Editing Australian Defence Force (section)

===Defence of Australia era===
[[Image:Kangaroo 89.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A group of men wearing green military uniforms walking across barren ground.|Australian soldiers lead a column of American troops during Exercise Kangaroo '89, which was held in northern Australia.{{sfn|Horner|2001|p=65}}]]
Until the 1970s, Australia's military strategy centred on the concept of "forward defence", in which the role of the Australian military was to co-operate with allied forces to counter threats in Australia's region. In 1969, when the United States began the [[Guam Doctrine]] and the British withdrew [[east of Suez]], Australia developed a defence policy which emphasised self-reliance and the defence of continental Australia. This was known as the [[Defence of Australia Policy]]. Under this policy, the focus of Australian defence planning was to protect Australia's northern maritime approaches (the Air-Sea Gap) against enemy attack.{{sfn|Tewes|Rayner|Kavanaugh|2004}} In line with this goal, the ADF was restructured to increase its ability to strike at enemy forces from Australian bases and to counter raids on continental Australia. The ADF achieved this by increasing the capabilities of the RAN and RAAF and relocating regular Army units to northern Australia.{{sfn|Horner|2001|p=72}}

At this time, the ADF had no military units on operational deployment outside Australia. In 1987, the ADF made its first operational deployment as part of [[Operation Morris Dance]], in which several warships and a rifle [[Company (military)|company]] deployed to the waters off [[Fiji]] in response to the [[1987 Fijian coups d'état]]. While broadly successful, this deployment highlighted the need for the ADF to improve its capability to rapidly respond to unforeseen events.{{sfn|Horner|2001|pp=225–227}}

Since the late 1980s, the Government has increasingly called upon the ADF to contribute forces to peacekeeping missions around the world. While most of these deployments involved only small numbers of specialists, several led to the deployment of hundreds of personnel. Large peacekeeping deployments were made to [[Australian contribution to UNTAG|Namibia]] in early 1989, [[Australian contribution to UNTAC in Cambodia 1992–1993|Cambodia]] between 1992 and 1993, [[Operation Solace|Somalia]] in 1993, [[United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda|Rwanda]] between 1994 and 1995 and [[Bougainville Province|Bougainville]] in 1994 and from 1997 onwards.{{sfn|Horner|2001|pp=228–255}}

The [[Australian contribution to the 1991 Gulf War]] was the first time Australian personnel were deployed to an active war zone since the establishment of the ADF. Although the warships and [[Clearance Diving Team (RAN)|clearance diving team]] deployed to the [[Persian Gulf]] did not see combat, the deployment tested the ADF's capabilities and command structure. Following the war the Navy regularly deployed a [[List of recent Australian warship deployments to the Middle East|frigate to the Persian Gulf or Red Sea]] to enforce the [[Iraq sanctions|trade sanctions imposed on Iraq]].{{sfn|Horner|2001|pp=231–237}}