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Australia is facing its most complex and challenging strategic environment since the Second World War. The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) of 2023 underscored this stark reality, calling for a rapid transformation in how the Australian Defence Force (ADF) prepares for potential conflict. At the heart of this transformation lies the imperative for integrated, scalable, and technologically advanced collective training systems. The future of support to Defence collective training in Australia must be built around adaptability, innovation, and sovereign industry collaboration to ensure that our forces are prepared, interoperable, and lethal when it matters most.
The Evolution of Joint Collective Training Support
With over 20 years supporting Joint Collective Training (JCT), from systems and simulation development to deeply embedded personnel, Calytrix Technologies has been in a unique position to witness the evolution of the JCT model in the ADF and how this capability has evolved over time to keep pace with both changes in technology and strategic circumstance. At the heart of this growth has been two consistent themes that are worth noting as we look towards the future of collective training for the ADF at home, regionally, and on a global stage.
Firstly, people matter. Despite a decade of technological ambition (JP9711-1 in Australia, DVS in the UK, STE in the US etc.) – promising uniformed simulation tools, seamless automation, plug-and-play composability, and intelligent orchestration of simulation systems - the delivery of joint and collective training remains a fundamentally human endeavour. The most valuable and challenging aspect of this domain is not the technology itself, but the skilled people who make it work.
Training architectures may be conceived in software, but they are brought to life through collaboration between Defence and its industry partners, between planners and practitioners, and between those who understand operational needs and those who translate them into executable simulation environments. These activities demand not only technical expertise, but also a deep contextual understanding, adaptability, and trust.
Secondly, we have an aging complex technology stack with emerging gaps. While people remain the driving force behind successful training, they’re often working with systems that are continually evolving but are far from modern or encompass all of today’s training needs. Many of the core simulation tools have a provenance exceeding 20 years and have collectively absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars in development over their lifecycle. While these systems were once cutting-edge, they were built for a different era - one where simulation was primarily focused on replicating kinetic effects across the traditional domains of land, maritime, and air.
Two decades ago, this focus was sufficient. But Defence’s operational landscape has expanded to encompass cyber, space, and information operations - domains that demand entirely new ways of thinking, modelling, and integrating. Unfortunately, the simulation and training systems supporting these newer domains have not evolved in lockstep. The result is a complex systems-of-systems approach to simulation and capability gaps: legacy systems that struggle to represent modern strategic realities with the fidelity and agility required.
Compounding this challenge is the increasing convergence of the exercise sandbox with the real-world strategic environment. The boundary between simulated training and live operational context is no longer clear-cut. Defence must now exercise in environments that mirror and sometimes overlap with actual strategic conditions. This places immense pressure on simulation systems to not only emulate all domains with precision, but to do so in a way that reflects the complexity, fluidity, and interconnectedness of the real world.
Collective Training in a New Strategic Era – Australia’s Role
Collective training is essential to Defence readiness. It moves beyond individual skills and focuses on synchronised decision-making, joint effects, and real-world mission rehearsal. In the era of multi-domain operations, where the battlespace extends across land, sea, air, cyber, information, and space, collective training must evolve into a seamless, integrated enterprise.
Australia’s geography, strategic alliances, and regional security responsibilities demand that our Defence Force trains as it fights — jointly, with partners, and across the spectrum of operations. Gone are the days when stove piped service-specific training sufficed. Today, Defence must replicate complex scenarios involving high-intensity combat, grey zone operations, humanitarian crises, and cyber warfare, all in the same synthetic battlespace.
As a key partner in the Indo-Pacific, Australia’s ability to operate seamlessly with allies is essential. This includes not just tactical interoperability, but also the ability to train together in shared synthetic environments.
However, there are significant challenges and limitations in how Australia can, and does, integrate a range of international partners into synthetic JCT events. The HQJOC Joint Collective Training Branch (JCTB) has over 20 years of hard won and world-leading experience with complex simulation in a JCT environment and leverages significant US technology to do so. While this experience and access provides high levels of interoperability between Australia and the US, it is also a significant limiting factor in how we engage with other regional partners.
The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) restrictions placed on Australia’s use of US technology severely restricts how Australia is able to engage with regional partners in a simulation domain as the tools and systems used to support that training are very tightly controlled. Secondly, while Australia and the US have deep experience in how simulation architectures are developed and deployed to support higher level exercises, many of our regional partners do not have this experience or skill at this joint and coalition training level.
Developing a sovereign version of the US Joint Live Virtual Constructive (JLVC) Federation is no small task, noting again its 30+ year history and its significant development investment. However, an opportunity exists for the ADF to commence development of a sovereign capability that will not just supplement the ADF’s specific requirements alongside the current toolset but will also allow Australia to extend the same kind of technology and knowledge leadership across our region that we have benefited from over many years of our close integration with the US.
This kind of capability is something that is not developed overnight. However, the evolving JCTB capability represents and ideal centre in which to commence development of a sovereign federation in an incremental manner, as opposed to the more traditional big bang tender approach. There is an opportunity to leverage sovereign and existing non ITAR offerings in the simulation space, as well as adding new capabilities in areas like information operations, space, cyber and AI, to not only support and grow our current systems but also incrementally builds a regional training federation to meet local needs. This is all supported by the JCTB’s 20 years of experience, highly skilled and unique workforce, and collaboration with local industry.
Australian future training systems must be designed to integrate with allies while retaining sovereign control. This dual requirement presents technical and policy challenges, but it is vital to achieving both security and autonomy.
Australian Industry as a Capability Partner
While the end to end development of complex Defence operational capability systems and platforms will remain largely beyond the reach of Australian industry for the foreseeable future, the training and simulation systems used to support, train and exercise with these capabilities represents a significant opportunity for Australia. Not only does this represent a sovereign capability growth path but also ensures that the training provided around these capabilities is tailored to meet Australia’s specific operational needs and strategic context.
To achieve this, Australia needs to grow and retain a national core workforce of simulation and training professionals. This includes local software developers, systems integrators, human factors specialists, and scenario designers. While the core of these skills reside in industry, Defence should continue to engage in overseas training such as the US Certified Modeling and Simulation Professional (CMSP) suite. Defence should also consider working with industry and academia to develop a dedicated training and certification pathway for ADF simulation professionals as the ultimate stewards of this capability.
Supporting the future of collective training requires an evolving model of engagement between Defence and industry. Traditionally, Defence has contracted industry to deliver specific training support services or simulation systems. This transactional model is no longer sufficient in this highly specialised and cross-matrix environment, and the ADF’s current JCT capability is evidence of the need for long term true partnerships with industry as the expertise in exercise design, simulation development, software engineering, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and user experience design increasingly resides outside Defence.
Conclusion: From Training to Advantage
The future of support to Defence collective training in Australia is not just about better simulation or faster networks. It is about fundamentally reshaping how the ADF prepares for conflict and builds warfighting advantage. In an environment defined by uncertainty, speed, and technological disruption, readiness will be measured not just by how much we train, but how well we train; together, realistically, and adaptively.
Defence must act now to transform its collective training ecosystem. This requires sustained investment, bold policy shifts, and a willingness to embrace new ways of partnering with industry and allies. The opportunity is there for Australia to lead - to extend its world-class training enterprise in order to underpin regional stability, national sovereignty, and operational success.
