He brings up the complaints of Mr. Babbage--one of the authors of the 2009 Defefence White Paper--but doesn’t mention that Mr. Babbage’s statements to our elected officials have always been weak in understanding things like net-centric warfare (over-selling it), air power (blessed be the system of systems approach...it will win); you name it. Is Mr. Babbage really someone you want helping to author a Defence White Paper?
General Molan goes on to state this.
“That the Government is, in an underhanded and duplicitous way, shredding the previously announced 2009 defence plan should not surprise any of us. Governments have done this to Defence White Papers since 1976. But this Government has done it faster and more deeply than even Kim Christian Beazley did, which is saying something.”
In some ways, this is well and proper. The Government should treat the 2009 Defence White Paper with all the contempt it is due because it is a laughing stock of a product. It is a rudder that is jammed making us go around in circles; going nowhere fast; chasing our tails. The 2009 Defence White Paper has little worth.
He states that “the retired community is deathly silent”. I disagree. There are a few people that have tried to make a difference. However, if no one listens and the groupthink mode rules the day, no amount of quality analysis will make a difference.
Defence will be gutted simply because there are few that can make sensible plans and few that can advocate change that makes both strategic and affordable sense.
When Australia can demand that the entrenched Defence bureaucracy is held to real account; that proper strategic thought can be put to paper; that institutional groupthink is hunted down and killed, we might be able to make a go of having an ADF worthy of the name.
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