Tory Shepherd: The ADF is being accused of being too “woke” and too aggressive at the same time

Australian Defence Forces are accused of being too “woke” but that’s only one of the battles over our nation’s defence at present, writes Tory Shepherd.

Are Australia’s armed forces too woke? Or is the system broken? Leaders are reminding Australians that armed service is about lethal violence, while we struggle with the shame of alleged civilian murders.

The Federal Government is planning a $500m expansion of the Australian War Memorial, while Australians show a waning interest in Anzac Day.

And even as a royal commission into veteran suicides finally gets under way, and we withdraw from Afghanistan, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is gearing up for a new war, one whose battle lines will be far closer to home.

The ADF is (forgive me) fighting on a number of fronts right now.

Government backbencher Phillip Thompson says the ADF has “gone a little bit woke over the past few years” and “too far to the left”.

Mr Thompson, a former soldier, also talked about the need for “unapologetic aggression and violence to get the mission done”.

In that last line, he was echoing Assistant Defence Minister Andrew Hastie, a former special forces soldier. Mr Hastie said in a message to his West Australian electorate that the ADF’s “core business” was always “the application of lethal violence”.

An Australian woman visits shrapnel valley cemetery during a ceremony marking Anzac Day in Gallipoli on April 25, 2017 AFP / Ozan Kose

(Actually, the ADF’s three objectives are to shape Australia’s strategic environment, to deter actions against Australia’s interests, and to respond with credible military force, when required.)

These muscular phrases sit oddly against Australia’s grappling with the fallout from the Brereton Report, which found elite soldiers had allegedly used lethal violence against 39 Afghan civilians.

Then there’s that war memorial expansion, which reeks of the glorification of war but will somehow have to acknowledge those alleged war crimes. And its expense comes as people revisit Anzac Day services.

Anzac Day is about memorialising the past, the day in 1915 that Australian and New Zealand soldiers set out together to fight at Gallipoli. The Anzac ethos has become a national symbol, despite the failure of the mission.

Today, Anzac Day parades reflect the current armed forces. There are more women, more non-white faces, and a nuanced public reception.

Public interest in Anzac Day is waning, according to Flinders University research. Senior lecturer and historian Romain Fathi says the decline predates the pandemic.

While 2015 saw record crowds for the centenary celebrations, Dawn Service attendances have dropped every­where since then.

In recent news, the Federal Government has overcome its resistance to a royal commission into veteran suicides.

Its findings won’t help the last Australian troops coming home in September, but hopefully they’ll help deal with any future anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

For others, the findings will come too late.

Things need to change, faster. The ADF is ramping up in the face of global instability. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update warned Australia is facing rapid changes in the strategic environment.

We’re not on the brink of war but it’s also possible that within a decade our armed forces will once again be going into battle, facing trauma, witnessing and inflicting death.

Poppies at the military cemetery of the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, northern France. Picture: AFP /Philippe Huguen

Dr Fathi says to become more relevant, Anzac Day services could become more inclusive, less militaristic, and focus more on peacekeeping. A recognition of the frontier wars – the massacres, battles and resistance to colonisation – might help, he says.

That’s the outward-looking face of Defence. Looking inward, it also needs to be more inclusive, maybe less warrior-like, certainly less indulgent of gung-ho vigilantes.

And it needs to start properly looking after its people, from the time they’re inducted, to the battlefield, and on their return home.

The right has weaponised the word “woke”, but it has its roots in being awake to the trauma of discrimination, of being alive to social justice.

For the ADF, being more woke could mean fewer people being broken.

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