The army is ramping up combat training amid growing Indo-Pacific security risks. 

Senior commanders say the pressure on our defence forces is greater than at any point in recent memory, citing a dangerous strategic backdrop of Chinese expansion in the Pacific and an increasingly unstable world order. 

Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp told Mike Hosking we actually had a much bigger deployment in the first part of the century, but pressures have shifted. 

He says uncertainty has replaced predictability, which has created a level of anxiety everyone's experiencing.  

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