Rory and Jim

Rory Medcalf and James Brown use the fleet review as an opportunity to push ridiculous Defence theory.

They are still pushing the barrow of using percent of GDP as a measure of Defence funding health.

Meaningless with all the Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy spendthrifts; an inability to write a proper military requirement; lack of acquisition planning skill; lack of procurement skill; lack of skill throughout the management / leadership arena.

"Next, the government should set a detailed course to restore defence funding. More important than the Prime Minister's election promise of getting back to 2 per cent within a decade is the need to begin funding increases in the near-term.

If it fails to increase funding, the government will need to consider controversial and risky cuts to defence capability instead."

Some good Defence cuts and retirements would be of weapons systems that are useless. Such as the defective Tiger and MRH-90 helicopters; air warfare destroyers, LHDs, F-35s, M-1 tank, additional Super Hornets and the sub replacement program.

All the product of rancid group-think.

Maybe Rory and Jim can explain to us why the extreme-risk and defective F-35 is not be on the DMO Project of Concern List. It qualifies.

Easy.

What are the real threats to the national security of Australia?

1. Hostile foreign military scenarios which must be gamed against.
2. Terrorism.
3. Border patrol issues.
4. DMO-management incompetence.
5. ASC -A combination of Soviet industry mixed with rent-seeking (see 7 below).
6. Foreign corporations that have a stranglehold on our military requirement and acquisition planning process such as Lockheed Martin ranging from the extreme-risk F-35 to soup-to-nuts cyber-security management.
7. Rent-seekers that lobby politicians.
8. Corrupt and abusive leadership.
9. 170-some flag-ranks, an excess which consumes much but provides little, or as Spock says, about tribbles, "They remind me of the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin. But they seem to eat a great deal. I see no practical use for them." We could run the ADF  with less than 30 flag-ranks.
10. Diminished war-fighting ethos. For example: not wearing battle gear in a high threat area like Afghanistan.
11. Not giving unit commanders and NCOs on-site responsibility and freedom of action for discipline.

We could run a sufficient military force on... $15B per year.

Not $25B, $26B, $27B, $28B, $29B, $30B and more...as Rory and Jim want us to go, with no true reform process and no valid measure of combat capability.

It still amazes me how we have to  pay for low-altitude and vapid thinking from Lowy and ASPI. Time to cut them off from the tax-payer funded military advice circuit.

They are not helping.


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-New Defence White Paper fails to address Australia's core security needs
-2009 Defence White Paper Fantasy
-Analysing "The ADF Air Combat Capability- On the Record"
-Find out who is responsible for the Air Warfare Destroyer mess
-Analysis of Defence Materiel Organisation Major Projects Management and What Needs to be Fixed
-New DMO Boss warns the staff that business as usual is over
-How dangerous is the Defence Material Organisation to our Defence Industry?
-Australia's Failing Defence Structure and Management Methodology
-More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy
-ADF cost per flying hour
-Illegal boat-people problem update 
-Vacancy