 2019), 11, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/lsco-the-division-fight.pdf.

²⁴Anthony King, Command: The Twenty-First-Century General (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 37.

²⁵Australian Army, “Chief of Army Mid-Year Message 2023.”

²⁶NDS, 46.

²⁷Burket, “Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Division Formation,” 12.

²⁸Mark Mankowski, “Putting the Band Back Together – Part One,” Australian Army Research Centre, February 6, 2024, https://researchcentre.army.gov.au/library/land-power-forum/putting-band-back-together-part-one.

²⁹Interoperability is defined as the “ability to routinely act together coherently, effectively, and efficiently to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic objectives.” Albert C. Stahl, “Chapter 17 - Interoperability in Large-Scale Combat Operations,” in Large-Scale Combat Operations: The Division Fight, 1st edition, ed. Dennis S. Burket, The Art of Tactics, volume 1 (Army University Press, 2019), 263, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/lsco-the-division-fight.pdf.

³⁰King, Command, 34.

³¹Australian Army, “Chief of Army Mid-Year Message 2023.”

³²US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0 (2017), I–12, https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_0.pdf.

³³King, Command, 306.

³⁴Robert P. Haffa, “The Future of Conventional Deterrence: Strategies for Great Power Competition,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 12, no. 4 (2018): 96–97.

³⁵Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 2020), 35–36.

³⁶MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 51.

³⁷Sean Monaghan, Deterring Hybrid Threats: Towards a Fifth Wave of Deterrence Theory and Practice, no. 12, Hybrid COE Paper (The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, 2022), 16, https://www.hybridcoe.fi/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220331-Hybrid-CoE-Paper-12-Fifth-wave-of-deterrence-WEB.pdf.

³⁸Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations, Reprint (Columbia University Press, 1989), 18–40.

³⁹Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford University Press, 1999), 213.

⁴⁰Carr and Frühling, Forward Presence for Deterrence: Implications for the Australian Army, 3.

⁴¹Abby Doll et al., The Backbone of US Joint Operations: Army Roles in the Indo-Pacific, Research (RAND Corporation, 2023), 11, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1784-1.html.

⁴²Maria Mälksoo, “A Ritual Approach to Deterrence: I Am, Therefore I Deter,” European Journal of International Relations 27, no. 1 (2021): 6, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120966039.

⁴³Stacie Pettyjohn and Jennifer Kavanagh, Access Granted: Political Challenges to the US Overseas Military Presence, 1945–2014 (RAND Corporation, 2016), 3, https://doi.org/10.7249/RR1339.

⁴⁴Pettyjohn and Kavanagh, Access Granted, 147.

⁴⁵MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 61.

⁴⁶Nick Brown, “Riding Shotgun: Army’s Move to the Strategic Front Seat,” Australian Army Journal 16, no. 2 (2020): 15–16.

⁴⁷Brittany Evans, “Ex Wantok Warrior taken up a notch,” Department of Defence, December 9, 2024, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-12-09/ex-wantok-warrior-taken-up-notch; Defence Australia, “ADF | Exercise Puk - Brothers in Arms and Construction in PNG,” YouTube video, July 8, 2025, 1:20, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VRMuTumTgo.

⁴⁸Stephen Dziedzic, “‘Our Nearest Neighbour Is Our Newest Ally’: Albanese, Marape Sign New Defence Treaty,” Foreign Affairs, ABC News, October 6, 2025, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-06/australia-png-sign-defence-treaty-of-mutual-alliance/105858244.

⁴⁹Emma McGrath-Cohen, “PNG Cabinet Approves Australia Defence Treaty,” Politics, Australian Financial Review, October 2, 2025, https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/png-cabinet-green-lights-australia-defence-treaty-20251002-p5mzla.

⁵⁰“Joint Communiqué - Papua New Guinea and Australia on a Mutual Defence Treaty,” Prime Minister of Australia: The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, September 16, 2025, https://www.pm.gov.au/media/joint-communique-papua-new-guinea-and-australia-mutual-defence-treaty.

⁵¹Papua New Guinea – Australia Mutual Defence Treaty, Treaty, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2025, 22, https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/png-australia-mutual-defence-treaty.pdf.

⁵²MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 62.

⁵³Leca, “Big changes for 17th Sustainment Brigade.”

⁵⁴Joanne Leca, “Special visit with vital mission enablers,” Department of Defence, July 22, 2025, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2025-07-22/special-visit-vital-mission-enablers.

⁵⁵Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 concludes, Media release (Department of Defence, 2025), https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/releases/2025-08-04/exercise-talisman-sabre-2025-concludes.

⁵⁶Thin tripwires rely on symbolic sacrifice to bind political commitment to military response; thick tripwires that are small but robust enough to force a shift by the adversary from grey-zone pressure to overt attack; and forward defence, a heavy and permanent capability-in-being that aims to deny locally. Carr and Frühling, Forward Presence for Deterrence: Implications for the Australian Army, 16.

⁵⁷Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, Chief of Staff Paper #1: Unclassified Version (Headquarters, Department of the Army, 2021), 18, https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2021/03/23/eeac3d01/20210319-csa-paper-1-signed-print-version.pdf.

⁵⁸Dayton McCarthy, “‘Holding the Door Open’: Securing a Point of Entry to Facilitate Littoral Manoeuvre in the Near Region—Part Two,” Land Power Forum, July 14, 2023, https://researchcentre.army.gov.au/library/land-power-forum/holding-door-open-securing-point-entry-facilitate-littoral-manoeuvre-near-region-part-two.

⁵⁹Carr and Frühling, Forward Presence for Deterrence: Implications for the Australian Army, 2.

⁶⁰Thomas Lonergan, Ambitiously Grey: Pursuing an Active Australian Military Approach in the Grey-Zone, Policy Brief (United States Studies Centre, 2024), 7, https://www.ussc.edu.au/pursuing-an-active-australian-military-approach-in-the-grey-zone.

⁶¹Michael J. Mazarr et al., What Deters and Why: Applying a Framework to Assess Deterrence of Gray Zone Aggression (RAND Corporation, 2021), ix, https://doi.org/10.7249/RR3142.

⁶²Australian Military Power, ADF-C-0, ADF Capstone Doctrine (Australian Defence Force, 2024), 27, https://acmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-10/ADF-C-0%20Australian%20Military%20Power-compressed.pdf.

⁶³Mazarr et al., What Deters and Why, 90–91.

⁶⁴Carr, “Australia’s Archipelagic Deterrence,” 87.

⁶⁵Lonergan, Ambitiously Grey: Pursuing an Active Australian Military Approach in the Grey-Zone, 4–11.

⁶⁶Marcus Schultz, US Land Power in the Indo-Pacific: Opportunities for the Australian Army, Special Report (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2023), 12, https://www.aspi.org.au/report/us-land-power-indo-pacific-opportunities-australian-army/.

⁶⁷Stacie Pettyjohn, More than the Sum of Its Parts: Developing a Coordinated US-Australian Response to Potential Chinese Aggression (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2024), https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/11/more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts-developing-a-coordinated-us-australian-response-to-potential-chinese-aggression?lang=en; Lonergan, Ambitiously Grey: Pursuing an Active Australian Military Approach in the Grey-Zone, 15–19.

⁶⁸MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 68.

⁶⁹Brown, “Riding Shotgun,” 12.

⁷⁰Olivia Nelson, “Stop the World: Armies Key to Indo-Pacific Deterrence, Says Former US General,” The Strategist, September 23, 2025, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/stop-the-world-armies-key-to-indo-pacific-deterrence-says-former-us-general/.

⁷¹Defence Minister, “Government Delivers First Australian HIMARS,” Department of Defence, March 24, 2025, https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2025-03-24/government-delivers-first-australian-himars.

⁷²MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 66.

⁷³MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 67.

⁷⁴MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 67.

⁷⁵Daniel Molesworth, “Australian Army’s Long-Range Strike Capability Could Be Firing Blind,” The Strategist, November 30, 2022, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australian-armys-long-range-strike-capability-could-be-firing-blind/.

⁷⁶Max Bree, “Right on Target,” Department of Defence, August 18, 2021, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2021-08-18/right-target.

⁷⁷Gordon Arthur, “Army Bullseyes Maritime Target with Portable Launcher,” USNI News, July 17, 2025, https://news.usni.org/2025/07/17/army-bullseyes-maritime-target-with-sm-6-fired-from-portable-launcher.

⁷⁸Classification frictions refer to the technical and policy barriers that delay or prevent the real-time sharing of sensitive information between allies operating on separate national networks. Evan Lynch, “US Army Uses New Path to Bypass Data Sharing Barriers,” Signal, October 23, 2024, https://www.afcea.org/signal-media/us-army-uses-new-path-bypass-data-sharing-barriers.

⁷⁹Richard Brabin-Smith, Contingencies and Warning Time, no. 12, The Centre of Gravity Series (ANU Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, 2013), 3.

⁸⁰The Australian Army Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2024 (Australian Army, 2024), 16, https://www.army.gov.au/our-work/strategy/australian-army-contribution-national-defence-strategy-2024.

⁸¹Ross Babbage, “The ADF Reserve System Is Obsolete. We Need a Dramatically Expanded Force,” The Strategist, March 20, 2025, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-adf-reserve-system-is-obsolete-we-need-a-dramatically-expanded-force/.

⁸²ADF Capstone Concept APEX: Integrated Campaigning for Deterrence (Australian Defence Force, 2025), 23.

⁸³John C. Jackson et al., Assessment of Deployment- and Mobilization-to-Dwell Policies for Active and Reserve Component Forces: An Examination of Current Policy Using Select US Joint Force Elements (RAND Corporation, 2023), 5, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA670-1.html.

⁸⁴The 1st Brigade in Darwin is a light (dismounted) combat brigade; the 3rd Brigade in Townsville is an armoured combat brigade; and the 7th Brigade is a motorised combat brigade. “Major changes to Army announced,” Department of Defence, September 28, 2023, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2023-09-28/major-changes-army-announced.

⁸⁵Carr and Frühling, Forward Presence for Deterrence: Implications for the Australian Army, 24.

⁸⁶Joanne Leca, “Soldiers Project Force from the Sea,” Department of Defence, April 30, 2024, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-04-30/soldiers-project-force-from-sea; Thomas Kaye, “Developing Skills for International Exercise,” Department of Defence, July 6, 2023, https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2023-07-06/developing-skills-international-exercise.

⁸⁷Stacie Pettyjohn, Aiming Higher: Accelerating US-Australia Cooperation on Precision-Guided Weapons (United States Studies Centre, 2024), 14, https://www.ussc.edu.au/accelerating-us-australia-cooperation-on-precision-guided-weapons.

⁸⁸The table's purpose is not to detail the complex force packaging of enablers, but to simply illustrate the severe impact on the operational tempo of enabler units, even in a simple rotation.

⁸⁹Glenn H. Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics 36, no. 4 (1984): 90, https://doi.org/10.2307/2010183; Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” 466.

⁹⁰Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Cornell University Press, 1997), 32.

⁹¹Michael Clarke, “Australia’s Alliance Dilemma Sharpens,” East Asia Forum, September 12, 2025, https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/09/12/australias-alliance-dilemma-sharpens/.

⁹²Snyder, Alliance Politics, 181–82.

⁹³Arthur Sinodinos, “Allied Burden-Sharing Must Reshape Australia’s Defence Priorities,” Lowy Institute, The Interpreter, July 2025, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/allied-burden-sharing-must-reshape-australia-s-defence-priorities.

⁹⁴NDS, 21–24.

⁹⁵Dan Reiter and Paul Poast, “The Truth about Tripwires: Why Small Force Deployments Do Not Deter Aggression,” Texas National Security Review 4, no. 3 (2021): 41, https://doi.org/10.1086/711716.

⁹⁶NDS, 46.

⁹⁷Molesworth, “Australian Army’s Long-Range Strike Capability Could Be Firing Blind.”

⁹⁸A fait accompli is the rapid conquest of territory and defeat of tripwire forces before reinforcements can arrive. Reiter and Poast, “The Truth about Tripwires,” 39–40.

⁹⁹Paul Musgrave and Steven Ward, “The Tripwire Effect: Experimental Evidence Regarding US Public Opinion,” Foreign Policy Analysis 19, no. 4 (2023): 20, https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orad017.

¹⁰⁰Samuel Leiter and Samuel Gerstle, “Do Tripwires Deter? Reassessing Their Role in US Extended Deterrence,” SSRN Scholarly Paper no. 5175680 (Social Science Research Network, February 15, 2025), 14, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5175680.

¹⁰¹MacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 63.

¹⁰²Richard Marles, “Address: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),” Address, Defence Ministers, July 12, 2022, https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/speeches/2022-07-12/address-center-strategic-international-studies-csis.

¹⁰³NDS, 46–52.

¹⁰⁴Colby, The Strategy of Denial, 152.

¹⁰⁵The Australian Army Contribution to the National Defence Strategy 2024, 27–28.

¹⁰⁶Peter J. Dean et al., “Australia and the US Nuclear Umbrella: From Deterrence Taker to Deterrence Maker.,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 78, no. 1 (2024): 22–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2024.2302589.

¹⁰⁷TMacCallion and Stewart, “Australian Deterrence,” 64.

¹⁰⁸Pettyjohn and Kavanagh, Access Granted, 7–10.

¹⁰⁹Brown, “Riding Shotgun,” 7.

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Comments

Within this area, Defence’s newest members will be exposed to the conflict spectrum and theories associated with its employment. While additional emphasis will be afforded to one’s own Service, consideration will be given to joint operations and planning processes. The topic will also include an exploration of current ADF operations and emerging technological impacts on future preparedness.

The ADF’s contribution to Australian National Power through shape, deter and respond activities will be understood in general terms. Tied with this awareness will be ADO roles and responsibilities, including civil-military relations. The importance of Defence’s contribution in this regard will be linked to a general sense of Australia’s strategic environment. Resource management fundamentals will help underpin responsible expenditure of Commonwealth funds.

All members of Defence will also need to be competent in military administration, ADF roles and structures, and undertake all initial mandatory training. This foundation will continue to develop in subsequent JPME levels and increasingly expand opportunites for Joint Stream (out-of-category) postings and roles. APS does not require core military skills.

Following on from their respective recruit or commissioning course, ADF personnel will commence their Initial Employment Training (IET). This period can include workplace experience and periods of on-the-job training.

Graduation from IET marks the formal transition from Level 1 to Level 2. It is at this point when they are considered effective in the workplace.

Defence members at this level will have a sound understanding of their own Service or domain warfare systems and capability. As they progress through Level 2, they will display a stronger understanding about the ADF’s holistic contribution to Joint Force warfighting domains. This will extend to the nature and theory of war, which has developed through an academic study of historical case studies and contemporary military issues. Importantly, such awareness will help inform their understanding of the impact of technology on current and future warfare. Awareness of gender perspectives on operations will contribute to their well-rounded application of the Profession of Arms.

By recognising the difference between complicated and complex problems, personnel at this level will ensure their problem-solving strategies and decision making are optimised. In the earlier stages, personnel will employ more transactional, linear thinking, decision support tools (such as the Joint Military Appreciation Process or variations) but they will increasingly apply alternate thinking strategies to seek more sophisticated options. Greater availability of human-machine teaming systems will progressively reduce our reliance on lower order cognitive activity and thus facilitate more nuanced considerations to complex problems.

Australia’s approach to the formulation of military strategy and its strategic environment (including international and geopolitical) will strengthen as members advance in this Level. Through both courses and experience, they will also acquire a stronger understanding of interagency strategies, policies and decision making processes.

As they progress through Level 2, Defence personnel will progressively develop awareness and then expertise beyond their initial employment category.

These broader systems and processes will expand to include one or more of the five key Joint Streams: Military Support, Operations, Capability Development and Delivery, Strategy Policy and Engagement, and Intelligence.

Within JPME Level 2, Defence personnel will become increasingly proficient in their initial employment category. Through both their formal courses (initial employment training and subsequent intermediate courses) and workplace experience, they will display competency in their contribution to military power. As they develop greater technical expertise, senior personnel at this level will become suitable for growing the next generation, by seeking instructional roles.

Those operating at this level will understand both internal Joint Force command relationships and international engagement with coalition partners. Their employment of operational art will consider instruments of national power and campaign design, while the relationship challenges between strategic, operational and tactical levels of war will be clearly understood. Continual professional development will keep Level 3 practitioners abreast of emerging trends and future warfare techniques. Expertise will be apparent in the planning requirements for force generation and the factors that shape the execution of joint operations. National and military strategic planning considerations for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous and Novel (VUCAN) environments will mature. Personnel will be increasingly aware of the influence technology has on current and future warfare as well as whole-of-government response options.

Those operating at this level will be increasingly comfortable with systems thinking to perceive and influence complex adaptive systems. Various alternative thinking strategies, such as Design Thinking and Multi-Criteria Decision Making, will allow them to thrive in the challenging multi-domain environment.

Importantly, they will be able to translate complex strategic issues into tangible ideas for their subordinates.

This level is noted for its integration of civil-military functions and instruments of national power. This includes strategy and public policy development as well as contemporary operating environments and implications for military and security forces. Awareness of both Joint and multinational logistics will complement resource management systems of the Joint Force.

Expertise in one or more of the Joint Streams specific processes will continue to develop with staff and/or leadership responsibilities aligning with roles held.

Examples of the advanced knowledge base likely to be demonstrated include: One Defence Capability System (or its successor) and FIC management, Joint Force staff roles, advanced Human Resources systems and processes, Whole of Government and international engagement approaches, as well as legislative requirements associated with the relevant Joint Stream.

Through more senior category appointments and opportunities, those at Level 3 will display expertise within their specialist category employment. Completion of charge courses, deployments, exercises and pre-command courses, personnel will increasingly expand their specialist expertise to support joint effects.

Increasing leadership expectations will develop within their category’s specialist vocation.

This level is recognised for its future Joint Force planning, development and sustainment challenges. Those operating in these positions will resolve military resource challenges and understand limitations of contracted support to operations. Operational artists will be adept at integrating strategic objectives to planning through the exploitation of emerging and non-traditional concepts for joint and multinational warfare. These skills will manifest in their ability to design and lead theatre strategies, campaigns and major operations. They will also be seeking opportunities to exploit technology’s influence on current and future warfare as well as its role in whole-of-government response options.

Cognitive performance will be enhanced through active seeking of diversity and a tolerance for ambiguity. Dealing with Defence-related wicked systems will be normal.

Problem-solving will increasingly accept increased risk to reflect the greater depth of wisdom and confidence in one’s judgments. This level is also noted for strategic thinking, visioning and championing a learning culture.

Level 4 leaders will be strong advocates of divergent thinking in their subordinates (when appropriate), to ensure Defence continues to improve systems and processes.

Those operating at this level have a very clear understanding of the impacts on national Defence policy and strategy. They will positively influence military capability development to enhance relevant instruments of national power. A strong awareness of contemporary global affairs and trends, combined with a deep understanding of international relations theories, will enhance their management of national military resources to support national security and foreign policy. Gender, peace and security impacts will continue to guide their strategic policy development.

Those operating at this level will be considered Generalists who possess a wide range of skills and expertise in multiple Joint Stream areas. With the exception of a select few specialists, these personnel will have actively sought out opportunities to broaden their versatility beyond their specialisation. Typical areas will include: strategic planning, civil-military relationships, campaign planning, strategic governance, business and financial acumen, One Defence Capability System leadership, strategic direction setting of emerging capabilities, policy leadership for future capability needs, and industry engagement for sustainment and growth.

At the enlisted level, Tier B and C warrant officers provide a vital link across the ADF, not only championing 75% of the ADF at the strategic table but also helping translate the top-down messaging. To do this, they must excel in understanding both worlds. Strategic level warrant officers also play a pivotal role in the command team relationship not only as advisors to decision-makers, but also in the strategic leadership of organisational culture, ongoing professional development, and the ideological underpinnings of the Profession of Arms throughout the ADF’s workforce

For those still in key roles within their primary category, there will be strong leadership expectations to ensure the delivery of capability, strategic advice on capabilities, limitations and future needs, as well as shaping the professional development system to grow future generations within the field.

Senior officers and their equivalents will be comfortable in crisis leadership situations across all aspects of Defence. They will be highly effective when commanding Joint Task Forces or conducting influence operations. This performance will come from a deep understanding of Joint Force attributes, structures, capability requirements, emerging concepts and risks affecting military strategies and campaign development. Their strategic leadership abilities will extend to synthesising operational lessons learned across all Force elements including deployment, employment and sustainment. All of these areas will be enhanced by their astute awareness of political and resource implications in joint warfare strategy and planning.

Multi-agency, political and global wicked systems are an expected reality of Level 5 roles. Those operating at this level will have the cognitive agility to respond comfortably with these challenges by exploiting paradigm shifting approaches (such as nudge theory) to improve systems to a more advantageous state.

Senior leaders at this level will be expert in strategic communication and information impacts. They will comfortably implement grand strategy through future-focused policy formulation and employment of armed forces. Their expertise in national intelligence community and architecture will help them influence national security and foreign policy. The implications of contemporary challenges on national security strategies will be understood. This depth of understanding will be drawn from a strong awareness of national powers’ characteristics, capabilities and limitations combined with the civil-military relations necessary to deliver national power instruments.

Senior officers and SES band public servants at the highest echelons will be skilled in decision cycles and information/knowledge management systems. They will understand Government processes for capability acquisition and how to exploit technology enablers within enterprise systems.

As leaders of Force Element Groups (FEGs) or Joint Task Forces (JTFs), senior military officers will integrate emerging capabilities and technology to both maintain force-in-being deterrence and deliver operations to meet Government response options. In policy and advisory roles, they will exploit emerging capabilities and technologies when shaping military strategy, policy development and implementation. Industry engagement will enhance support of sovereign capability and Australia’s economic prosperity

A Service Warrant Officer is a unique appointment within each Service, one of influence and advice rather than Command. E10 Warrant Officers have strategic leadership responsibilities as Command advisors to Senior Leadership of their Service to provide critical insight to key decisions through an alternative lived experience and with support from Senior Enlisted Personnel to give a balanced, informed and analysed perspective from the workforce.

They also play a pivotal role in the organisation’s leadership, able to utilise their professional knowledge and experience to provide context and make the complex simple and the simple compelling. The unique appointment ensures the Service WO stays connected to contemporise issues for the workforce and represent those gaps and opportunities at the appropriate delegated level.

Service Warrant Officers deliberately steward, communicate and are genuinely dedicated to their Service; while always supporting strategic organisation culture and setting the conditions for long-term success.

Service Warrant Officers have a concurrent liability to foster relationships supporting Australia’s national power through networking and encouraging active engagement with counterparts to promote a commonality of purpose: – Friendship, Partnership and Leadership.

Defence Mastery

Own Domain Awareness defence-poa-level1

The Art of War Joint Competency defence-poa-level3

Military Power Joint Mastery defence-poa-level4

Critical and Creative Thinking defence-cognitive-level1

Complicated Problems defence-cognitive-level2

Complex Problems defence-cognitive-level3

Wicked Systems defence-cognitive-level4

Multi-agency Wicked Systems defence-cognitive-level5

Operational Planning Military Science defence-nsps-level2

Campaign Planning Operational Art defence-nsps-level3

Theatre Operations Strategic Art defence-nsps-level4

Coalition Operations Political Acumen defence-nsps-level5

Technical Mastery

One Defence Capability System tech-corems-level3

Integrated Systems tech-corems-level4

Capability Leadership tech-ecat-level3

Joint Effects tech-ecat-level4

Social Mastery

Lead Operating Systems social-influence-level3

Lead Capability social-influence-level4

Lead Integrated Systems social-influence-level5

Moral Leadership social-ethics-level3

Lead organisation through ethical concerns social-ethics-level4

Stewarding the Profession social-ethics-level5

Character Role Model social-character-level3

Generate Climates of Trust social-character-level4

Character Exemplar social-character-level5

Cultural Stewardship social-culture-level3

Cross Cultural Leadership social-culture-level4

Biography

Christian Johnston

Staff Officer to the Vice Chief of the Defence Force

Major

Major Christian Johnston is an infantry officer and a graduate of the ACSC class of 2025. He is currently posted to ADFHQ as the Staff Officer to the Vice Chief of the Defence Force