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The Forum > Article Comments > Is Rudd the real McCoy on defence? > Comments

Is Rudd the real McCoy on defence? : Comments

By Sasha Uzunov, published 30/9/2008

Taxpayers, veterans, and serving defence personnel have heard it all before from politicians promising heaven and earth.

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G'day Sasha

I was initially stunned yet heartened by the thought that a person of the female gender was writing a defence article for OLO. Then I read your blurb. You're a bloke after all and an ex army one who's seen service.

The turf n toy battles in Defence are endless. Much of it is between the Army (as you suggest) versus the Navy and Air Force.

Much of it is between few toys (Army) and many toys (Navy and Air Force).

US Alliance inter alia means buying many toys from Uncle Sam. Many toys means Australian arms company/industrial offsets, money for South Australia and arms money for temporarily favoured electorates. The JSF is a tailor-made porkbarreling opportunity with Lockheed international pressure to boot.

The Army (just tanks trucks etc) is distinctly unsexy in the industry for electorates game - although Army bases are vote winners but hard to move between electorates.

I and perhaps you (?) suspect that the Government's interest in maintaining defence spending may not be deep or even financially possible with the US financial meltdown flow-on.

Anyway I reckon its a good article and I'm sure Brucey is chuffed to hear that he is now also a quotable defence expert ;)

Regards

Peter Coates
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7401 (re F-35 debate)
and http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/2008/08/indian-submarines-chakra-atvs-make.html
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 10:49:35 AM
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I'm not sure whether to believe Rudd will be any different in Defence to other areas, he's already playing the pea and shell game. he has promised growth and immediately cut funding, and cut it all over - everyone has to find 5% savings. I also hear there is some redefining of roles and responsibilities, thus muddying the waters and moving things around a lot with more yet more studies.

Rudd is a master of the bait and switch, in years to come we'll regret believing him I am sure.

There are also a lot of old ALP grudges being played out now, Boeing is getting a hiding because the ALP never got over them having Andrew Peacock as their Australian President.

On turf wars, no one can come near the masters, the RAAF - while Army and Navy put their best and brightest in the field, they put their best in Canberra taking the money. I wonder if all the Defence companies congregated in South Australia during the Minchen/Downer/Hill years will do as well now?
Posted by rpg, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 11:50:24 AM
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An excellent contribution to the debate is Major-General Jim Molan’s “Surviving the War in Iraq.” I can’t quote from it, as I’ve lent my copy to my WW II vet father-in-law, but two of the things he stresses are: (1) the need for a paramount Joint Services Command to optimise force projection; and (2) exposure of Australian commanders to intensive warfare (as he was as Coalition operations manager in Iraq), rather than confining the ADF to peace-keeping, relief work, base protection, training etc. Without (2), the learning curve for commanders thrown into “real” war is likely to be fatally steep. Anyone who doubts the primacy of “troops on the ground” should read Molan’s book.

Re (2), the Americans asked for another Australian to replace Molan at the end of his tour. He was horrified that the powers-that-be declined.

I’m a great sceptic of my former boss Rudd, let’s wait and see. I hope that he will deliver on his rhetoric before my son is posted to Afghanistan as an Army doctor.
Posted by Faustino, Tuesday, 30 September 2008 9:16:27 PM
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Shucks, is Rudd serious about defence? ; Well it must be known by now that Kevi 747eny is an Intellectual decoy not real Macoy ; thanks to many years of Conditioning and the mere absence of anyone to tell him how much of an Idiot he was ; primarily because many lecturers were as brainless and Idiotic as kevi himself - Agitprop and Jobs for the lobotomized boys ; that is how it is defined ; He is what antipathies what is meant by Intellectual mushrooms – Like the Oregano report , they can fabricate a subject matter of Nothingness and generate their own Bovine excrement for the dung beetles to feed off .

Of course he really does not give one high ota about anything, just as long he can get another mate into the Commissioning of excrement laidened of stupidity and self indulgence process- Who cares what people think- but most are conditioned that “Thinking”- is an Oxymoron.
Posted by All-, Wednesday, 1 October 2008 11:36:16 AM
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A better question is whether anyone is the real McCoy on defence.
Oft forgotten principles - Australia IS an island continent.

Public statement-wise The Kevin (bless him) is right - Navy needs resources in order to address the traditional 'chokepoints' scenarios.

Then recently it may come to pass that the US is too busy realigning and rationalising their shifting imperatives from the time of Dibb/White - from Asia, that is, to placing their bucks/bets into Iraq.

Clearly if Nations in and around the Indian Ocean are making their claim and building up militarily - then they are between us and the present maingame in the ME.

In other words, at the slash of a pen, Australia could suddenly find itself surplus to requirements as a convenient stopover for flights via Guam.

In other words, unless we get into developing our own indigenous capability - in about the next five years - if not entirely out of the game - we nonetheless shall be 'snookered'.

It might pay our politicians to recognise that Australians can be trusted to do something that might impress the Yanks enough to keep us in the Grand Game.

That is, let Australians get into industry enough to create actual defence capability.
Let them, for once 'interoperate with equipment we've designed, manufactured and supplied.
Posted by A NON FARMER, Thursday, 2 October 2008 6:46:03 PM
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