CHIEF of the Defence Force Angus Houston has told Australians that our soldiers in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan are pushing out into areas where there is increased risk, violence is likely to increase and there is hard fighting to come.

Despite the risk, this is good and about time. Fewer lives will be lost in the long run if we are more aggressive than if we are less aggressive. This also matches the overall aggressive phase of the campaign as the US troop surge reaches full strength and David Petraeus's operational plan is put into being.

A more aggressive stance reflects where the Afghans probably are in their training. They appear to be well past training in secure barracks and are at the stage where they train a bit, go out and fight a bit, then are brought back in for training by their Australian mentors. In Iraq we called this the train, fight, train cycle and it was the most important part of their training. It produces experience, confidence and, above all, combat leaders. An increasingly aggressive attitude is also in accordance with Barack Obama's war strategy of "disrupt, dismantle, destroy and defeat".

But if we are taking a more aggressive approach to our part of the war in Afghanistan, then Australia needs to ensure that we have provided our troops with everything they need. This is not just a tactical issue for the military; it has strategic implications and is the business of government. The strategic question that needs to be addressed is whether the government is protecting our troops and allowing them to be effective. This is core business for the new Defence Minister.

Combat commanders must be under no illusion that when they make contact with an enemy force, as they did on August 24 when Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney was killed by enemy fire, that they must do their utmost to destroy that force. Our troops found themselves facing (some say) up to 100 Taliban. This is one of the few times when we know exactly where our armed enemy is and we must always capitalise on it. In this battle, the few Australian soldiers accompanying the Afghans once again fought brilliantly and, along with supporting fire, may have killed up to one-third of this force. As the Australians withdrew, the other two-thirds of the enemy went somewhere, certainly with the capacity to kill more Australian and Afghan soldiers if we run into them again next week, and still able to intimidate the population.

It would appear that the patrol that fought so well on August 24 was a partnered patrol, which meant it was mainly Afghans but accompanied not just by the few brave Australian trainers embedded in the Afghan National Army unit but also by an Australian force whose job it was to ensure the Afghans did not get into trouble they could not handle. The government must ensure that the Australian forces that partner Afghan units in this more aggressive phase are sizeable. Experience from Iraq indicates that they should be at least one-third the size of the Afghan force, a full Australian platoon of about 30 men accompanying an Afghan company of about 100.

Any patrol that is going into these riskier areas must have adequate artillery, mortars, jets and attack helicopters on immediate call, not just to enable us to break contact and safely withdraw, as seemed to be the case on August 24, but with the ability to destroy an enemy force so we do not have to fight them again. The ability of soldiers to be supported by their own artillery and mortars within a few minutes saves lives and, more important, defeats the enemy, thus saving even more lives. Because of their reliability and accuracy, our forces must have their own artillery and mortars guaranteed, available for immediate use, and permitted to contribute to the destruction of the enemy.

And there are other details that the new minister should check.

Any patrol that is going into these areas once controlled by the Dutch must also be supported by our reconnaissance forces on the ground and in the air, so our troops and the Afghans know wh