The Players

I went to the trouble to write a piece to put here but after looking at it, decided that the audience for it was way too narrow. You see it had numerous technical performance comparisons, combat operation method and any number of other things that would be too much for a normal readership to put up with. While it may have been good enough for a small group of military aerospace minded folks, it wasn’t good enough for most of the people that are important to all things Defence related. The most important audience is the taxpayer who lives in a large country of small population that is being asked to fork out tens of billions of dollars on dubious weapon systems purchases. I don’t know the medical field so any in depth technical writings to do with this profession would leave me lost. Same with the topics of high finance, numerous types of sciences, engineering, cooking, public safety, education, electronics, home construction and repair and so on. What I always have to come to grips with is making sure a general audience can grasp what I am writing. I have a really good understanding of all things military. But the absolute most important thing I have to do is write to a level were almost anyone can understand a topic and not just defence specialists. Defence specialists make up only a small portion of the tax base.

In an effort to write another blog entry, I reminded myself that weapons capabilities by themselves are not enough to carry weight in the debate of Australian Defence procurement. The most important element to this issue will always be the people involved. An inanimate object by itself isn’t good enough to carry the day by far. The following are a list of cast and characters in the play called: The Australian Defence Purchase Roadmap.

You have the Defence Minister- Through really no fault of his own he has been placed into a job that he is unqualified to perform. Having never put on a military uniform he doesn’t have any personal experience of the military culture or the serious nature of the profession. To someone like this, a PowerPoint briefing on the Super Hornet and seeing one at an air show are more than enough information to base a purchasing decision on. Having not been in this job for very long one can’t blame a political creature too much for being what they are. This would include the fact that the military as a whole is not a "portfolio" or any type of corporate element. It is the military, which needs separate consideration and leadership technique all its own.

The current government officials particular to Defence- Adding to the Defence Minister you have a wide variety of people who are more interested in protecting their career than what is good for Defence. You have professional top civilians and top officers who go right along with what ever Defence has to say. Now one would point out that of course this is a good thing in that it is the military and they take orders. Yes and yes. When you get up to senior officer and senior enlisted rank your job is not to just carry out orders to the best of your ability, but also offer the much needed sage advice to superiors that someone in this profession has to offer. This is an absolute function in order for a professional military to be run well. What history has shown is that the current government defence establishment has the appearance of going along to get along. This by itself is a dangerous environment from which civilian leadership has to make decisions on. One may in fact want to blame Defence Minister Nelson for any number of things, but half of that blame points directly to senior professional officers that don’t take a new Defence Minister by the hand and explain real needs of the soldiers, sailors and airman. Having seen this environment first hand in the U.S., I would also wager that this by itself could lead one to think that this is the trait of a military that has only made it to a second generation leadership style. As opposed to a third generation leadership style of which has proven to be successful in combat again and again. This would be a topic for further discussion: i.e. does the Australian Military as a whole practice and nurture third generation warfare methods? At any rate, the following piece here (PDF file) should be considered required reading for anyone wanting to know what is wrong with the current Defence decision making process.

Defence Cheerleaders- These are the people that believe that no matter what, more times than not, the current Defence leadership is a good and grand organization that always has the best interests of the public at heart. Any critical thinking of Defence, more times than not has little direct language in it at all. These people are:
*Employees of Defence
*Organizations that make money from Defence and want to keep that happening such as some Defence related publication or vendor in general.
*Any person not related to Defence who believes it is run well.

Home industry- These are the companies at home that are available to help manufacture a particular piece of a weapon system. In the case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, this is a strong part of the reason for it being selected for the RAAF. There is significant home workshare potential that will employ people and keep politicians happy. This is a good thing to be had with any weapon system purchase. However it runs afoul of the best interest for defence of the nation if that particular weapon, no matter how many jobs it provides at home, is the wrong weapon for the job. Home workshare can instantly become a political football. This ability to provide potential home workshare is currently the most important value decision for staying with the F-35 program. Anyone wanting to kill the F-35 has to deal directly with this political firestorm.

The News Media- In general they try to play a good game and do their best, but unless the news event can be splashed across the page repeatedly for days to get the best revenue for their company, the event in general has little hope of seeing the light of day in any form that will produce public response. Most of the media is a business. Given that I have already seen errors in technical data from some news people with the job of reporting on defence issues, the skill here is a mixed bag. Worse are some of the editorials that qualify for incoherent rambling instead of one focused opinion. Some of the editorials carry a better weight when a retired service person crawls out of the woodwork and has a say.

Mainstream Privately Owned Defence Publications- In short some good reading however part of their revenue is from ad sales. Don’t expect to see anything too critical on company x if company x routinely buys a full page ad in the publication.

Peaceniks- Almost as bad as warmongers are peaceniks. Every weapon is bad. This is certainly open to opinion and how one feels about the world. Unfortunately, history shows that strong physical violence or the fear of it, has decided more geo-political matters than any other method. A safer ideal is: "You get more with a kind word and a gun, than a kind word alone."

The Military Industrial Congressional Complex- All very real and all very important today. While more of a U.S. problem, this has a strong affect on Australia. After retirement, many U.S. admirals and generals can find employment in the very companies they bought weapons from. In the case of Super Hornet sales, the PowerPoint briefing that helped with this effort was in part put together with the insight of a retired admiral working for a military lobbying firm. This person a few years back, was a serving U.S. Navy officer in charge of program management for the Super Hornet when it was being qualified for fleet service. It’s kind of hard to blame these people as they are just working a system that the U.S. in whole fails to manage. When many U.S. government policy makers, secretaries of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, quit their job, they go right back to a lobbying firm or the weapons company from which they came. This makes up a fully functional and well oiled revolving door. These same companies buy political influence so congressmen can fund their election campaigns. Once the politician is in office, phone calls from the industry that put them there get answered. Any Australian should not underestimate the influence that this has on their own Defence process.

China- Or to be fair, other players concerns over China. One has to look closer to the current serving U.S. administration. The U.S. is running a war on credit, and a lot of the money flow is via business with China. There are those in the current U.S. administration and other parts of government that want nothing more than to keep China happy. This means that any attempt to export the F-22 will be looked down at by this camp.

Air Power Australia (APA)- Just by the fact that I mention them I will be labeled as "one of them", "the anti-Christ of good Defence procurement process", "someone with an agenda," pick one or create your own. On any given day I am sure I don’t agree with all of their talking points. For Defence, APA is a thorn in their side. What should make any taxpayer sad is this organization is about the only one out there that is willing to project an opposing view to any of today’s Defence process, and do it with some presence of logic. The Australian government has no real proper oversight on large purchases by Defence. Many times when Defence spokespeople go into a bunker mentality to attempt to defend a Defence procurement plan, the reason for that event is that a question was raised due to the efforts of APA. Sometimes it is over an issue that APA warned government about years ago. This all by itself should make the average taxpayer unhappy that it takes an outside organization to publish reasonable questions and critique about current Defence programs and policy.

Soldiers, Sailors, Airman- These are the people that have to live with some gold plated expensive weapon system that may or may not work while being short of other kit they really need. By stating the obvious, their results are measured in part by how much of their own blood gets spilled in a war. Buying expensive warships for expeditionary use with little or no plan for air cover is a sure way to get a lot of service people killed in a shooting war with one throw of the dice. Same goes for ordering a fancy looking jet aircraft that can be outrun by just about any other modern fighter aircraft in service today.

The taxpayer- Notice that the people that matter are listed in reverse priority. This is the way of today’s modern Defence establishment. The people that will die and pay for poor defence procurement policy and oversight are at the bottom instead of being at the top of the list of importance.

Me- I don’t count for anything in the big picture. I will take my rightful place at the bottom of the stack.