White papers do not defend us in the real world. The reduction in defence spending was taken selfishly with full knowledge that the strategic risk to 22 million Australians had been significantly increased. There are some things that should be above political survival, but of course they are not.
The definition of "selfish" also applies to an entrenched defence bureaucracy (EDB) that eats up billions but returns nothing in real combat capability.
-Air combat roadmap: a wreck
-Basic ship sustainment: a wreck
-Submarines: a wreck
-Project management skills: a wreck
And so on...
The need for a defence budget is based primarily on an estimate of the need, adjusted by the investment available. The need is often referred to as the strategic environment, and sometimes as the threat.
If you believe that there is absolutely no need for any money to be spent on defence and that security can be achieved without armed forces, then I respect your view, but we do not share a common starting point for discussion.
If you believe that the world is not yet perfect, that there is even a small chance that one day Australia may have to use force in pursuit of its interests if not its survival, and that the future is always unpredictable, then you will think that we need armed forces, and we have a basis for considering how much is enough.
Pretty hard to do when the EDB is white-anting Defence while becoming a de facto fifth-column destroying military capability just as well as any enemy.
Assessing how much is enough was prosecuted by competent people in Defence in preparation for the 2009 Defence White Paper. They derived a force structure tested in a number of scenarios and derived from the best knowledge of the demands the strategic environment could place on Australia in the future.
The White Paper for 2009 was a clown-car event. Anyone thinking different is mentally affected.
They came up with "Force 2030", known for having 12 submarines, up to 100 joint strike fighters, three air warfare destroyers, two amphibious ships, new armoured vehicles, etcetera. The Government accepted that and wrote it into the white paper.
Force 2030 was not thought up by the uninitiated, but by the best civilian/military tactical and strategic brains available. Of course, some commentators objected, especially those with a barrow to push, such as a submarine-only force.
Defective thinking at its very best.. and, a magical 2030 force allows for fanciful dreaming while doing nothing of worth. For example, naming the faulty and under-developed F-35 as if it was a reliable solution when there was no evidence to indicate such a thing.
Submarines? Try maintaining the 6 we have as proof-of-concept before going on a rent-seeking mission for the ages.
While you are at it sir, consider how long-range strike ability was thrown away on a lie, and the helicopter capability allowed to fester into an unworkable joke.
For the EDB, we can consider some additional points of defect here and here.
Without addressing the core faults in Australian senior defence leadership, General Molan ignores issues that are the ultimate relation to his cart-before-the-horse thinking.
The current not-so-bright political leadership may be faulty, however they are not the true source of today's Defence problems. Jim Molan's attempt at revisionist history and blame-shifting away from his peer-group (such as Angus Houston) don't make his arguments very solid.
10 comments:
Bravo Eric. Herewith my (slightly amended) contribution to a Piers Akerman blog in The Daily Telegraph.
'The big spend lobby, including Major General Jim Molan, is spreading alarmist misinformation that defence expenditure has been irresponsibly slashed. Australia spent about US$24billion in 2010, ranking 11th ahead of Canada, Turkey, UAE, Israel, Iran (see: http://www.comw.org/pda/120618-Military-Spending-Comparison.html). Relating defence expenditure to GDP is smoke and mirrors whereas percentage of government revenue is more appropriate and Australian defence outlay has more recently neared 9 percent of government revenue.
24 percent or thereabouts of US national expenditure is defence related to support its massive military-industrial complex, which has to be kept ticking over. This is arguably an underlying reason why they are seeking to maintain so-called 'US primacy' in the Asian region (a very risky strategy) and are advocating increased outlay by Australia.
Some very flawed decisions regarding military hardware have been made by successive Australian governments over the past 2 decades and the Defence Capability Plan 2012 will foreseeably compound deficient planning. ADF air platforms such as F-111, C-130E&H, P-3C, Iroquois, Caribou, Blackhawk/Seahawk, were/are all cost-effectively upgradable mostly through ongoing manufacturer enhancement programs to suffice for a range of roles; but all have been/will be forfeited with the consequent effect of actually diminishing Australia's military capacity. Tens of billions of dollars have been needlessly squandered with capability gaps snowballing. Operating costs for new hardware will inevitably soar and commitment to hugely expensive whole of life support contracts will greatly exacerbate inefficient defence spending.
Howard and Rudd Governments endorsed compounding expansionary defence outlays toward building a mythical Force 2030 ADF structure and these projections would necessitate enormous unrealistic growth in government revenue. This Howard originated strategy focuses principally on supporting largely foreign-parented defence industry instead of maintaining continual adequate and credible military preparedness.
Given the economic imperatives for the nation, it is inevitable that wasteful defence spending will have to be curbed. Australia could have a quite respectable military capacity for about $20billion outlay per annum, if spending on defence was better targeted.'
I hope that seat your sitting in has thick armour plate, Bushranger 71. I suspect you're about to suffer some incoming...
I think he has been shot at before ;)
Bushranger, very well enunciated.The wastage has to be addressed.
The unneeded Bureaucracy needs to be dismantled.
Actually Defence Expenditure is about 6.7% of budget.
Bushranger71, I think you're being too critical of Australia for having the worlds 11th largest Defence expenditure, especially given the relative high cost of producing a common unit value of military deterrence and capability in such a 'developed' country such as Australia, compared to some others.
Moreover, given Australia's nominal GDP ranking of around 13th place, one could first off arguably eliminate Spain and Italy from the equation, as being solid economic contestants in this capacity. That would bump up AUS to 11th worldwide in capacity to spend on viable national Defence. Nothing to be alarmed about.
The ke issue however is not about whether AUS is spending $24bn, or $23bn, or $25bn on Defence... it's about AUS being able to sufficiently restructure management and effective governance decision making so that arguably inept spending practices and flawed acquisition decision making can replaced by more cost-effective and efficient expenditures.
ie, add muscle, cut fat... as this will equate to stronger Defence capabilities while simultaneously reducing wastage (borrowing from perplexed's views above).
One shouldn't be afraid of efficiently added strength and increased returns on investment... if one can get it.
Following a similar theme of revisionism and blame shifting, there's an interesting post at the Lowy Institute blog that criticises Joel Fitzgibbon for attempting to blame Defence for its failures while he was the minister in charge.
It seems that those within Defence leadership can see the dysfunction, but cannot acknowledge their own resposibility for it.
Another problem is that the present government has racked up a debt of $238 billion in less than 5 years, from a position of no debt.
Future funding is a problem.
http://www.aofm.gov.au/
Hello whichever Anonymous.
Perhaps you have misinterpreted my meaning re Australia ranking 11th in worldwide defence expenditure in 2010. I was lauding the fact that we rank ahead of other nations in spend, but not the fashion in which funds are wasted. Interestingly, those countries quoted are much more active militarily and arguably have better capabilities.
And backtracking a bit; the only way to awake the politicians from their lethargy is to put them under pressure via media commentary. I did not serve a career in the military to see the 'Profession of Arms' being more or less reduced to tokenism in Australia while many of those who are involved in administering the defence organisation are just riding a gravy train that benefits largely foreign-parented defence industry. It is called standing up for your beliefs, as Eric is prepared to do.
Thanks for elaborating, Br71. And I would fully concur with and support every sentiment in your last para.
The sad fact is, , (and hard as it might be for some to believe), that there are some in senior positions within our current (horribly misnamed) "government" and as many if not more in the deeply politicised, (again horribly misnamed) Public "Service" whose lifelong ambition is to see the ADF reduced to little more than a token, prettily uniformed civil/emergency assistance agency equipped with nothing that might hurt or offend any potential adversary.
Such people exist, even thrive and rise to high places in the rarified atmosphere of Canberra.
Post a Comment