16 February 2010

By Deputy Chief of Army, Brigadier Tim Keating

This year, 2010, will continue to place high demands on all of us; this should come as no surprise as it is inherent in the nature of our profession.

The overriding demand is that we are prepared to act decisively, most often at short notice, in response to the variety of demands that the Government will make on the New Zealand Armed Forces. In an increasingly complex security environment the where, when and what will remain largely unknown until the time comes that our service is required. Of course added to these new challenges will be the existing operations that we will be expected to maintain.

So in an era where there are many great minds across the world being applied to determine the ‘next threat’ and most appropriate size, configuration and equipment that an Army needs to meet tomorrow’s unspecified security environment and unknown threats (and history has shown that these predictions will be largely inaccurate), how do we ensure that we in the New Zealand Army remain ready and responsive to act? Chief of Army’s intent is that we will do this by continuing to emphasise the people element of our Army mission statement, and recruit and grow Army people who are led, trained (and educated) to win on operations.

To maximise the true value of our people in this new decade the terms ‘soldier’ and ‘leader’ have to become synonymous. We cannot afford the traits such as courage, initiative, intelligence, adaptability, excellence and high ethical standards, to be ascribed only to select ranks, corps or trades. Across the Army all our people must be developed through their training and education to think and act independently where necessary. They must have thought processes that adapt to the situation, and not attempt to match a previously encountered situation to a pre-determined (template) solution. We must train in this way as we need to operate and ultimately fight this way.

Waiting for orders before acting, waiting for someone else to tell us what to do and how to do it, waiting for someone else to think for us or protesting that we have not got the correct (SOP) resources are characteristics that will not be supportable in the New Zealand Army of 2010 and beyond. As we encounter each new situation, those actually facing it must be able to learn and adapt quickly or the situation, and maybe an enemy, will defeat us.

We often acknowledge that we have a history of excellent adaptation while on operations; this approach must now be built into our training and education schemes and the way that we conduct ourselves in the day to day business in Army. However, do not wait for the order or the plan; the intent from CA to act now should be clear as we have been an Army on continuous operations for more than a decade. The best prediction is that this will continue to be our norm in this new decade.

Image Gallery - Issue 406