With the Army called upon for so many contingencies far and wide, the Army made a conscious effort to wrest back some of the debate about the significance of land forces. That debate was effectively lost for several years in the era of the ‘Defence of Australia’ policy of the late 1970s through to the mid-1990s. That policy emphasised resourcing the RAAF and RAN in order to operate more effectively in the so-called sea–air gap. The trouble was that the sea–air gap was actually a sea–air–land gap, which generated as much if not more work for the Army than for the other two services.

Experimentation and conceptual development

Articulating the simple clarity of the utility of land forces took time and effort. Along the way the Army established the Land Warfare Development Centre and fostered experimentation for conceptual development and equipment trials. Lieutenant General Sanderson established the Land Warfare Studies Centre, which was initially headed by Colonel David Horner as a conceptual think tank. The Army also fostered the Army History Unit as well as the Centre for Army Lessons to provide an avenue for meaningful reflection. Following on from the work of Sanderson, Lieutenant General Frank Hickling deserves much of the credit for establishing and fostering these organisations, thus providing the right environment for intellectual and conceptual development.