In hindsight, Operation Morris Dance in 1987 was a precursor to a significant increase in operational tempo from the late 1980s onwards that coincided with the end of the Cold War. With it would come a number of tests to the limits of governmental casualty cringe and the preference for restrained contributions to operations far afield. The easing of the government's concerns about deployments far afield was articulated, for instance, in the 1989 strategic planning document Australia's Strategic Planning in the 1990s (ASP90). Influenced by the Morris Dance experience, ASP90 recognised that situations might arise that required Defence Force involvement in the South Pacific, including evacuation of citizens or disaster relief. ASP90 began to shift strategic guidance away from a focus on continental defence to include a potential for ADF involvement in other tasks, including alliance obligations, peacekeeping, disaster relief and evacuation operations.

This chapter reviews the experience on operations from 1989 to 1999, demonstrating the cumulative effect on the Army. The chapter briefly considers the effect on the Army of the strategic reviews and restructuring of the 1990s and spans the Gulf War and the so-called revolution in military affairs that it appeared to represent.