3 dimensions of warfare

Security on a low budget

National security editor Patrick Walters | May 24, 2008

AFTER almost 45 years in the defence science business, Roger Lough understands one fundamental truth about Australia's defence force.

Charged with protecting 10 per cent of the world's surface area and a sparsely populated continent from external attack, our future military must be driven by technological innovation.

For the Defence Science and Technology Organisation's 2100 scientists and engineers, a large part of that challenge is about how our defence force will be able to do more with less.

"The history of warfare is the history of technology. It's advancing at a rate of knots," Lough observes. And Australia will have to work a lot harder and lift investment in science and technology to stay ahead of the game, he warns.

Lough, 63, retired from the top job at DSTO yesterday after a remarkable career during which he rose from technical assistant grade 1 (temporary) at a defence lab in Salisbury, South Australia, in 1963 to chief of an organisation with 12 research divisions and an annual budget of $370million.

"With a large continent and small population you have to invest in technology (that) is going to minimise the amount of people you are going to utilise, yet maximise the coverage you generate in the three dimensions of warfare: physical space, the electromagnetic sphere and, increasingly, the cyber world which controls the information flow," he tells Inquirer.

That means a sharp focus on surveillance systems and information systems networks will remain top priorities for our defence scientists for the foreseeable future.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23747992-31477,00.html