Portal:Australia/Featured article/Week 32, 2007

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and a number of 'tri-service' units. During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established three separate armed services. Each service had an independent chain of command. In 1976, the Government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the services under a single headquarters. Over time, the degree of integration has increased and tri-service headquarters, logistics and training institutions have supplanted many single-service establishments. The ADF is technologically sophisticated but relatively small. Although the ADF's 51,000 full-time active-duty personnel and 19,400 reservists make it the largest military in Oceania, it is much smaller than most Asian militaries. Nonetheless, the ADF is able to deploy forces in multiple locations outside Australia.