Coyle’s appointment an historic day for the military and a step forward for the Army
AARON PATRICK: The first female Army chief is no khaki bureaucrat. Lieutenant-General Coyle’s promotion is a powerful sign that the military, like war, is evolving.
Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles had a choice: create history by making Susan Coyle the first woman to lead the Australian Defence Force, or appoint a submarine expert with a strong personal rapport with the prime minister.
They chose the latter. The decision is likely to be good for the military, the Government and the nation.
As for Lt-Gen Coyle, she will be the next head of the Army, giving her a roughly one-in-three chance to succeed new Chief of the Defence Force Mark Hammond in the future.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.From the outside, her appointment is momentous. Never before in its 125-year history, from Ypres to Shah Wali Kot, has the Army been led by a woman. Only 15 per cent of Army employees are female. None have led Australian soldiers on the field in battle.
But the army, like war, has evolved. Generals are military CEOs, managing organisations spread across the world. They require skills in international diplomacy, domestic politics, project management, budgeting, the law and human resources — much as regular soldiers like to complain about the leaching of business management practices into the military.
‘Irrelevant’
The three-star general is no khaki bureaucrat. Men who know Lieutenant-General Coyle describe her as possessing that rare and difficult-to-quantify quality so important atop any organisation: leadership.
Throughout her 39 years in uniform, she passed every leadership challenge presented her. She rose to the top of the Signals Regiment, which provides communications between men in the same team to secure comms between headquarters and units on the side of the world. She commanded Australian forces in Afghanistan in 2015 and ran information warfare in 2021 and 2022, putting her on the cutting edge of a new field of war.
Asked about the significance of her gender, Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James - a former Army intelligence office - offered two words: “It’s irrelevant.”
Will anyone in the Army care that one of the great bastions of male culture is commanded by a woman?
“No one sensible,” Mr James said. “There will be stupid comments from some war veterans. Among the officers and senior NCOs I can’t see a problem at all. She’s not getting it because she’s a woman. She getting it because she’s the most capable.”
Beating expectations
The appointment of her new boss, Mark Hammond, demonstrates the importance of the Navy to the Defence Force’s future. The Vice-Admiral pointedly stated, in front of the PM and Defence Minister today, that eight of the Navy’s 10-large combat warships are currently operating.
At a time of global conflict, that’s a fantastic performance. The once-great Royal Navy appears only to be able to deploy two vessels, and one’s a submarine.
The soon-to-be admiral knows better than anyone that the AUKUS nuclear submarine project will dominate and challenge defence leaders and budgets for decades. As a former commander of the submarine HMAS Farncomb he will be able to explain the intricacies of submarine warfare to politicians and a public that might be wary of spending some $300 billion on vessels they don’t understand and can rarely see.
Vice-Admiral Hammond and Mr Albanese are rugby league buddies. Sometimes running into each other at South Sydney games, they reputedly have an easy rapport. But the naval officer’s promotion was not a mate’s pick.
In four years running the Navy he beat a deadline to choose a new frigate — an almost unheard of achievement in a world where major-equipment procurement overruns are more common than wars.
He delivered on the Government’s demand to make the Navy more lethal. Australia’s warships now have access to three types of missile that could punch through a Chinese armada: the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can destroy targets on land and at sea, the Naval Strike Missile, which can independently work out how to avoid defences as it nears enemy ships, and the RIM-174 Standard Missile-6, designed to kill aircraft possibly as 460km far away.
Former commodore Peter Leavy, the president of the Australian Naval Institute, gives Vice-Admiral Hammond credit for these advances.
He points out that his appointment also has historical significance. Vice-Admiral Hammond will be the first Australian four-star admiral to begin his career as a junior sailor, the Navy equivalent of a private. He is also the first graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy, which began in 1986, to become chief of the Defence Force.
Which is another reason why today’s promotions are an important day in the history of the Australian Defence Force — and a reason to believe the nation is hoping for peace while preparing for war.
