19 November 2025

World Class to World Best Conference 2025 Chief of Army Keynote Address

‘Will to Fight and Will to Win’

ASC leaders, coaches, scientists and staff, ladies and gentlemen.

Good afternoon to you all. It is both a pleasure and a privilege to speak to you today.

I feel very comfortable amongst this audience. Soldiers and athletes have a lot in common. Sport and soldiering are two of the oldest activities in human history … indeed, they share the same lineage.

The earliest examples of organised sport emerged directly from the soldier’s profession. Wall carvings from as far back as four thousand years ago tell us that the ancient Mesopotamians took part in competitions in skills like wrestling, archery and horsemanship.

Athletic training in the gymnasion of the Ancient Greeks focused wholly on those skills that would support soldiering: running, wrestling, boxing, and javelin and discus.

For the Greeks such competitions were a test of citizenship, proof of an individual’s ability to contribute to the defence of the nation.

As time went on, sport even began to act as a proxy for, or replace, actual combat. In the late 8th Century BC, peace was a precondition for taking part in the original Olympic Games, with all nations having to agree to the Ekecheiria: a three-month sacred truce during the games.

The spirit of this commitment was clearly in the mind of Pierre de Coubertin when he founded the modern Olympic movement in the closing years of the 19th Century.

‘We shall not have peace’, he said at the Sorbonne in 1894, ‘until the prejudices which now separate the different nations have been outlived. To attain this end, what better means than to bring the youth of all countries together for amicable trials of muscular strength and endurance’.

Coubertin’s words, spoken just seven years before the federation of Australia, are fitting. Sport has played an outsize role in our character since we came together as a nation.

One might say that you, the ASC, now seek to unite the world in an ‘amicable trial of muscular strength and endurance’ in Brisbane in 2032, one that helps us outlive the prejudices of nations.

So, soldiers and athletes are cut from the same history, and the same cloth. I have been a soldier for nearly forty years now, and today I am grateful for the opportunity to share some thoughts on what we might learn from each other as we prepare for the challenges of the future.

I will cover three themes. First, I’ll talk a little about ‘culture’ … what we mean by this in the Army, and how we build it.

Second is the idea of the ‘moral component’, what we describe as the will to fight.

And finally I’ll talk about what I see as the most important ingredient in success, be it on the sports field or on the battlefield … that of ‘trust’. I will not speak to the simple trust between teammates, but instead to the importance of trust for national institutions such as the Army and the ASC.

First then, to ‘culture’. This is a word that is often both over-complicated and ill-defined in theory and practise. Corporate banners, business-lexicon and consultancy often create a tangle that is hard to unpick.

I have defined culture in the Australian Army as a personal, collective, measureable and practical concept. Put simply, our culture is how well we translate our values into how we think, and what we say and do, every day.

The Australian Defence Force has five values, shared by all of us in uniform. They are: service, courage, respect, integrity and excellence.

These are more than just words. ‘Service’ is our first value, and perhaps the most important. It has a very specific meaning in our Army … it means putting purpose and people, or mission and mates, before oneself.

‘Service’ is about the soldier’s willingness to sacrifice their time, their energy, their family stability, their comfort - and ultimately even their lives - for their nation. This is what we refer to in the Army profession as the ‘contract of unlimited liability’.

This first value of ‘service’ underpins all the others. It means committing yourself to an idea and purpose greater than oneself: to put the needs of our fellow Australians – our nation, before one’s own.

Our fourth value of ‘integrity’ also stands out as being vital to the Army profession. The stereotype would suggest that we place principal stock on ‘loyalty’ in the Army, but this is mistaken.

Rather than seeking the loyalty of our soldiers, we seek them to exemplify integrity – defined as ‘the quality of being honest and having strong moral values’ – in how they think, speak and act each day.

‘Loyalty’ can be misguided, and at worst can even be abused or corrupted. ‘Integrity’, properly expressed, acts as a guardian against the pressures, temptations, and corruption of combat.

It is our armour against the moral crucible of war.

I understand the ASC’s 2032+ sports strategy articulates four values: those of ‘excellence’, ‘courage’, ‘belonging’ and ‘connection’. There are clear similarities here.

If I might offer, I believe there is benefit in early consideration of how your values are expressed and applied in how you think, speak and act each day – in preparation, training and competition.

Such an aspiration is not only simple, it is observable and measurable … translating the written word into tangible actions.

The idea that our soldiers must ‘think’ in a certain way is worth reflecting on. The Army profession carries with it a grave responsibility: the need to potentially take the lives of others on behalf of the nation.

We believe those whom carry this responsibility must commit to it wholeheartedly. They must truly believe in the Army’s values, such that even their thoughts demonstrate commitment to service, courage, integrity, respect and excellence. This an unapologetically high bar.

Does a commitment to national sporting excellence demand a similar commitment? This is not for me to judge or answer, but it may be worthy of your consideration.

The second idea I wanted to share with you is that of the ‘moral component’, what we describe as the will to fight.

In military thinking and writings there has long been a concept called ‘fighting power’. This is an idea that tries to capture the overall strength of a given army … to gauge the likelihood that it will win in war.

‘Fighting power’ is traditionally built of three elements, carefully woven together. First is the ‘physical component’. This is the weapons and technologies of the army: its guns, tanks, artillery, missile launchers, and the ammunition that feeds them.

Second is the ‘intellectual component’. This is the tactics, experiences and ideas that form the army’s military concepts. It is how well we think about war.

Both of these components are undoubtedly important. I suspect they reflect well into the world of elite sport, in terms of investments in equipment and facilities, and in tactics and techniques.

But history tells us that in war neither of these components are decisive. It is the third component, what we call the ‘moral component’, that is most often the key to victory.

The ‘moral component’ captures the Army’s will to fight. It is about why we fight, what makes us fight hard, and most importantly why we keep fighting in the face of adversity and loss.

Military leaders over the centuries have long extolled the virtues of the ‘moral component’. Napoleon Bonaparte believed in it so strongly that he once argued that, and I quote, ‘the moral is to the physical as three is to one’.

One does not have to look far in today’s world to see how this remains true. The Russians – and indeed most of the world – drastically under-estimated the will to fight … the ‘moral component’ … of the Ukrainian army and its people. This ‘will’ remains admirably strong today, even after nearly four years of war and unthinkable loss and destruction.

How do we build the ‘moral component’ of the Australian Army? And equally, how might the ASC build a similar will to win in Australia’s national athletes?

Striving for a higher purpose certainly plays a role. Patriotism, a love of and dedication to country, the pride of wearing the slouch hat, or the green and gold. All of these can create a will to fight, or a will to win.

The pursuit of professional excellence can also be a factor … the desire to reach the pinnacle of your chosen event, code or discipline, to make history or break records. To compete, and to win!

But in my experience all of this pales in comparison to one simple thing: the power of inspirational leadership.

Even as an Army we sometimes forget how much we invest in developing leadership in our soldiers. Academies and schools, tailored programs, through-career education. We have over 25,000 trained leaders in our ranks, from Lance Corporal to Lieutenant General.

The apogee of all of this work, the pinnacle of leadership that we seek, is the ability to inspire others. Truly inspirational leaders tend to loom large in the history of our Army, leaving an enduring mark that helps build the will to fight long after they are gone.

Combat leaders like Sergeant Tom ‘Diver’ Derrick, who won a Victoria Cross at Sattelberg in New Guinea in 1943, and later gave his life leading his platoon from the front in Borneo.

Moral leaders like Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkle, who survived three and a half years in captivity in Sumatra in the Second World War, caring for other prisoners despite her own suffering.

Inspirational leadership in sport is just as powerful, leaving its own mark in the images of our nation’s history. Don Bradman, captaining of the ‘Invincibles’ of Australian cricket in 1948. Ian Thorpe anchoring five Australian relay teams, including the famous 4 x 100m freestyle relay at the Sydney Olympics. Lauren Jackson’s centrality to the Opals’ sustained achievement throughout the 21st century.

And the iconic images of Cathy Freeman lighting the Olympic flame in Sydney in 2000, and winning gold, leading a generation of Australians to break boundaries and to step into the arena.

These leaders, both soldier and athlete alike, share common character traits: a quiet humility, a deep resilience, a determination for excellence, and a strong moral code. They build cohesive teams. They play an essential role in generating the ‘moral component’, the will to fight.

Time and effort spent finding and developing such leaders is, in my view, time well spent.

To close, I want to turn to a final topic that draws together the other two. This is the value and importance of trust in the Army profession.

A famous American General, James Mattis, once put it well when he said that, in soldiering, ‘trust is the coin of the realm… it’s what makes everything else work’.

For the last three years, ‘trust’ has been my preeminent strategic priority for the Australian Army. This is from the bottom to the top of the institution, and across every aspect of what we do.

I don’t need to emphasise for this room how important trust is at the tactical level within a team. It is self-evident that if you do not trust the person to your left or right, performance is going to suffer.

A team characterised by a lack of trust, or even worse by suspicion and mistrust, is a team destined for failure.

But I would like to pass on what I have learned as the Chief of Army about the importance of trust as a national institution. This is, to me, even more important, and more difficult to grapple with.

The Army and the ASC share a number of similarities. Both are national institutions established on a foundation of social identity, license and legislation.

We are not that dissimilar in age. Yes, the history of the Army pre-dates federation, but it was only in 1947 – in the aftermath of the Second World War – that the Australian Regular Army was formed as a standing force.

The 1941 National Fitness Act, which applied for the first time a national approach to physical fitness and sport in Australia and set the foundations for the modern ASC, was equally a product of the Second World War.

As national institutions, the Army and the ASC act as custodians of an element of Australia’s national identity, resilience, character, and dare I add inspiration. The Army cares for the nation’s martial traditions, our willingness as Australians to fight to defend our nation and our way of life.

The ASC cares for our identity as a proud and accomplished sporting nation; one clearly committed to victory, but also dedicated to sportsmanship, fair play, inclusion and respect. A nation that doesn’t just want to win, but to win well.

As Kieran himself has said, both soldiering and sport are emotive representations of Australian pride, reflecting our cultural self-belief.

These representations of national character have a remarkable capacity to bring Australians together. Picture if you will the tens of thousands of Australians that gather across the nation each Anzac Day to quietly remember our fallen.

Place this alongside the tens of thousands of Australians who ecstatically cheered Cathy Freeman to 400m victory in Sydney on September 25th, 2000.

Two remarkably different images, but with the same effect: to strengthen the idea that is Australia.

Custodianship of national character is a profound responsibility, built on a single foundation: that of ‘trust’.

Australians must be able to trust that its soldiers and athletes alike will meet the expectations of the nation, not just in their performance but also in how they represent our country – our fellow Australians.

When trust is breached it is instant, intensely damaging, and long remembered. The Army that I am privileged to lead today continues to grapple with what we refer to as the ‘long shadow of Afghanistan’, the impact of events that happened nearly two decades ago continue to echo today.

The degradation of trust – between the Army as an institution, the society we exist to serve and the Government of the day – is both pernicious and persistent.

Safeguarding institutional trust is the inescapable responsibility of one group: the strategic leadership of the institution itself.

I have been heavily invested in this topic with my own leadership team this last year. We have concluded that, of all the factors that help build institutional trust, one stands pre-eminent: the acceptance of institutional accountability.

Strategic leaders must accept that they are accountable for the institution they care for, in all dimensions: for its past, its present, and its future.

They must be willing to accept responsibility for both successes and failures.

This is the foundation upon which strong institutional trust is built. Start with accountability, and the rest … culture, leadership, values and cohesion … will follow.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. The Army greatly values our relationship with the ASC, and I hope it both endures and grows. As institutions we are cut from the same cloth. Sport and soldiering are both intensely human experiences, and we share many of the same challenges. We can learn from each other.

Above all, I think we share the same goals. We don’t just want to win, we want to win well … we want the nation to be proud of those that represent them, be it on the battlefield or the sporting arena.

We want to care not only for those in service today, but for those who might be feeling the after effects of their service. To ensure that those who have served the nation can reflect proudly and positively.

Finally, we want to inspire the next generation of Australians to put on a uniform, whether it be khaki or green and gold, and to go that extra mile for our nation.

I wish you all your best on your own journey towards 2032. The Australian Army will be cheering you on every step of the way. Thank you.