The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) comments on the new Defence White Paper.
A few points.
The term "fifth-generation fighter" is useless. Using that term shows a real lack of air power knowledge.
The noise about GDP, 1938 and so on is nonsense. What is important is that Defence consumes 7-8 percent of the federal budget and it gets wasted on silly things. $1.4B for the C-27 which is not a Caribou replacement and was also not purchased as a competitive tender. Other than their word, where are the documents? Two-F-35 mistake-jets. The coming $1.7B of waste for obsolete jamming gear for 12 of our Super Hornets.
And that is just recent.
ASPI is just starting to see the light, but they have a very long way to go. Unless someone is willing to address the incredibly bad advice Defence Ministers receive, the force structure problem will always be half-baked.
2 comments:
Do not forget the $1.3 billion a year wasted by DMO.
ASPI was established and is still somewhat funded by the Federal Government plus some revenue from advertising by major arms industry players; so it can hardly be seen an independent advisory agency on defence matters. At least 2 of the ASPI staff were involved in formulation of DWP2009.
See this piece from a foreign source brilliantly crystallizing Australia's defence scenario: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Australia-economy-military-strategy-iron-ore-pd20120523-UK6S5?OpenDocument&src=sph&src=rot
The virtual bottom line in the Stratfor article is that Australia should primarily focus on military capacity to deter interference with trade corridors and create regional forces able to handle events in Australia's near abroad, from the Solomon Islands through the Indonesian archipelago. Combine those imperatives with an affordable percentage of government revenue dedicated to defence expenditure (say 7.5 percent) and there is the basis for a commonsense replacement White Paper and associated Defence Capability Plan.
The 10 year financial projection for defence expenditure endorsed by both major political parties is intended to give (mostly foreign-parented) defence industry 'certainty', but this is entirely unjust when in all other respects, the nation budgets on the 4 year forward estimates cycle. A very flexible 10 year expenditure program written in pencil would be sensible, but there should be no commitment to any funding beyond the normal budgetary processes.
If these considerations were implemented, then defence planners would be forced to pay more attention to maintaining continuous adequate and credible military capacity through progressive optimisation of proven in-service hardware. The absurdity of creating multiple capability gaps while building a mythical Force 2030 structure for the ADF should be immediately dumped as the goal for defence planning.
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