There is a lot of talk about Australia getting a free ride by underspending on Defence in relation to the U.S. umbrella of protection.
Let us examine some of this a bit closer.
Currently, the Australian military procurement system is broken. And, not just a little bit. Any increase of Defence spending at this point in time, is just a licence to see more of our tax dollars wasted.
In other words: fix the substance abuser first, before handing them more money.
Also, may we look at some of the other free riders out there? Take the time to look at some of the other U.S. allies.
I am generally a “hawk” on military issues. However, with the current situation, giving the DMO and friends more money to waste means that we will have to spend billions more fixing the procurement of new, yet irrelevant weapons wanted by the corrupt Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy.
Example: field the defective F-35; spend billions more to get something that is actually tactically useful to make up for the colossal mistake.
Ditto: for the troubled RAN. For example: Defence bought a used ship from the U.K. who was having a going-out-of-business sale in relation to their former empire and now the new one: feeding the welfare state. That ship was not properly evaluated; broke recently and went into repair for months.
A sarcastic “thank you” to our imbeciles in senior Defence circles.
And finally for the alleged security wonks out there: knock off the percent-of-GDP-valuation of Defence spending.
It is stupid because it doesn’t address anything of value. What counts is the percentage of Defence spending , in the Federal budget.
Australia not fixing its cancer known as the DMO and friends is like driving a car with a flat tire; buying 3 new tires for the other hubs, and, still driving on the flat tire.
And then calling it progress.
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-Some of what ails Defence-
1 comment:
Since committing to 2 dubious merit aircraft carriers, supposedly to replace other amphibious support vessels; the Gillard Government has also acquired 2 more amphibious support platforms, HMAS Choules and the Skandi Bergen, now renamed Australian Customs Vessel Ocean Protector.
The latter platform is crewed by civilians and operated by a non-military agency so why has it been acquired via defence funding? Its acquisition was murky to say the least.
Regarding defence spending, this link gives the most realistic comparisons: http://www.comw.org/pda/120618-Military-Spending-Comparison.html. Some nations spending less on defence than Australia (such as Turkey, UAE, Israel, Iran, Taiwan) have very active military needs and seem to satisfy their requirements somewhat by more prudent management of defence funding.
US defence related expenditure for 2010 approximated $700billion, then representing about 31.8 percent of their federal revenue of $2.2trillion for that year. Little wonder that our great friends are in economic mire.
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