Bad tasting medicine

The Weekend edition of The Australian has an interesting Defence fable, “Billions needed for fast-tracking of defence blueprint”. The print edition is on the front page as “Smith seeks billions for jets, frigates”.

The article brings up the usual flaws. So usual it is as if the person that wrote this article did another copy/paste of Defence talking points (or maybe their own belief system) instead of doing something like asking hard questions and getting responses; checking other sources. You know; journalism.

Well forget journalism and myself expecting too much.

Some of the flawed thinking in the article?

There are no billions. The federal budget is so far in the red that it will not see any of the Howard –era budget largess in the foreseeable future.

The article mentions a 4th Air Warfare Destroyer as being a requirement for the next Defence White Paper.

Cost? $3B.

For a ship that will be difficult to find crew for, and more expensive to run that our current frigates. It will also end up like the Prince of Wales in any future full-on war engagement. Well, so will the flat-top amphibs. Since Defence has given up on air power solutions that can take on emerging threats, these ships—once the crew is found—won’t be going anywhere dangerous. Some will respond to this by mentioning the U.S. Navy as help. Good luck with an obsolete-to-the-threat USN carrier air wing.

But what about the USAF?

On which planet?

The real purpose of the 4th Air Warfare Destroyer is jobs and nothing more. It is yet another exercise in vote buying. “See we are strong on Defence…look at the jobs we have sustained.”

There is a need for home ship building jobs. As long as they are not building stupid stuff.

Also mentioned in the article are more Super Hornets.

Problems with this idea are many:

Like the F-35, it will not be able to stand up to emerging threats. So if we are going to procure something with this limit, why buy something that might not be right and hobble industry off-sets.

Hobble? Yes.

The Super was never procured in a competitive environment. If a competition was started that involved the Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen and Super Hornet, you would see better industry off-sets for the Super Hornet.

Just buying it without any other consideration is robbing industry and Defence in general.

The numbers of total Super Hornets involved is also interesting if the second purchase goes through.

Using the legacy Hornets as a baseline of what money is available in the flying budget, the Super costs twice the current legacy Hornet to fly for each hour. So if you take the money allotted to flying 71 or so classic Hornets and use that to fund half as many Supers, you could effectively retire the classics sooner. Unfortunately with a federal budget in the red and a shrinking amount of Defence dollars, the flying club can’t have the money they did before. Especially when the rent-seekers have their eyes on a fleet of 4 Air Warfare Destroyers, 2 big Amphibs and 12 submarines.

The author of the article also brings up the moronic percentage of GDP as a Defence budget metric. For an entitlement society, this is a useless standard. Defence gets what it gets after the politicians are done vote buying and increasing the Nanny State.

So if we are to save money in Defence what should we do? Well the following might not help but is an interesting preamble:

An April 10 article in Adelaide Now, “Defence Material Minister Mike Kelly wants to invite ship designers like Navantia to South Australia’s Techport precinct.”

In the article we have these political bits:

“Mr. Kelly defended Federal Budget cuts to defence procurement saying the US and UK had gone far harder”.

Not a justification if an organization has a robust Defence planning ability. Hint for the DMO/Defence fan-base, we do not. Unless you consider; whim and follow along, as strategy.

Also:

He wanted to improve Defence Material’s culture and intends seconding public servants to defence industry companies to get a better picture of the difficulties the sector faces.

This can be really good or it can be really bad. One would hope that before you hire on public servants that they are already qualified to do their job. The above quote just confirms what many of us already knew: The DMO is highly dysfunctional. I would point more toward senior chair warmers as the problem. With greater rank comes greater responsibility. Of course this is good if the system allows leaders to be responsible vs. micro-managed. This isn't just an Indian problem. It is also an Indian-chief problem.

The destructive and de-skilled entrenched Defence bureaucracy has now ensured any military force structure we have will be second tier. Many were told that we would have world-beating air combat capability with the F-35 Just So Failed. This is just not so based on all the reasons covered in the past. So without the gold standard air combat capability the force can only do so much.

Let us consider the immediate threats to the nation that can actually be addressed with a small Defence budget. Important because a big rule in project management is to never start a project unless you have the capability to finish it in a reasonable time based on existing...realistic resources:

1. Terrorism.
2. Illegal immigration / open borders by any other name.

Another grave threat to the nation is the in-the-red federal budget. Something not fixable by a Defence force that knows how to live within its' means.

Some immediate Defence needs which should be in the next White Paper are:


1.Affordable (cost per flying hour and procurement) aircraft for air policing.
2.Affordable (cost per flying hour and procurement) aircraft for maritime patrol.
3.Affordable (cost per flying hour and procurement) utility helicopters (salty and non-salty).
4.Affordable (sustainment and procurement) small patrol boats
5.Mothball and or sell off the air warfare destroyers and new amphibs.
6.Retire the Collins-class submarine fleet immediately.
7.No reductions to the Army (unit personnel).
8.Sustain and improve M113 capability.
9.Retire the M-1 tank.
10.Look for a BTR-90 class wheeled AFV that is affordable and can swim.
11.Invest in containerized, highly portable cruise missiles that can be launched from land, sea and air platforms.
12.Industry: continue to make effective vehicles like the Bushmaster and small multi-mission ships.
13.Procurement: Competition with preference points to at-home-industry only where combat capability and affordability metrics are proven by prototype.
14.Significantly cut flag-ranks and senior executives.
15.Give more responsibility to unit commanders and NCOs for unit-level discipline.

All of this is not a total answer. The purpose of the next White Paper should be to allow Defence to live within its means; provide reasonable capability and set building blocks of value for future Defence White Papers. Including those future Defence White Papers where the federal budget is no longer in the red.