Current Australian Defence Force Deployments

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) currently has approximately 3500 personnel deployed on overseas operations. While a small number of ADF personnel are deployed on operations in the Middle East and the Sudan, the majority are involved in four major overseas deployments.

Iraq

The largest number of ADF personnel deployed on overseas operations are deployed on Operation Catalyst, the ADF’s ‘contribution to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Iraq’. As at 12 November 2007, there were up to 1575 ADF personnel engaged in Operation Catalyst, some of whom have dual assignment to Operation Slipper:

• an Australian Joint Task Force Headquarters (70 personnel)
• the Australian Security Detachment Baghdad (110 personnel)
• the Overwatch Battle Group–West (515 personnel)
• the Australian Army Training Team–Iraq (up to 100 trainers)
• a RAAF C-13 Hercules Detachment (155 personnel)
• a RAAF AP-3C Orion Detachment (170 personnel)
• HMAS Arunta (183 personnel)
• ADF personnel serving in multi-national force headquarters and units and with the Coalition Counter Improvised Explosive Device Task Force (95 plus personnel), and
• tri-service logistics, communications and movement control group (110 personnel).

Advice on changing the majority of the combat element to a training role will be available to the new government, based on discussions undertaken with Australia’s allies in Iraq during the caretaker period. However, Labor’s stated election policy of withdrawing Australia’s combat forces from Iraq after the next rotation will possibly make this advice redundant.

Afghanistan

Australia has approximately 970 ADF personnel deployed to Afghanistan under Operation Slipper, Australia’s contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The largest group (around 385) make up the Reconstruction Task Force (RFT), which works on reconstruction and improvement of provincial infrastructure in the southern Uruzgan Province. Approximately 300 personnel are part of the Special Operations Task Group, which provides security for the RFT and supports ISAF security operations. ADF forces are in partnership with Dutch forces in a combined military operation. Air Force, logistics, liaison and a national command element make up the remainder of the deployment.

The Australian Labor Party has promised continued support for Australia’s Afghanistan deployment. However, resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, domestic pressure on the 1500-strong Dutch force to pull out, the reluctance of many other NATO forces to become involved in the more violent south, and operational caveats constraining the forces of some countries, could threaten the effectiveness, or viability, of Australia’s deployment.

Timor-Leste

Operation Astute is the ADF’s contribution to Australia’s ‘response to a request from the government of East Timor’ in May 2006 ‘for assistance in restoring peace and stability’ following a rebellion by Timorese soldiers. The original deployment was 1300 ADF personnel. Currently, there are about 780 ADF personnel and 170 New Zealand Defence Force personnel. Together they form the International Stabilisation Force, which provides support to Australian and other police officers of the United Nations Police Force. There are also four personnel on Operation Tower, which supports the United Nations (UN) Office in Timor. In mid-2007, East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta said that he wanted Australian troops to stay until at least the end of 2008, and the UN to maintain a presence until 2012.

Solomon Islands

Operation Anode, the ‘ADF contribution to the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI)’, now consists of 140 personnel whose main task is to ‘provide security for RAMSI’s multinational Participating Police Force’. Other non-ADF Australian participation in RAMSI includes Australian Federal Police and state police, and personnel from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AusAID, the Australian Federal Police Protective Service and the Department of Treasury (for further details see the accompanying brief on RAMSI). Although Australia reduced the number of its ADF personnel deployed from the original 1500 deployment in mid-2003, the situation in Solomon Islands continues to be unstable.

Australian operations

Operation Resolute, conducted by the Border Protection Command and involving approximately 450 ADF personnel, was established in July 2006. It aimed to consolidate the ADF’s contribution to countering illegal fishing, smuggling and unauthorised arrivals, as well as to patrol the Southern Ocean Exclusive Economic Zone and around offshore gas and oil installations. Despite this consolidation, one senior maritime security analyst suggests that Australia still needs a coordinating body that would ‘transcend inter-departmental boundaries’, and a minister with ‘responsibility for overall policy … for surveillance and enforcement to secure Australia’s maritime approaches’.

Operation Outreach, comprising approximately 105 personnel, is the ADF’s support for the Northern Territory Emergency Response Force. Besides the logistical support given by the ADF, a serving Army officer has been appointed as the operational commander of the Response Force. This has drawn some criticism on the basis that it should not be a role undertaken by a serving, uniformed ADF officer.