Reader comments - More from those who have been there and have the T-shirt

Bushranger 71

The big omission in Australian defence planning is the lessons of past experience in nearby archipelago operations since WW2 and the Vietnam War to a large extent are not being adequately analyzed and heeded. Big arms manufacturers pushing their projects is now allowed to override the basic requirement in defence planning to provide and maintain appropriate affordable military capabilities for regional operations.

Since around Year 2000, unaffordable John Howard inspired big spend initiatives have bent military capabilities away from well-proven platforms (that could have been cost-effectively optimized) toward expeditionary capabilities for involvement in far away conflicts in response to hegemonic influence of the US and Brits. This has fostered delusions of grandeur within the DoD realm in Canberra.

We continue shedding multiple capabilities well-suited for regional operations - F-111, C-130H, P3, Caribou, Iroquois, Kiowa, Seahawk, Sea King, etcetera. Costly to acquire and operate replacements are somewhat unproven and/or unsuitable.

The key nature of helicopter capabilities is versatility and adaptability for multiple ro les, generally ignored in the disastrous Helicopter Strategic Master Plan. For example, the RAN has now had to formally shed an important helo ship boarding capability because the hugely expensive MH-60R ASW/ASuH helicopter is so stuffed full of occasional use systems that it does not have the capacity or performance to adequately perform the boarding party role.

M-1 tanks and ASLAV are quite simply unsuited for regional operations whereas enhanced versions of the M-113 can provide adequate mobile light armoured capacity. If the island States of Singapore and The Philippines consider APCs very useful platforms for regional wet tropics operations, why does Australia think differently?

Australia should focus on cost-effective capabilities for regional needs and the JHSV-1 is a far more appropriate concept than LHDs, AWDs, Frigates and Patrol Boats. Industry excelled with rapid production of 70 or so Corvettes during WW2 and more recently, the smaller shipbuilders provided the Balikpapan Class Landing Craft for the RAN. A major shipbuilding industry cannot be continually supported in Australia but existing smaller scale capacity could be carefully nurtured.

Defence White Papers are a hugely nugatory political exercise wasting a whole lot of effort. Hitherto, they have largely been a 130 page diatribe on foreign affairs and industry policy which arguably should be more appropriately outlined elsewhere in government edicts.

Once upon a time, a Five Year Rolling Program was the primary focus of Australian defence planning. A few years back, former MinDef Joel Fitzgibbon sensibly attempted to mate defence outlay with the 4 year Budget Forward Estimates process; but both of the major political parties bowed to pressure from defence-related big business for a 10 year spending horizon to give them 'certainty'.

If a rolling 4 year Defence Capabilities Plan was the primary focus for shaping and main taining Australia's military capacity, there would be no need for the wasteful effort in generating political Defence White Papers. A shortened planning horizon might force greater discipline toward maintaining useful capabilities in service and shelving of functions that are not cost-effective.