Reform of Defence Managemen - ada.asn.au · duties in Kashmir, New York and Iraq. He was the senior defence intelligence officer in northern Australia ... complementary and well-accepted

WORKING PAPER NO. 59

REFORM OF THE DEFENCEMANAGEMENT PARADIGM:

A FRESH VIEW

The Author

Lieutenant Colonel Neil James graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1976. His subsequentmilitary career has involved a wide range of regimental, instructional, staff and research appointments includingregimental service in Malaysia and Singapore, exchange service in Britain, Germany and Canada, and UNduties in Kashmir, New York and Iraq. He was the senior defence intelligence officer in northern Australia1994-96 and is currently the Director of the Land Warfare Studies Centre.

Neil holds a Bachelor of Arts in Military Studies (1976) and a Master of Defence Studies (1991) from theUniversity of New South Wales, and is a 1988 graduate of the Army’s Command and Staff College at FortQueenscliff. He returned to teach at the college in 1992-93.

He is a contributor to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the author of several papers, journal articlesand book chapters on the history of Australian participation in multinational peacekeeping; and author of theArmy’s 1996 operational manual on multinational peace operations. His Master’s sub-thesis was a comparativestudy of the effectiveness of UN and non-UN peacekeeping operations.

This Working Paper series aims to provide readers with access to current research relating to the defence of Australia and the region.The emphasis in these Working Papers will be upon applied research of direct relevance to the Australian Defence Force, the Departmentof Defence and to others working or interested in defence issues.

The ideas and opinions presented in this working paper represent the views of the autor and do not, necessarily, represent the views ofthe Australian Defence Studies Centre, the University College, the University of New South Wales, or the Australian Defence ForceAcademy. This working paper has been subject to independent peer review.

© Australian Defence Studies Centre, May 2000

ISBN 0 7317 0441 X

Reform of the Defence Management ParadigmA Fresh View

Lieutenant Colonel Neil James

The acknowledged problems in the Department of Defence highlighted by its own new Secretarycontrast starkly with recent ADF professionalism in East Timor and generally. However, there is along history in Australia of inexperience at the politico-military interface translating into flawed higherdefence management structures and deficient defence policies and strategies. Furthermore, the perennialdebate over civil control of the military in Australia being bureaucratic rather than political, as itshould be, has also generally obscured how such bureaucratic control has seriously hindered botheffective ministerial supervision of the Department of Defence, and the evolution of a joint-Serviceapproach to strategy, capability development and operations.

This paper summarises the historical background to this situation, discusses reform of the flawedphilosophy, structures and institutional culture resulting, suggests the need for a whole-of-governmentapproach, and briefly examines the prospects for real reform being achieved from within the departmentor being imposed from without. The paper proposes that the basis for Australian defence managementand planning should be three complementary maxims. First, the absolute need for overall civil politicalcontrol of the military (as opposed to Australia’s long history of civilian bureaucratic control). Second,that within that overall political control, military professionals best manage military professionalmatters. Finally, a joint-Service approach is best achieved by synergising the complementary butdistinct professional specialisations of the three single-Services — not by perpetuating orinstitutionalising the potential for rivalry.

5REFORM OF THE DEFENCE MANAGEMENT PARADIGM: A FRESH VIEW

They [the civilian bureaucrats] appear to assume ...that every senior military … officer is a bone-headedwarrior, a simple-minded and largely illiterate Blimp,but one in whose breast there beats the heart of ajack-booted dictator. Such instincts must berestrained by the civil bureaucracy who are of courseshrewder, more intelligent, and (most importantly)longer lasting.

Professor T. B. Millar1

INTRODUCTION

As the Secretary of the Department of Defence, DrAllan Hawke, has publicly noted,2 the highermanagement of Australia’s defence is in trouble again.In many ways the problems involved have becomeprogressively worse over the last generation.3

However, contrary to the reminiscences of some, therehas never been a golden age of defence management,either before the 1974 reorganisation of the defencegroup of departments or in the more distant past. Thereis in fact a long history in Australia of inexperience atthe politico-military interface translating intoacceptance of flawed higher defence managementstructures and resulting in deficient defence policiesand strategies.

Modern management principles require organisationsto focus on their core business and their customers.An examination of current Department of Defenceattitudes and practices leads to the conclusion thatdepartmental core business is often simply regardedas the production of policy focused on the capitalinvestment program, especially the replacement ofweapon platforms. This is wrong and a danger toAustralia’s security. A more appropriate focus for thedepartment is surely the efficient delivery of effectivemilitary strategies and capabilities in support ofgovernment requirements. This has generally notoccurred over the past twenty-five years, culminatingin the mid to late 1990s with much criticism of theDepartment of Defence’s inability to deliver togovernment effective and relevant combat capability.

This paper discusses higher defence management inparticular and defence planning in general using threecomplementary and well-accepted maxims. First, theabsolute need for overall civil political control of themilitary (as opposed to civilian bureaucratic control).Second, that within that overall political control,military professionals best manage military

professional matters. Finally, a joint-Service approachis best achieved by synergising the complementary butdistinct professional specialisations of the three single-Services4 not by perpetuating or institutionalisingthe potential for rivalry.

Global Context

Debates on higher defence management are not arcaneand should not just be concerned with peacetimeadministrative or fiscal efficiency. There are twosignificant twentieth-century examples of breakdownsin a democracy’s politico-military interface leading tocrushing military defeat. In Germany, prior to andduring World War I, the parliamentarians concededresponsibility to the military.5 In the USA during the1960s, the politicians and military conceded too muchresponsibility to civilian managerialists (the‘McNamara whizzkids’). This greatly contributed tothe US defeat in Vietnam,6 and led to the flawedcapability development processes and doctrinalconfusion that bedevilled the USA in the 1970s andearly 1980s.

The essential need in Australia’s case is to enhancethe politico-military interface and resolve theacknowledged problems with higher defencemanagement especially regarding the formulationof relevant strategic guidance and its translation intoeffective and relevant capability development beforewe too suffer crushing military defeat or other strategichumiliation. Australian Defence Force (ADF)professionalism and fortuitous circumstances carriedus through in East Timor; we might not be so fortunatethe next time we have to exercise military power inour national interest. The 1997 Defence EfficiencyReview (DER) recommendation organised for warand adapted for peace7 must be turned into reality.

Focus

The paper begins with a summary of key statementsfrom the recent public debate on higher defencemanagement, and then goes on to discuss:

• the historical background;

• the resulting flawed paradigms;

• reform of the Department of Defence’s flawedstructures;

• reform of the department’s flawed institutionalculture;

6 NEIL JAMES

• the need for a whole-of-government approach;

• the prospects for real reform from within thedepartment; and

• the prospects for effective reform beingsuccessfully imposed from without.

This paper is also written from an unashamedlyenthusiastic joint-Service viewpoint. The paperassumes that continued full command of the ADF bythe Chief of Defence Force (CDF) is an absolutecriterion, and that further progress in joint-Servicedoctrine, structures, capability development andoperations is essential. The paper is also based on thelast twenty-five years of ADF experience clearlyshowing that joint-Service development is enhanced,not weakened, by the complementary but distinctspecialist professional strengths that the Navy, Armyand Air Force bring to the joint table. This basis isreflected in the paper’s use of the term ‘military’ inthe wider sense of an integrated joint-Service approachrather than any of the single-Service approaches ofyesteryear.

For reasons of space this working paper cannot bedefinitive in every aspect or explore every nuance ofthe problems discussed. Some summarisation ofhistorical detail and complex argument has also beennecessary. In line with common practice, the term‘Defence Organisation’ is used when referring to boththe Australian Defence Force (ADF) and theDepartment of Defence. The term ADF is used tocollectively refer to all three Services, even for theperiod before the term came into general or officialuse.

Indignation Health Warning

Some words of caution and explanation are appropriateat this juncture. This paper is certainly not intended tobelittle or impugn the loyal and professional efforts ofthe many able public servants in the Department ofDefence. Indeed, several civilian staff were among themany enthusiastic contributors to the paper.8 However,the paper addresses matters that many civilian publicservants, and some military personnel, in the DefenceOrganisation profess to find too sensitive to discuss.In examining the roots of the department’sacknowledged higher management problems, the paperquestions the assumptions underlying civilianmanagement of, but not necessarily participation in,several defence functions. The paper also discusses

options for root and branch reform to philosophical,structural and cultural paradigms with which a wholegeneration of civilian and military staff (and academicand press commentators) has grown comfortable. Itmay therefore cause initial discomfort among somereaders.

The Latest Burst of Chaff on the Radar Screen

In the broader sense, most of the public debate onhigher defence management, sparked off by the recentaddress by the new Secretary of the Department ofDefence, Dr Allan Hawke,9 has missed the point. Thedebate has lacked a longer-term perspective, and hasnot been grounded in adequate knowledge of theconstitutional and professional first principlesinvolved.

Furthermore, the extensive press reporting of DrHawke’s remarks as being ‘criticism of DefenceChiefs’ would be misunderstood by much of the generalpublic. To the average Australian, this term isunfortunately equated only with admirals and generals,not civilian public servants or the mixed civilian–military diarchy of the Department of Defence itself.

There is obviously a stark contrast between thecontinued higher defence management inefficiencyrecently highlighted by Dr Hawke and, as East Timorshows, considerable ADF professionalism in the fieldand in the myriad supporting military units withinAustralia. Dr Hawke noted this professionalism in hisaddress but his praise was not well reported.10 It is tobe hoped that Admiral Chris Barrie’s subsequentcomment that ‘departmental processes need to catchup to the ADF’s operational performance in EastTimor’11 will address the considerable anguish feltthroughout the ADF following press coverage of DrHawke’s remarks.

Dr Hawke’s somewhat ambiguous remark during hisaddress that the ‘role of the Service Chiefs must beclarified’ also engendered some heat but not light intothe debate on higher defence management problems.12

Many military and civilian participants in the debateconsider that re-empowering the Service Chiefs is avital element in the departmental managementrejuvenation required, and essential to the continuedforging of a greater joint-Service approach throughfocused professional synergy.13 It is probable that DrHawke broadly shares this view.14


In a recent column, Paul Kelly, the International Editorof the Australian contributed an opinion piece on thecurrent defence management debate.15 One of MrKelly’s ambiguous comments in that article, that ‘...more civilian authority is required over the ADF instrategic decision-making’, reinforces the need for allparticipants to understand the first principlesunderlying the defence debate. This comment wouldbe valid if he were referring to increased governmentalinvolvement. It would, however, be quite invalid if hewere referring to further civilian bureaucratic control.The very ambiguity of his comment, and the confusionand frustration it generated, holds the key to graspingwhy higher defence management remains the quagmirethat it is.

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TOHIGHER DEFENCE MANAGEMENT IN

AUSTRALIA

All such representation should be with the submissionand acquiescence of the soldiers to the will ofParliament.

Oliver Cromwell 16

To understand the present, and implement reforms forthe future, we must first examine the past. For reasonsof space, this section of the paper is confined to asummary of more detailed analysis.

The Seed of the Current Problems

Before federation, Australia relied almost totally onBritish Empire mechanisms for strategic guidance andforce structuring. A measure of Australian strategicdecision-making and force structuring occurred overthe next decade. The creation of a national army in1901 and a quasi-independent navy in 1911 generatedcomprehensive debate as to their purpose and controlbetween the ‘imperial defence’ and ‘home defence’camps.17

The World War I experience, especially Australia’swish to articulate a position at Versailles in 1919,introduced the Australian Government to a furthermeasure of strategic decision-making. However, in thefinal analysis, Australia’s continuing and ultimatestrategic dependence on British seapower remainedunchanged until 1941.

In the 1920s and 1930s Australian governmentsmismanaged the politico-military interface.Governments were generally ignorant of strategy,

insufficiently critical of British strategic decision-making, and obsessed with cost cutting; they were alsocultural prisoners of the ‘militia myth’ that allAustralians are natural soldiers and no regular forcesor full-time professional commanders were necessary.Unfortunately this combination of factors resulted inAustralia placing its entire emphasis on a singledefence strategy of questionable validity the‘Singapore strategy’, with virtually no attention paidto the need for strategic flexibility and versatility or toalternative or back-up strategies. In turn, the resultingforce-structuring caused significant over-investmentin warships rather than investment in a force balancedfor the range of combat subsequently encountered inthe Middle East and Greece during 1940–1941 ingeneral, and in the Sea-Land-Air gap to Australia’snorth during 1941–1943 in particular.18 This faultyinvestment particularly hindered the development ofaircraft and land force mechanisation and firepowerthroughout the inter-war period. The mismanagementof the politico-military interface also helped to hinderthe development of any effective joint-Servicecommand and control.

At the national level, the mismanagement of thepolitico-military interface resulted in an unhealthyreliance on the advice of civilian advisers,19 rather thanthe Government’s principal military advisers, theChiefs of Staff and the Army, Naval and Air Boards.20

This bureaucratisation of the politico-military interfacein Australia did not occur at all, or to anywhere thesame degree, in comparable countries facing the samestrategic crises. It resulted in large part from theinfluence, bureaucratic intrigues and personality of SirFrederick Shedden, Permanent Head of the DefenceDepartment from late 1937 to late 1956 and Secretaryof the War Cabinet for all of World War II.21

The resultant disaster of the ‘Singapore strategy’resulted in 18,067 dead, wounded and capturedAustralians.22 This disaster would probably have beenavoided, or not have occurred to anywhere the samedegree, had our governments listened to expert militaryadvice from 1920 onwards, such as the Chauvel Report,which pointed out the numerous flaws in concentratingon one vulnerable defence strategy.23 GeneralLavarack’s term as CGS was not extended in 1939,largely because he had so accurately highlighted thedisastrous flaws in our almost total reliance on theSingapore strategy and naval spending.24 As late as1938, the ‘she’ll be right’ approach prevailed at thepolitical and bureaucratic levels. Even then this attitude

8 NEIL JAMES

changed only when there was a change in the BritishGovernment’s attitude, not through any real perceptualchange in the Australian bureaucracy or politicalclass.25

The Root of the Current Problems

The basis of the current defence management malaisetook firm root during World War II. For most of thewar, especially the critical parts, the Prime Ministerand Minister for Defence,26 John Curtin, was a manwith no military experience, no real grasp of strategy27

and no previous ministerial experience.28 He was notalone in this regard in most wartime cabinets and allof Australia’s five wartime prime ministers lackedmilitary or strategic experience.29 Curtin and hiscompatriots therefore relied unduly on the strategicadvice of a foreign Supreme Commander (GeneralDouglas Macarthur),30 and a senior bureaucrat withno real military expertise (Shedden).31 Thispsychological, functional and moral dependence waslargely caused by the overall lack of depth in Australia’spolitical leadership in general, and Curtin’s lifelongquasi-pacifism and battles with alcoholism andprobable manic depression32 in particular.33 Curtinhimself admitted he was no democratic warlord in theChurchill or Roosevelt mould.34

An unfortunate combination of more general factors,influences and government decisions also prevailed,ten of which stand out:

• The war-weariness that followed World War I,and the fear of future war, made governmentsreluctant to contemplate defence matters(especially to the extent they should have) inthe inter-war period. The political class weretherefore professionally and psychologicallyunprepared for the politico-military interfacerequired for them to fight World War IIefficiently.

• During the inter-war period, ‘generals’ werepopular scapegoats for the high casualties oftrench warfare. Governments were keen tosupport this convenient belief. The alternativewas admitting, or otherwise confronting, thecommensurate failings of governments in theirresponsibility for the strategies underlying suchwarfare.35 Governments were thus more easilyable to ignore or discount contrary strategicadvice from military professionals. This

practice carried over into their conduct of WorldWar II, especially the earlier years.

• Until 1941, there was virtually no history ofAustralian governments ever having to grappleseriously with problems of higher defencestrategy (especially when they could notnecessarily rely on British advice). The DefenceDepartment was tiny and the Services quitesmall. There were virtually no strategicintelligence staffs. The Department of External(foreign) Affairs was not created until 1935.

• Australia lacked any form of the joint-Service,strategic-level military structure required tofocus defence efforts and make professionaldecisions concerning priorities for thedevelopment of complementary or potentiallycompeting Service-based capabilities. Bydefault, bureaucratic intrigue and ego this roledevolved to the Secretary of the Department ofDefence. As Sir Frederick Shedden noted,somewhat disingenuously, in a Minute to PrimeMinister Curtin:

It has been the traditional attitude ofsuccessive generations of Chiefs of Staff forthem to fail to agree to any adjustments inthe strength of the Forces where they resultin reductions of the strength of their ownparticular Service. This is, of course,understandable. The differences can only beresolved by the Minister of Defence, afterconsidering the advice of the PermanentHead of his Department.36

The alternative solution of a joint-Service,strategic-level military structure to advise theminister was not recommended by Shedden.The absence of such a joint structure was adeficiency in degree rather than an absolute one,as even the UK and US structures were nascentat that time. However, even after the war andthe joint-Service impetus the war createdinternationally, the Department of Defenceactively discouraged such joint-Servicedevelopments. This is discussed further below.

• The country was seriously caught out by theJapanese thrust in 1941−42, when virtually allour strategic eggs were in the one basket. Thesubsequent battle for national survival in early1942 diverted attention from adequateconsideration of what structural and cultural


problems had locked Australia into such grosslyinadequate force structuring and such adisastrous strategy. Some introspection didoccur later in the war but it became politicised,as with the ‘Brisbane Line’ controversy, 37 andnever sufficiently addressed the real issues.

• Australia was not skilled in maximising itsposition in coalition warfare. It tended to trustits major allies too much, did not demandenough consultation, and often failed to clarifyor articulate its national interests, even to itself.(Many would claim that not much has changedtoday).

• The Australian Government had sidelined thoseprofessional military critics, such as Lavarack,that had foreseen the disasters of 1941−42(often in some detail), and warned againstwhole-hearted persistence with a single,potentially deeply flawed, strategy.38

• The Chiefs of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wereBritish for critical periods of the war andthemselves recognised the potential forconflicts of interest in their provision ofadvice.39 This was an issue that sometimesappeared to elude the government of the day.

• The Chief of the General Staff (CGS),Brudenell White, had been recalled fromretirement in March 1940 but was then killedin a plane crash in August. In March 1942, theGovernment unfortunately (even if only inretrospect)40 adopted a unique ‘Commander inChief ’ model for command of (only) theArmy.41 This model of command, whicheffectively sidelined the CGS (Sturdee and laterNorthcott), 42 reduced formal ministerialinteraction with a broad range of senior Serviceofficers and blurred the distinction between thestrategic and operational levels of war. Theseproblems were compounded by theappointment of the personally compromisedBlamey to this office,43 and this became aserious problem from mid 1944 onwards.44 Theunderlying causes are beyond the scope of thispaper. In summary, they largely arose from thepersistence of the ‘militia myth’; politicalinexperience with, and suspicion of, ‘regular

officers’; and a refusal to face up to why thepolitical class had ignored professional militaryadvice throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

• Finally, when a Prime Minister’s WarConference, superior to the War Cabinet, wasorganised in April 1942, Shedden andMacarthur were full members but, amazinglyby any international standard or practice,Blamey and the RAN and RAAF Chiefs of Staffwere excluded.45 As Professor David Hornerhas noted:

Thus the whole structure of strategicdecision-making was revised. Whereaspreviously, the Chiefs of Staff had been thegovernment’s principal advisers on strategy,they were now replaced by a foreign general.Furthermore, the Chiefs had previously beenresponsible for the operations in the defenceof Australia. This responsibility now restedwith Macarthur. It is true that Curtin was stillable to receive advice from the AustralianChiefs of Staff, particularly Blamey, but thePrime Minister, supported by Shedden,looked to Macarthur as the main source ofadvice. 46

All these factors contrived to prevent wartimeAustralian governments and Australian politiciansgenerally, unlike their allied counterparts, fromeffectively interacting with the military in theformulation of strategy and with the structuring andsustainment of forces to carry out such strategy. Thisinstitutionalised governmental inexperience with thepolitico-military interface, and an inappropriate higherdefence management model and culture, hasunfortunately resonated through the years to the currentday.

Growth of the Current Problems

In terms of the current intention for the DefenceOrganisation to be ‘organised for war and adapted forpeace’, it is well worthwhile noting the expert viewsof Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke on the Australiansituation. Alanbrooke was Chief of the ImperialGeneral Staff, probably the greatest allied strategist ofWorld War II, and by far the military practitioner mostexperienced in managing an appropriate politico-military interface in a Westminster system in difficultcircumstances.47 For most of World War II Alanbrookehad been Chairman of the British Chiefs of StaffCommittee and principal British spokesman on the

10 NEIL JAMES

Combined Chiefs of Staff (with the USA). More tothe point he had been Churchill’s principal militaryadviser and this proved an extremely challenging task,which exhausted both of them. It did, however, provideAlanbrooke with profound insights into howWestminster model democracies could and shouldmanage the politico-military interface.48

Alanbrooke strongly believed that some seriousconstitutional, professional and practical aberrationsin the politico-military interface and higher defencemanagement had developed in Australia during the1930s, and especially during World War II. In April1946, for example, Alanbrooke noted that theAustralian COSC were completely, and mostimproperly, subservient to Shedden who had acquiredtoo much power.49 He was particularly horrified atShedden’s presumption and abuse of power andpropriety in advising the government and answeringinternational cables on clearly military matters withouteven consulting the Australian COSC.50 Alanbrookealso lamented ‘the puny restricted clerical outlook ofShedden and its detrimental effect’.51

By the end of World War II Shedden had effectivelyassumed a quasi-joint chief role. At first glance thiscould have been because he simply filled the vacuumresulting from no joint-Service, strategic levelmechanism to focus and coordinate the three Services.The deeper reason is that Shedden believed such amechanism was unnecessary because he thoughthimself fully capable of assuming such a role, no matterhow constitutionally or professionally inappropriate.52

The extent of Shedden’s power, ego and presumptionshould not be underestimated nor the long-termdamage caused to the politico-military interface andjoint-Service evolution in Australia. As but oneexample of this almost untrammelled abuse of powerand propriety, in October 1946 Admiral Sir LouisHamilton, RN, on loan as the Australian Chief of NavalStaff 1945−48, wrote to a British colleague:

I have made a start with Shedden and hope that Ishall be able to work him round into an ally. Mymethod of approach is quite simple – simply to feedout of his hand.53

Australia muddled through the late 1940s, 1950s and1960s and the problems with the politico-militaryinterface and higher defence management were notreally addressed or resolved.54 This was especially soregarding an increasingly destructive symbiosisbetween four trends:

• a slow deterioration in the quality and exerciseof ministerial oversight (made worse by thedefence group of departments remaining basedin Melbourne until the early 1960s);55

• excessive civilian bureaucratic control of manydefence matters, particularly those falling welloutside civilian bureaucratic expertise and wellinside military professional matters;

• a joint-Service, strategic-level vacuum (withstrong civilian bureaucratic opposition to ajoint-Service, strategic-level structure);56 and

• inter-Service competition for scant resourcesleading to perceived and actual professionalrivalry.

The key point to this unhealthy, destructive andgrowing symbiosis was that the existence of the firstand second trends, and the vacuum in the third, actuallyencouraged the fourth, especially through thedepartmental bureaucracy’s conscious andsubconscious ‘divide and rule’ philosophy in regardto the three Services.57

By September 1955 Shedden was strongly criticisedin parliament for becoming ‘the virtual strategic chiefof the Australian armed services’ and for improperlyusing the Minister for Defence to impose Shedden’sdecisions on the Service Chiefs, even though Sheddenwas not the ‘best adviser on matters of high strategicpolicy’.58 In April 1956, a newspaper article by therespected Canberra-based political journalist, AlanReid, commented:

That powerreal poweris passing from theParliament and the Ministers to the public service,or at least to those individuals within the publicservice who are having it thrust upon them by theinertia or ineptitude of firstly, ministers, and secondlyparliamentarians. …. But the Ministry (though someof its members privately confess that ‘somethingshould be done’) never do anything about the defenceset-up. They concede it is ‘ludicrous’ and leave it goat that. … It would appear that in the absence of anyfirm control, Sir Frederick Shedden has merely filledwhat would be a vacuum. But in filling that vacuumhe has become a very real power.59

The Morshead Committee of Inquiry into Defencereorganisation in 1957 did not lead to substantialchange or reform to many of the existing improperpractices.60 This was largely because membership ofthe committee of inquiry was heavily rigged in favourof civilian bureaucratic managerialism.61 In particular,


and completely ignoring several well-argued proposalsfrom Australian and allied military sources from at least1950 onwards,62 the committee did not recommendany adequate joint-Service strategic-level structure toproperly focus Australia’s defence.63 Furthermore, theMinister for Defence and the Department of Defence(effectively meaning the Secretary in everyday terms)were given complete authority in ‘defence policy’ and‘by authority, if persuasion fails, to secure theelimination of overlapping between the [defence groupof] departments’.64

This control over ‘defence policy’ (which can and hassubsequently been interpreted broadly to cover almostanything) and over all interdepartmental matters, wasa marked consolidation of civilian bureaucratic control.This is especially so as the terms ‘defence policy’ and‘defence strategy’ are often misused interchangeably.These authorities are two of the three legs of the triadof responsibilities that form the legal and cultural basesof the Secretary’s contemporary power in comparisonwith the CDF even in the diarchy now pertaining.65

The third leg is the Secretary’s responsibilities underthe Financial Management and Accountability Act.66

However the civilian managerialists did not get all thefurther control they sought when the governmentimplemented the report in March 1958. In particular,the Menzies government rejected the idea ofamalgamating the Service departments and theDepartment of Defence. This was mainly because thegovernment acknowledged that the world of 1958 wasfar more complex, and warfare much moretechnological, than the last time there had been a singledepartment in 1939; and because the governmentconsidered such an amalgamation would reduce ordilute civil political control by ministers. Thegovernment noted:

further consideration has convinced us [thegovernment] that the proposed scheme would notwork if parliamentary control is to be preserved andadministrative efficiency retained [and that] the taskof overall defence political administration andresponsibility is far too great for one Minister. Wecannot go back to 1938.67

Furthermore, against the wishes of the Secretary ofthe Department of Defence,68 and probably in someacknowledgment of Shedden’s excesses, thegovernment created the position of Chairman of theCOSC as an independent senior officer at the jointstrategic level (but with virtually no staff and with nocommand authority over the ADF).69 Australia finally

but tentatively began to catch up to the rest of the worldin this regard. However, as a compromise tobureaucratic interests (and again uniquely byinternational standards), the advice of the COSC wasstill to be channelled through the Secretary of theDepartment of Defence or through the inter-departmental Defence Committee. The Chairman wasaccorded the right of approach to the minister or primeminister in some circumstances.

Prime Minister Menzies did note, however, theimportance of limiting civilian bureaucratic (andpolitical) influence in military professional matters andstated:

In addition to this, the Chiefs of Staff though theyhave much contact, have probably not been calledupon sufficiently to meet as such without civilianintervention, for the expression of a purelyprofessional view on purely military matters. Theyhave as a rule formed members of larger committeesin which important non-professional considerations,either political or financial, have also been taken intoaccount.

It is of course right that when a government gives adecision, all factors, military and non-military, shouldbe in its mind; but it is in our judgment, vital that theChiefs of Staff should make their militaryappreciations and constantly bring them up to dateindependently of non-military considerations, so thatwhen subsequent meetings occur, the military viewmay be clearly understood, though it may and willin practice have to give way in some particulars toconsiderations of political policy or finance.

We have, therefore, decided that the Chiefs of Staffwill in future, in addition to sitting in the othercommittees, meet regularly for the formulation ofpurely military views. In such meetings they willhave at call the defence scientific advisers and otherswhom they may need. This should in itself producea greater integration of military judgment than hashitherto been obtained.70

Higher defence management therefore remained anuneasy compromise between bureaucratic and politicalcontrol throughout the 1960s; with joint-Servicedevelopment still hamstrung by the absence of anadequate strategic-level military structure. The electionof a Labor government in late 1972, following a verylong period in opposition since 1949, (and through noreal fault of the Labor Party) further exacerbated theflaws underlying the politico-military interface andhigher defence management.

The very late 1960s and early 1970s had seenconsiderable political antipathy on defence issues,especially the policy of forward defence in general and

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participation in the defence of South Vietnam inparticular. The new Whitlam government was also notwell-equipped with ministers or backbencherspossessing defence expertise,71 although this situationwas much better than the previous Laboradministration. The general political, social andstrategic background also led to disharmony, especiallyas most Labor politicians did not appear to realise, orwere not prepared to acknowledge, that the militarywere only implementing government policy inprosecuting the war in Vietnam. The growing politicalopposition to Australian participation in South Vietnamand the lack of governmental or Service experience ofvirtually all Labor politicians produced a situation thatstill rankles with most of the Service personnelinvolved.72 During this period there was muchmisdirected and virulent Labor criticism of the militaryrather than the government. This was coupled withwhat most servicemen regarded as despicable acts andomissions, such as a refusal to condemn Australianpolitical extremists who collected money fororganisations fighting Australian troops, and industrialaction to prevent ammunition and supplies reachingADF elements fighting in Vietnam.

A potent mix of governmental inexperience generally,and marked mutual distrust between the Labor Partyand the military in particular, held sway. This mutualdistrust was then combined with and magnified by twoother important factors:

• the general ideological belief of the Labor Partyat that time that an effective and ‘humanist’foreign policy would eliminate or significantlyreduce the need for future military action in thenational interest; and

• the impatience of the Whitlam government afterthe Labor Party’s long sojourn in opposition,coupled with some concern that they might notbe in office long, and therefore a generalinclination for swift action rather than pausingfor more considered thought.

All these circumstances and imperatives were not onesthat resulted in the new Whitlam governmentdeveloping or exercising much, if any, scepticism ofcivilian bureaucratic power: both generally and indefence matters.

The stage was therefore set for the reorganisation ofthe defence group of departments along the lines thatmany civilian bureaucrats had especially sought since

the Menzies government rejected several findings ofthe Morshead Committee report in 1958. The ensuingreorganisation was based solely on a report by the thenSecretary of the Department of Defence, Sir ArthurTange.73 Largely because of the report’s singularprovenance, comparatively narrow perspective andobvious subjectivity, the changes did not, and werenot designed to, reform the basic problems that hadbedevilled the Australian politico-military interface andhigher defence management arrangements since the1930s. In fact, they severely worsened them.

Despite many contemporary warnings, the 1974changes nourished the already thriving roots of thecurrent defence management malaise.74 There weretwo other important and immediate problems with the1974 changes. First, it was agreed, relativelyunwillingly on the Services’ part, that no review of thechanges would be conducted for seven years. Second,Sir Arthur Tange continued to occupy the position ofSecretary of the Department of Defence for five yearsafter the reorganisation, and no real criticism orobjective review was permitted.75

The 1974 changes also introduced or exacerbated twolarge and long-term problems. First, the changes,whatever the intention might have been, tended toenshrine budgetary considerations as the prime forcestructure determinant,76 rather than basing decisionson comprehensive strategic assessments and riskmanagement. Second, the changes continued the trendof working against the evolution of further joint-Service development, at the strategic level and ingeneral. Both aspects have resulted in manycontemporary negative consequences.

While the defence management situation before 1974had many interdepartmental or inter-Servicecoordination problems, in the final analysis these weremainly to do with an inadequate joint-Service,strategic-level military structure to draw the single-Service efforts together and plan and manageAustralia’s defence effectively. This inadequacyparticularly exacerbated the ‘cart before the horse’problem of finance driving capability rather thanstrategic need. The real and enduring tragedy of the1974 reorganisation, however, was that it constituteda marked pendulum-swing from inadequate inter-Service (and inter-departmental) coordination toovercentralised but narrowly-experienced bureaucraticpower. It was also a pendulum-swing that created afunctional and cultural vacuum in the middle. Not only


did the 1974 changes fail to create or encourage thejoint-Service, strategic-level military structure requiredto effectively focus defence efforts but, by effect andperhaps design, the changes actually blocked anddelayed the natural evolution towards such a joint-Service structure and culture.

Tellingly, in every other comparable country thecreation of a joint chiefs of staff and/or joint-Service,strategic-level headquarters preceded the unificationof the defence group of departments or ministries. OnlyAustralia combined the separate Defence, Navy, Army,Air and Supply Departments first (in 1974) and, aftera long delay, created a joint-Service, strategic-levelmilitary headquarters (from 1984 to 1989).77 This longperiod of a joint-Service structural vacuum waseffectively used to entrench ponderous civilianbureaucratic power.78 Despite the eventual creation ofHeadquarters Australian Defence Force (HQADF), andits subsequent evolution, this vacuum has had long-lasting and significant detrimental effects to the presentday.

Since the end of the Tange reign we have had at leastseven major official reviews of higher defenceorganisation and ADF command and control: Utz(1982), Cross (1984), Cross (1987), Baker (1988),Sanderson (1991), Baker (1995: ADF only) and theDER in 1997.79 Several more official studies touchedon such matters to varying degrees, for example, Dibb,Force Structure Review (FSR), Cooksey, Wrigley,Defence Regional Support Review (DRSR) andMcIntosh. None has ever adequately tackled thefundamental problem or had its terms of referencebased on the key principles outlined on page one.80

The simple fact that it has been necessary tocommission so many official reviews and studies, butstill not achieve an effective result, is in itself indicativeof the serious and fundamental problems created ormagnified by the 1974 reorganisation.

Finally, many of the Tange-inspired initiatives alsoaped the application of civilian business managementpractices to defence and strategic managementpioneered by US Defense Secretary Robert McNamarain the early 1960s. Ironically, the subsequent US defeatin the Vietnam War to which these practices greatlycontributed occurred at the same time as the Tangereorganisation. Furthermore, while there is nothingwrong with a systems analysis approach in general itdoes require credible expertise, objective focus andsuitably sceptical tasking and management. This

largely did not occur and caused considerablefrustration among many Service officers, especiallythose with combat experience. As a retired senior ADFofficer has noted:

To give some credibility to the bureaucracy highlyqualified civilian academics were recruited. Fewcontributed other than acrimony to defence debatesbecause they could offer only hypotheses, free fromthe taint of actual success in combat … [Furthermore][a]lthough DSTO was apparently neutral in the inter-Service struggles it naturally tended to supportarguments for advanced technology equipment,particularly in areas where its scientists wereworking, or hoped to work.81

Summary of the Antecedents of the CurrentProblems

Key points to grasp at this stage of the discussion are:

• Australia’s imperial and wartime experiencesinstitutionalised a seriously limited politico-military interface, and a more bureaucratisedand civilian controlled higher defencemanagement machinery, than that found invirtually all comparable countries.

• In particular, this led to Australia being uniquein its creation of a unified and powerful civiliandefence bureaucracy well before theestablishment of a counter balancing joint-Service, strategic-level headquarters.

• The 1974 amalgamation of the defence groupof departments made sense in principle butbecause it was not objectively planned it wasachieved only at a serious cost in ministerialoversight. The amalgamation significantlyincreased the responsibilities of the Minister ofDefence but severely reduced the control theone minister could practically exert. Coupledwith the complete absence of an adequate joint-Service, strategic-level headquarters, thismarked diminution of civil political controlresulted in even further domination of theDefence Organisation by civilian bureaucraticpower and influence.

• Inter-Service rivalry in the past was a seriousconcern, however it was often exaggerated andwas not just the Services’ fault anyway.Australian governments (advised by the civilbureaucracy) were also greatly responsible. Inparticular, governments failed to institute the

14 NEIL JAMES

effective joint-Service, strategic-level militarystructure needed to coordinate the threeServices appropriately, and initiate and sustainan overall joint approach.

• Underlying the 1974 changes, and much of theargument underlying subsequent defencemanagement fashions, is the claim that a strongcivilian bureaucracy is required to knit the threeServices together and override their somewhatsingle-minded, and too-often competing,approaches some of the time. The extent of inter-Service rivalry was, however, often exaggeratedand its professional nature generallymisunderstood.

• Ironically, this belief actually delayed, divertedand obstructed the evolution of the three single-Services towards the very joint-Serviceapproach to strategy, operations and capabilitydevelopment that Tange and others professedto be seeking.

• Furthermore, to defend the Tange philosophyand its subsequent mutations, it is necessary toperpetuate the well outdated belief that thesingle-Services still cannot cooperate andignore all evidence to the contrary. It is alsonecessary to perpetuate the claim that theServices are still allegedly locked into an earlyto mid twentieth-century timewarp. This in turnmeans ignoring clear evidence of the giantstrides taken towards a joint-Service approachsince 1984, following the decade-long joint-Service vacuum created by the 1974 changes.It also means ignoring or denying the greatefforts needed to overcome the obstacles to‘jointery’ set by the Tange model.

• The Secretary’s responsibility for fiduciarymatters is undisputed, but historical aberrationsand trends in other matters continue to havedetrimental effects. Despite the eventualcreation and strengthening of the position ofCDF in the 1984−2000 period, the long joint-Service, strategic-level vacuum from the 1940sto the 1980s resulted in the position of Secretaryassuming and retaining responsibilities thatlimit an appropriate politico-military interface,inhibit civil political control (to varying extents)and intrude into military professional matters.In particular, the Secretary’s responsibilities for

(elastically defined) ‘defence policy’ andinterdepartmental liaison, have tended to resultin structural, functional and cultural imbalancesbetween the Secretary and the CDF rather thanin a balanced diarchy. These imbalances havealso often led to inadequate distinctionsbetween mainly public service administrativeand ‘policy’ matters on one hand, and militaryprofessional matters on the other. Theseinadequate distinctions, in turn, cause perpetualtensions between military and civilian staff inparticular, and in many departmental processesin general. These matters are addressed at lengthbelow.

• Many, probably most, of the politicians,bureaucrats, academics and service personnelinvolved over the past two generations haveknown no other philosophical or experientialbasis for the politico-military interface andhigher defence management. They therefore donot, usually through no or little fault of theirown, even recognise or understand the flawedconcepts and structures underlying the currentserious problems in higher defencemanagement.

THE LEGACY OF THE FLAWEDPARADIGMS

One of the chief differences between ourselves andthe ancients lies not (unfortunately) in human nature,but rather in the proliferation of our skills, and ourinstitutions, and therefore in the number of niches inwhich the incompetent can now install themselvesas persons of consequence.

Charles Fair 82

The Poverty of Debate

Both public and internal debates on defence issues inAustralia are often pointless or unresolved.Furthermore, academic and pseudo-academiccontributions are mostly confined to, or heavilyinfluenced by, a relatively small group of professedcivilian academic experts who are ex-defencebureaucrats and/or depend on the Department ofDefence for consultancies, research access or futureemployment. The academic independence andobjectivity of such comment is therefore often suspect.This is an intellectually unhealthy, and at times evenintellectually incestuous, situation.

The poverty of defence debate is a direct product of,and is perpetuated by, the flawed paradigms that


Australia uses to manage higher defence matters. Thisproblem does not occur to the same degree or in thesame manner in any comparable country. This situationis especially so regarding debate on the formulationof defence (and wider national security) strategy andthe development of combat capability to assist inexecuting such strategy.

The Ten Great Myths

It is important to recognise that no other comparabledefence department (for example, British, Canadian,NZ and US) is configured as ours is. No other countryhas ever adopted the flawed structural and culturalparadigms of higher defence management we use. Ourflawed paradigms are based on ten entrenchedbureaucratic attitudes and beliefs that have assumedmythical proportions:

• The internationally well-accepted democraticprinciple of civil control of the military means,(uniquely) in the Australian context, civilianbureaucratic control not civil ministerialcontrol.83

• The size and complexity of the Department ofDefence, and a history of often indifferent orinexperienced Ministers for Defence, meansthat the minister ’s perceived ability to‘interfere’, must be ‘constrained’ by a varietyof bureaucratic structural and processmechanisms.

• Inter-Service professional rivalry was alwaysthe fault of the Services and is still solely theirfault. Such rivalry is not perpetuated andinstitutionalised by the structure and culture ofthe Department of Defence.

• The joint-structured and focused modern ADFis really no different in reality and outlook tothe three relatively uncoordinated single-Services of the early to mid-twentieth century.Even in this day and age senior military officersin particular, and the three Services in general,cannot be trusted to co-operate withoutsignificant civilian bureaucratic supervision.

• Despite both Australian and overseasexperiences demonstrating that a joint-Serviceapproach is best achieved through focusedsynergy of the single-Service specialisations,any intellectual and professional competition

or debate between the Services is always bad(even when synergistic in means and joint andefficient in outcome).

• The Australian way of higher defencemanagement is not unique.84 Sir Arthur Tangedid not have a narrow and anti joint-Serviceperspective and got it totally right in 1974. Allwe have to do is tinker a bit just a little bit more and everything will be perfect, forever.

• Any criticism of the basis and results of the1974 reorganisation is simply an attempt towind the clock back to the pre-1974 situation.All critics are just malcontents, anachronisticor naive.

• The Chiefs of the Navy, Army and Air Forcecommand principal institutions of the state aftera lifetime of service and the accrual ofsubstantial professional expertise across a widerange of duties and responsibilities.85 However,they are only the equivalent, and oftennominally at that, of civilian deputy secretarieswith much less experience, much narrowerbackgrounds and far fewer and more limitedresponsibilities.

• Civilian bureaucrats (and academics) alwaysknow more about all defence matters than theprofessional experts of the ADF do.

• Tension between the government’s civilian andmilitary advisers is creative or otherwisebeneficial.86

This last myth has been a longstanding point ofcontention and cause of disaster. Even the 1986 DibbReport, written by a man many service personnelregard as the archetypical civilian bureaucrat, notedthat:

too much energy is directed towards jurisdictionalbattles involving civilian and military central staffsand single-Service staffs. These conflicts are neithercreative nor productive. 87

As well as the general problems arising from all theabove historical circumstances and the resulting tengreat myths, the flawed structural and culturalparadigms that have resulted ignore or discount twosimple checks and balances used in comparablecountries. These checks and balances are aimed at

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melding a joint-Service approach, and forging aDefence organisation focused on developing andsupporting effective armed forces:

• Empower the professional experts in theServices. They have a real sense of ‘getting itright’ because the bottom line is simply thattheir own lives and the lives of their comradescould be threatened if they do not. Civilianbureaucrats usually have a different set ofpriorities and a different work culture. Thiscultural difference underlies much of thetension between civilian public servants andmilitary personnel in Australian DefenceHeadquarters (ADHQ). Tellingly, it is not at allcommon elsewhere in the department and theADF (as the DER noted).88

• Make the Service end-user of combatequipment an empowered customer. That is,one who controls or has an effective say incontrolling the purse strings within a definedbudget clearly derived from relevant strategicguidance. Service Chiefs, for example, wouldthen be encouraged to spend their budgets verywisely and decisions as to the prioritising ofcapabilities would be significantly enhanced.During his recent visit to Australia the BritishChief of Defence Procurement highlighted thisempowerment as the UK’s single greatesthigher defence management reform of the lastgeneration.89

Recent Developments

The post-DER merger of HQADF and many of thecentral functions of the Department of Defence tocreate ADHQ, including its incorporation of the threeService headquarters as ‘component headquarters’ inearly 1998, were part of the latest attempt to overcomethe serious underlying problems (without reallyadmitting their existence) and to reduce the ensuingtensions and jurisdictional obstacles. The merger hashad some success, especially in improved consultationwith (and between) the Service Chiefs, but it has alsoresulted in or perpetuated several serious problems:

• There is confusion between military commandand control and departmental highermanagement mechanisms to the benefit ofneither (even in a diarchy). In particular, thecreation of the Defence Executive (by the DERand as a reaction to changed financial

management responsibilities) has causedconfusion with the COSC and a markeddiminution in the effectiveness (and perception)of the latter body.

• The military chain of command and staffresponsibility from the CDF through ADHQ tothe ADF has been compromised. Unsatisfactoryand potentially dangerous compromises havealso been made between tried and tested ADFoperational staff procedures and departmentalbureaucratic methods and processes.

• The diarchy (shared control and responsibilityby the CDF and Secretary) has effectively beenpushed down several levels, and the linesbetween military operational and otherdepartmental functions have become even moreblurred. In this structure of diffusedresponsibility it is also not possible to be certainthat the constitutional, legislative and practicaldistinctions between the minister’s generalcontrol of the Defence Organisation and theCDF’s command of the ADF are preserved.The minister, or any civilian officialrepresenting the minister, has no legal or moralauthority to give orders to a member of the ADF(but must do so through the CDF and themilitary chain of command). This is not just alegal nicety but an important conceptunderlying the principles of civil control of themilitary, and an apolitical military, in aWestminster system.

• The structure and culture is not ‘organised forwar and adapted for peace’ as the DER intended.Unity of command is fast becoming a forgottenprinciple. When the East Timor crisis occurredin late 1999, several ad hoc working groupswere established in ad hoc locations. There werenumerous overlaps between divisions, functionsand responsibilities, no clear idea of what weremilitary professional responsibilities, and aneven more blurred line between policy, strategyand operations. There was also no clear systemor ability to reinforce understaffed functionswith suitably experienced or qualifiedpersonnel. The strongly held philosophyespoused by a previous long-serving Secretary,Tony Ayers, that departmental officials muststep back during wars and defence crises so as


to let the CDF command,90 has been diminishedor ignored (however unconsciously).

• The DER acknowledged the continuing needfor the three Service headquarters91 but imposedan essentially arbitrary 100-person staff ceilingon them. The Service Chiefs and their staffs(who also have to lead and manage a complexService) now struggle to keep up with the flowof policy and meetings emanating from thedepartmental central staffs (which largely haveno other responsibilities). More importantly,there is clear evidence that senior officers withinthe Service headquarters are now overtaxed, inthat there are too few of them to cope with allthe policy, committee and working groupprocesses involved. In the case of the ServiceChiefs and their deputies, this is especially sowhen their onerous command responsibilitiesand duties for the rest of their Service are takeninto account.

• In stark contrast, many of the central policyfunctions have seen significant growth in theirstaffs post-DER. This significant difference inrelative staff capacity is accentuated by theunwillingness of many senior civilian staff toembrace the component structure introduced bythe DER, and acknowledge the two-wayconsultation and support model now involved.92

In many cases there has even been anunwillingness to acknowledge the veryexistence of the component structure. This isborne out by major policy documents requiringconsultation, agreement or participation acrossthe whole of ADHQ still being written in virtualseclusion by small, often narrowly experiencedor narrowly focused, civilian staffs rather thanby integrated teams including representativesfrom the three Service headquarters. Relatedproblems include: comment on drafts oftenbeing required at too short a notice (such aseighteen to forty-eight hours);93 unrealisticrestrictions on physical duplication and accessbeing imposed; or the eventual circulation ofsuch a draft for comment being so late in thedocument’s development that major effort isthen required to refocus and correct it.Furthermore, whatever the reality, thewidespread perception in the Serviceheadquarters and elsewhere is that this is a

common civilian bureaucratic tactic tominimise Service participation but preserve theillusion that the Services have been involved.94

• Despite the changes proposed by the DER beingsupposedly logical and well-considered, thedepartment has been in a state of considerableorganisational and cultural flux ever since thereport was implemented during mid to late1997. The rate and degree of change has evenbeen such that no comprehensive departmentaltelephone book has been produced since mid1998 and even the computerised databasedirectories are continually well out of date. Thedegree and rate of post-DER change surelyindicates continuing structural flaws in theunderlying philosophy and basis.

• Senior military officers are not having sufficienttime, when posted in key central policy areas,to gain the situational and ‘networking’experience needed to match that accrued bycivilian subordinates and peers. Most militaryofficers make up for this with their generallybetter and usually broader qualifications andexperience. However, the comparative lack ofsuch broader experience in many civilian staffis often hidden by their superficial but morenoticeable situational knowledge, and by thecorporate continuity they contribute throughsimple longevity.

All these problems are interwoven with the underlying,but usually unacknowledged, functional, professional,cultural and often personal tensions between thedepartment’s civilian and military staff. Over the lasttwenty-five years successive CDF and departmentalsecretaries have kept assuring everybody that suchtensions are ‘now well in the past’. The reality,however, is that they generally keep getting worse, ormore sublimated, because in the lower echelons of theDefence Organisation the tension, in both directions,is inherent in the everyday detail. The sublimationmainly occurs through seven tendencies:

• First, is denial, where the problem is simplydenied outright or described as an ‘ancient’ onethat has been solved. Propagators of this beliefinvariably have great difficulty demonstratingwhen and how the problem was actually solved,and in explaining away its continuingmetamorphoses.

18 NEIL JAMES

• Second, is ‘groupthink’, where the pursuit ofdepartmental consensus is elevated to an endin itself, or ‘not rocking the boat’ is carried tothe extent of forgetting why we have the boatin the first place.

• Third, the operational, doctrinal and culturalprocesses involved with a joint-Serviceapproach to ADF command, control, operationsand training have often tended to divert theprofessional and intellectual energies of Servicepersonnel. This was especially so during the1989−1995 catch-up phase caused by theobstacles to effective ADF strategic commandresulting from the 1974 changes. To an extent,this diversion has been conscious in that manyService personnel have deliberately appliedtheir efforts to strategic-level, joint-Servicereforms that they could achieve with minimalcivilian bureaucratic interference.

• Fourth, is the tendency for military officers,consciously or subconsciously, to redirect theirenergies to professionalism at the tactical andoperational levels, where it is much freer fromdirect civilian bureaucratic interference andthey can still achieve progress.

• Fifth, is the tendency of some military officersto ‘go native’ and meekly accept civilianbureaucratic control. In some cases this ispurely for selfish careerist purposes or becausethey are so used to such control that they havestopped consciously noticing. In other cases, itis due to a genuine (but usually mistaken) beliefthat a short-term benefit for the ADF will beachieved by a wider acquiescence. In stillfurther cases, it is because they believe (usuallyin a triumph of hope over experience) that realreform of the system can be achieved fromwithin.

• Sixth, is the increasing tendency to resignation,where hope of reforming the system has givenway to despair after the litany of the last twenty-five years of failed ‘reforms’. This often stemsfrom a perception that it is hopeless to continueadvocating reform when so much merit in somuch argument has been undermined orignored because of so much bureaucratic andpolitical inertia. In at least some cases there is

also an acknowledgment of the lack ofexperienced politicians that recognise the needfor change, know what changes are reallyneeded and have the political will to force realchange.

• Finally, there is the informal suppression, exileor retirement of critics (both military andcivilian). A variant of this tendency is todescribe any critic as a malcontent, ‘not a teamplayer’, or naive.

Key Points for Debate

As long as the underlying basis of departmentalmanagement diarchic control of, and civilianbureaucratic intrusion into, military professionalmatters goes undebated and unreformed, civilian−Service relationships will never get better and thedepartment’s flawed strategic guidance and capabilitydevelopment mechanisms cannot be fixed. There is,in effect, a perpetual and institutionalised struggle forcontrol of various processes, agendas and accesses.Both civilian and military staff have tended to taketheir eye away from the ball (combat capability basedon robustly derived strategic guidance) and the goalposts (the best defence for the money available) as aresult.

A measure of diarchy itself is not necessarilyunworkable although no other comparable country hasone or configures one like ours. If a diarchy is used,the two key questions involved are whether the diarchyshould ever be pushed below the topmost level: thatof Secretary and CDF; and what are the managementand other functions requiring strictly professionalmilitary expertise, other expertise or a mix of both?With regard to this last question, four further issues orquestions must be addressed:

• What is military professional expertise?

• The need to avoid the dangerous assumptionsthat either all or no functions require militaryprofessional expertise.

• Whether the numerous and confusing overlapsbetween primarily civilian management andsupport functions, and primarily militaryprofessional functions, increase or decreaseADF operational effectiveness anddepartmental administrative efficiency.


• The need to avoid compromising theSecretary’s fiduciary responsibilities, but alsothe need to avoid the baseless notion that suchresponsibilities are incompatible with anystructures and processes other than the currentones.

One of the key problems with the Department ofDefence at present is an unwillingness to recognisethe long history involved, acknowledge Australia’sunique system of higher defence management; andentertain debate on issues such as the diarchy orcivilian–military tensions generally. Too often thechoice is made to avoid debate by simple repetition ofthe mantra that all such problems are in the past.

It could well be argued that, in an ideal world, theappropriate public-service role is ‘best practice’business management and to fulfil only those defencemanagement and wider defence functions, such asfinance,95 that professional military advisers cannotor should not assume. The military role is to providemilitary professional advice; command, control,strategic leadership; and the vision and warfightingexpertise required for effective and strategicallyrelevant capability development. This approach isbased on a holistic model of Service professionalismand the concept of a through-career professionalcontinuum.96 As Wavell noted in his famous Lees-Knowles Lectures at Cambridge in 1939:

A knowledge of the mechanics of war, not [just] theprinciples of strategy, is what distinguishes a goodleader from a bad one.97

The department’s new Secretary has described theDefence Department as requiring ‘fundamentalrenewal’, of having ‘no coherent ongoing corporateperformance assessment’ and as possessing elementsof a ‘culture of learned helplessness’.98 Any reform ofhigher defence management must surely include a freshexamination of these underlying tensions anddemarcation disputes.

Some critics have argued that the Defence Organisationcould be reorganised on a customer−supplier model(similar to the UK), where the ADF is the customerand the department the supplier (or contract manager).Other proposed (and related) models stem from thesuggestion that some type of functional firewallbetween the strategic military headquarters and thedepartment is required (similar to NZ and, to some

extent, the USA). The purpose of this paper is notnecessarily to recommend any particular model forhigher defence organisation. However, in an idealworld, all such models and any reform of thedepartment need to be firmly based on the firstprinciples outlined on page one, and a genuinewillingness to entertain all reform proposals.

Unfortunately we do not appear to live in an idealworld. Even more unfortunately, we appear to havelargely stopped striving for one in the generalacceptance, however grudgingly, of the currentunderlying philosophical basis for configuringresponsibilities within the Department of Defence. Oneof the principal reasons for this apparent failure isforgetfulness or conscious disregard of the firstprinciples involved, such as the correct meaning of civilcontrol of the military, letting military professionalsmanage military professional matters and achievingreal ‘jointness’ through focused single-Service synergy.

This is borne out by one of the often-criticised keyphilosophical, structural and functional problems inthe Department of Defence: the institutionalisedcivilian bureaucratic dominance of most of the keycommittees and processes in the department’s oftenconvoluted business-management mechanisms. Therehas been recent and long overdue reform in this regard,especially in the change to an advisory rather than anexecutive role for the key combat-capabilitydevelopment committee. However, the essential fallacyof civilian bureaucratic control is exemplified by theDefence Capability Committee (DCC), which isconcerned with key decisions on warfightingcapability, being comprised of three civilian membersand only one military member, the Vice Chief of theDefence Force (VCDF), with the professional headsof all three Services formally excluded.99 Although theService Chiefs can attend by invitation, the perceptionof their professional exclusion is just as harmful as thereality in terms of civilian bureaucratic−militaryrelations.

Recent reforms vested the VCDF with responsibilityfor ‘determining policy direction to guide thedevelopment and management of current and futureDefence capability’.100 The previous civilian-dominated and insufficiently joint-Service process hadresulted in controversial projects such as the CollinsClass submarines, over-the-horizon-radar, and themany weapon platforms ‘fitted for but not with’weapons and equipment that are then of limited or noutility in sudden crises. These are just a few examples

20 NEIL JAMES

of the department’s apparent longstanding inability toformulate effective strategic guidance and thenefficiently deliver relevant combat capabilities ingeneral, and without potentially endangering ADF livesin particular.

Furthermore, in the public mind (with its limitedknowledge of defence procurement processes andresponsibilities), seemingly disastrous defenceprocurement decisions are always attributed toapparently incompetent admirals, generals and airmarshals. Many of the civilian staff involved appearto expend no energy in correcting this flawedperception, and some appear to even deliberatelycultivate it when the press or politicians take an interest.

Civilian bureaucratic control of the capabilitydevelopment process, which can involve decisions onthe literal lifeblood of ADF personnel, is surelyinsupportable on a range of moral, philosophical,professional and operational grounds. Even onfinancial grounds, the Secretary’s role does not requireor otherwise justify such control. There are far bettermechanisms to satisfy both ADF operationaleffectiveness and the Secretary’s fiduciaryresponsibilities. The UK model in particular hasachieved both as well as cutting costs.

REFORMING THE FLAWEDINSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE

One requirement of military organisation is a clearsubordination of the military services to dulyconstituted civilian authority. This control must bereal, not merely on the surface.

Sir Robert Menzies (quoting PresidentEisenhower)101

Maximising the Value of Military ProfessionalExpertise

Reform of the department’s flawed structures mustcombine historical analysis, experience, common senseand lateral thinking. One important step is to reducethe number of higher management fora andrationalise them on command and control, functionaleffectiveness and accountability grounds.102 Forexample, even in a diarchy, why is it necessary to haveall the following:

• Defence Council (Ministers, CDF, Secretaryand Service Chiefs) which rarely meets;

• COSC (CDF, VCDF and Service Chiefs, witha permanent invitation to the Secretary andinvitations to the Under-Secretary, deputysecretaries and CDS when pertinent matters areto be discussed); and

• Defence Executive (CDF, Secretary, Under-Secretary, Service Chiefs, Commander SupportAustralia, CDS, Deputy Secretary–Strategy,and Deputy Secretary–Resources andManagement)?

This is related to a key problem with the currentstructure, the belief by the Services (and many externalobservers) that the spectators have invaded the pitch.If you accept the commonly used business managementanalogy that the ADF is the customer and theDepartment of Defence the supplier, there are cleardangers and contradictions in the current arrangementsand some confusion about who is actually decidingthe orders: the customer or the supplier. The riskAustralia now faces is that instead of supplying theproduct (capability) needed (by our strategiccircumstances) the tendency, however unconsciously,is to only ask for what the customer thinks it can getrather than what the customer might need.

Some lateral thinking is called for, especially as theDefence Executive a relatively new phenomenon appears to often try to function as a quasi-COSC.More to the point, the COSC already considers manykey defence issues and embodies the seniorprofessional military experience in the country.103 TheCOSC is also an important control mechanism in theCDF’s full command of the ADF.104 Why not,therefore, entrust the COSC with making or testing allthe department’s key specialist decisions on Australia’sdefence and warfighting capabilities, either collectivelyor through a subcommittee structure that might alsoeffectively harness relevant civilian expertise?105 TheCOSC could also have the final responsibility forproviding collective advice on such matters to the CDFand minister (and Secretary in some circumstances).

Under the overall command and direction of the CDF,COSC members already have individual and collectivemoral and statutory responsibilities, both to theirsubordinates and to the country as a whole, to preparetheir subordinates for potential combat as effectivelyas possible. Furthermore, they are entrusted with suchresponsibilities and exercise them in a way that nocivilian bureaucrat is likewise entrusted or so does.


This stark contrast in individual moral and professionalresponsibility cuts to the heart of the debate about howto ensure accountability and transparency within theDepartment of Defence.

Led by the CDF, the COSC should also be the seniorprofessional body that assesses strategic decision-making and force-structuring, and advises the ministeraccordingly. Again led by the CDF, it should be thecollective professional expertise of COSC that is alsoultimately responsible for advising the Secretary’sCommittee on National Security (SCNS) 106 on thedefence aspects of wider national security issues.107

This is especially so now the SCNS appears to havereplaced de facto the previous statutoryinterdepartmental Defence Committee, which had asimilar public service membership at Secretary levelbut also, quite properly, included the three ServiceChiefs as well as the CDF.108 The removal of theService Chiefs from SCNS–Defence Committee leveldeliberations should be urgently and actively re-examined as their inclusion bolsters, not hinders, theoverall command responsibilities of the CDF. Finally,once again led by the CDF, it should also be thecollective professional expertise of COSC that, forpurely strategic (rather than broader security) issues,is directly provided to the National Security Committeeof Cabinet (NSCC).109

Another highly workable option would be to give allor most of these roles to the Defence Council and thisoption is discussed in detail below. The simple factthat the role, responsibilities and importance of theService Chiefs and the COSC have been sodowngraded since 1974, especially since the creationof the Defence Executive,110 is one of the biggestindictments of the current structure (and culture). Thatthis overall downgrading of the COSC in particularhas occurred over the same period that ‘jointery’ (inter-Service integration and coordination) has increasedmarkedly is particularly ironic and nothing short ofastounding to outside observers.

Maximising Civil Political Control

The other key problem to be solved is how ministersshould actually be involved. This is not the same ashow ministers are nominally involved or how they areactually excluded or circumscribed by bureaucraticstructures and processes. In some ways, theorganisation of the Services before 1974 had better

mechanisms for formally involving their respectiveministers through ministerial membership (and oftenchairmanship) of the Service Boards,111 which wereused as statutory collective bodies to manage eachService. Since 1974, most of these powers have beenvested solely in the (one) Minister for Defence andexercised in a completely different way.

There have been numerous advantages arising fromthis change, especially as two ministers are nowrequired to do the work that five undertook prior to1974. It is also worth noting that even the Morsheadcommittee recommended three ministers in 1958.However, one key disadvantage of the 1974 changesis that they have effectively removed the minister fromsufficient day-to-day contact with the issues and withhis principal military professional advisers. This lackof contact has resulted in numerous consultation,briefing, direction and cultural difficulties at manylevels, and in how the minister relates to the departmentand the department to the minister. This lack of contacthas also hindered the development of mutualconfidence at the politico-military interface.

These difficulties have generally been exploited in thebureaucracy’s favour (both unconsciously andruthlessly) with the resultant model also working tominimise or neutralise ministerial control anddepartmental transparency and accountability. The1999 dispute between the Minister for Defence andthe previous Secretary of the department appeared torevolve primarily around their respective perspectivesconcerning the fundamental issues of transparency,accountability and ministerial exclusion.

The department’s current model has tended to divertthe departmental focus away from both the operationaleffectiveness of the ADF, and accountability andproactivity in regard to the minister. It could also beargued that the current model has unnecessarilycomplicated good working relationships between theminister on the one hand, and the Secretary and CDFon the other, and between the minister and the ADFgenerally. Furthermore, while most recent Secretariesand CDF appear to have co-operated well, this hasgenerally required great personal effort on their partsrather than being eased by clearly delineated andmutually supporting responsibilities.112 The currentmodel has also often caused difficult relations betweenthe minister’s political and departmental staffs.

22 NEIL JAMES

Whatever the reality, and with only one commonly-quoted but often qualified exception,113 the perceptionof most service personnel and public servants (with agood understanding of the situation) is that no Ministerfor Defence since the 1974 unification of the defencegroup of departments has been as effective as theyshould have been. At least some of these ministers haveperformed adequately in other portfolios. Theunderlying reason for such apparent low regard in thedefence context is surely twofold:

• Under the current structure the sheer size, spanand complexity of the department are beyondthe effective comprehension and supervision ofany one minister, even if ably supported by theminister assisting and the parliamentarysecretary.

• The department is not organised to maximiseministerial ‘grip’.114 In fact it could well beargued that the department is organised (andculturally acclimatised) to minimise such ‘grip’.

The three essential points concerning ministerial ‘grip’are:

• Whatever the competence or enthusiasm ofindividual Ministers for Defence (and theirministers assisting and parliamentarysecretaries), the current configuration of thedepartment is effectively too complex, too rigid,isolates the minister and prevents the ministerfrom being as closely involved as he or sheshould be in order to grasp key issues andprovide effective direction and supervision. Thestructures must be reformed in detail in orderto involve ministers, allow them to understandkey issues and exert effective ministerialoversight and real ‘grip’.

• Whatever the reality concerning sufficientministerial oversight, the perception anyway isthat most, perhaps all, ministers lack a grasp ofthe issues and detail required to providedirection and supervision. This perceived lackof understanding and commensurate grip iscorrosive to morale in the ADF and thedepartment, and to good government overall.

• The current structural and cultural paradigmsdo not encourage the department and the ADFto be proactive in their interaction with theminister. If the minister were more closely

engaged, and this engagement were transparent,there would be fundamental advantages for theminister, the department and the ADF. Inparticular, there would be much greateraccountability, more mutual confidence inministerial oversight (no more ‘if only the Tsarknew’ style learned helplessness), and a greaterfacility for the minister to grip the optionsavailable, and not available, to government.

Maximising Civil Political Control and MilitaryProfessional Expertise Together

A good solution for appropriate management of thepolitico-military interface exists in the Defence Councillaid down in both the Defence Act115 and in similaroverseas models of higher defence management. Thepost-1974 structure of the Department of Defencecontinued to include a statutory Defence Council,116

which was originally intended to be the senior defencedecision-making forum below Cabinet level. Inpractice, where such decision-making does occur, it isactually carried out de facto by the SCNS. A morejunior interdepartmental body, the Strategic PolicyCoordination Group (SPCG), is used for more frequentconsultation.117 The Defence Council is now mainly atitular body with far narrower terms of reference,restricted to matters referred to it by the Minister forDefence regarding the control and administration ofthe ADF.

The purpose and role of the Defence Council shouldbe actively and closely re-examined.It may be that the increased level of governmental directionrequired, and the increased direct involvement by theminister in professional and policy discussions manyconsider necessary, could best be implemented byreinvigorating the Defence Council. There is a strongargument that the Council should be used to managethe Defence Organisation in a similar manner to theway the old Service Boards managed their Servicesbefore 1974. The minister would retain his post-1974powers and responsibilities but would be better served,advised and involved in his exercise of them. Theminister, department and ADF would also be betterorganised to speak with one voice, without any loss oftransparency or weakening of formal or informalinternal dispute-resolution mechanisms. In short, real‘grip’ would be possible.

Another advantage of using the Defence Council inthis way is that, compared to the COSC for example,


it allows appropriate and formal participation by theSecretary in order to meet his numerous and onerousfiduciary responsibilities. Financial accountabilityacross the Defence Organisation would also be assistedby adopting the commercial accountability practice ofhaving ‘independent directors’ from outside theDefence Organisation and the wider public service.Such independent directors on the Defence Council,perhaps two in number, would have to be carefullychosen on security grounds and to exclude potentialcommercial conflicts of interest with suppliers of goodsand services to the department and the ADF. Theywould also have to be genuine individuals ofconsiderable commercial eminence and experiencerather than retired politicians, retired public servantsor other potentially questionable appointments.118

Given the fundamental importance of defence issuesat a national level, these independent directors shouldbe appointed by the Governor General in Council ratherthan be just ministerial appointments. All these checksand balances should be carefully detailed in theDefence Act.

To prevent inappropriate bureaucratic control ofdefence from re-exerting itself, however, membershipof the council should otherwise continue to be confinedby statute (and functional logic) to the ministers, CDF,VCDF, Service Chiefs, Secretary and also the newUnder-Secretary for Acquisition. The fiction thatdepartmental deputy secretaries have equivalent legal,functional and moral status, as well as analogousresponsibilities, to the Service Chiefs should bedismissed once and for all.

In using the Defence Council in this way, the COSCcould handle those matters of lesser importance notrequiring direct ministerial attention. In terms of seniormanagement structure reforms below Defence Counciland COSC level, a large part of the solution lies inagain reforming the departmental hierarchy using thefirst principles on page one. Three important specificsteps would be to:

• re-empower the Service Chiefs (perhaps alongsimilar lines to the UK model) to allow them tocommand each Service effectively, under thecommand of the CDF and the general collectivecontrol and joint focus of COSC (and theDefence Council);

• allow senior military officers to manage allmilitary professional matters; and

• limit senior civilian management roles to thefunctions, such as finance, that cannot or shouldnot be done by professional military officers.

As an example of the first step, the current integratedpersonnel career management and combat capabilitydevelopment processes could be returned to theprimary control of Service Chiefs. No loss of uniformstandards and procedures across the Services or lossof joint service synergy need be involved. As the Britishexample previously noted shows, such a return wouldnot only increase operational effectiveness but wouldsignificantly increase transparency and accountability.The British experience is that there was the additionalbenefit of a reduction in procurement costs.119

As an example of the latter two steps, why is the seniorcivilian appointment of Deputy Secretary–Strategyreally required when the management of defencestrategy and its associated matters at this level is clearlymore a function requiring military professional, ratherthan civilian generalist, expertise? The assumption thatthis is a public service function is especially difficultto comprehend as the military have a formal through-career focus on education and training in, and nurturingand employing, strategic skills.120 Why is it justassumed in the department and elsewhere that thesenior strategy appointment in the DefenceOrganisation is always a civilian position, especiallyas most overseas counterparts, where they even exist,are not? After all, is this not just a historical carry-over from the era in Australia when (unfortunately)international defence policy drove defence strategyrather than (appropriately) the other way round?121 Isit not also somewhat of a lingering psychologicalremnant of the general international situation in theearly days of the Cold War, when there was a tendencyto rely on civilian nuclear warfare strategists beforemilitary specialists could be educated and trained insufficient numbers?

It appears to be merely assumed in the department andelsewhere that no military officer is ever professionallyor intellectually equipped for senior strategy positions.This is despite their through-career professionaldevelopment in the building-block operational andtactical-level skills (Wavell’s ‘mechanics of war’)necessary to understand strategy in its full context the continuums of peace and conflict. Why, therefore,is it so easily assumed that a civilian generalist canfulfil such duties when most civilian incumbents do

24 NEIL JAMES

not appear to have had any through-career system ofeducation, training and experience directed to such anend? Even if a distinction is drawn between theformulation of military and wider national securitystrategies, the same questioning of the status quoassumptions apply. The flawed assumption seems tohave grown from unchallenged practice and customrather than principle or tested operation. Even SirArthur Tange has noted with regard to strategy that:

public service advisers obviously should not be thesole source of advice to the Minister on these mattersand still less be the final point of decision.122

Could it simply be that the main imperative to place acivilian official in charge of defence strategy is basedmerely on habit, an unwarranted lack of confidence ortrust in the military, or a belief (true or untrue) thatcivilian incumbents may be more pliable politically orbureaucratically? Could it also be based on Sir ArthurTange’s well known but somewhat arrogant and at leasthighly questionable view that ‘strategic guidanceshould not be expected from politicians but in practicebubbled up from below’?123 Whatever the underlyingreasons, or their possible applicability in the distantpast, their continuing validity in the early twenty-firstcentury must be challenged. This is particularly sowhen the joint-Service structure and focus of themodern ADF is acknowledged. After all it is anestablished principle at both federal and state level that,under general ministerial control, we let policecommissioners run modern police forces and firecommissioners run modern fire services withoutpolitical or civilian bureaucratic interference inoperational matters.

Furthermore, although highly inappropriate, theposition of Deputy Secretary–Strategy is in practicemore powerful than that of the VCDF or the ServiceChiefs although it is meant to be, at the very most,only equal in status, authority and function. Theessential point is that, even if the civilian incumbentwere able to possess the strategic skills of Mahan, thestaff skills of Von Moltke and the bureaucratic skillsof Richelieu, the current structure invests too muchfunctional responsibility and power in the one person;largely by accidental mutation rather than design andwithout apparent support from robust professional andcultural structures and practices.

Would it not, for example, make better sense insteadin this day and age to have two Vice Chiefs of the

Defence Force: one with responsibilities for strategyand operations, and the other with responsibility forcapability development? As well as the considerableinternal and external logic involved, such a reformwould have ten very useful consequences. It would:

• remove at a stroke a major cause of civilian-military tension;

• implement the basic principle of militaryprofessionals handling military professionalresponsibilities and functions;

• enable a better institutional and practicalcapacity to provide transparent and accountableadvice to the ministerial level;

• carry the evolution of truly joint-Servicecommand, control, development and operationsa major step further;

• better broker professional solutions to inter-Service professional differences;

• allow the COSC and Defence Councilmembership to include all principal militaryprofessional functions in ADHQ;

• better spread the load among the senior militaryleadership of the ADF;

• reinforce the principle of unity of command(even in a diarchy);

• reinforce a fully military chain of command andstaff support from the CDF through theVCDFS&O to the (military) Head ofStrategic Command Division and beyond; and

• increase the opportunity for tri-Serviceprofessional breadth at the apex of the ADF.124

Bold reforms of this nature are difficult to implementno matter how necessary they may be. For example,despite the 1997 DER questioning the need for theposition now described as Deputy Secretary–Resourcesand Management,125 that position actually becamemore entrenched and more influential in the subsequentorganisational changes implemented.

Another recent prime example of frustrated progressis that one of the few real reforms resulting from the


1997 DER was the creation of the position of Head ofStrategic Policy and Plans (HSPP) and the decisionthat the skills and responsibility required were that ofa two-star military officer. The position wassubsequently abolished in July 1999, ostensiblybecause it was unnecessary, and the four one-starequivalent subordinates then answered directly to theDeputy Secretary–Strategy.126 Most military andcivilian observers have not seen this as a workablealternative, either in theory or practice.127 The recentresurrection of the position of HSPP (without apparentexplanation) as a civilian official is a significant stepbackwards, in both fact and functional development.It is also a giant leap backwards in the way it hasrenewed considerable military resentment at civilianmanagement of (but not participation in) yet anotheressentially military professional function.128 A similarstep backwards has occurred with the appointment ofa civilian with no military or intelligence-specialistexperience as Director of the Defence IntelligenceOrganisation (DIO). Previous reforms had resulted inthis becoming a military position following muchcriticism of DIO’s longstanding unresponsiveness insupporting the ADF. Australia now has one of the fewmajor defence intelligence agencies in the world,possibly the only one, headed by a civilian official inthis way.129

This is not to say that some civilian officials cannot dosome management jobs in such functional areas someof the time. Indeed, both the public servants recentlyappointed to the two positions described above areexperienced departmental officials. However, bothinternational practice and Australian experiencedemonstrate that senior strategy and intelligencemanagement positions usually require the professionalmilitary skills of a senior Service officer to be done tothe optimum benefit of the ADF, department andcountry as a whole. This is particularly so for thetopmost management position in such functions.

The other question that needs to be seriously examinedand answered is whether many functions in theDepartment of Defence only exist to satisfy thebureaucratic processes of other departmental functions,rather than have any intrinsic value? Are manyfunctions actually required to satisfy the core businessof the department, especially ensuring the combateffectiveness of the ADF? This is a complex issuebeyond the scope of this paper, although one facet ofthis line of debate the size and seniority of the senior

civilian bureaucracy relative to the ADF leadership is briefly discussed in the next section. It is a topic thatmust be extensively and urgently debated.

Finally, reorganisation of the department using theprinciples outlined on page one should be buttressedby rationalisation of the number of operational-levelheadquarters in the ADF.130 The integration ofHeadquarters Australian Theatre (HQAST), and theconsequent full incorporation of its maritime, land andair component headquarters, would dovetail neatly withthe suggested commensurate reforms at the jointstrategic level outlined above. Similarly, the integrationof National Support Division in ADHQ, and theDefence Acquisition Organisation (DAO), into SupportCommand – Australia (SC-A) should be examined.131

Any concern that specialist single-Service professionalinterests might not be taken into account by such moveswould be allayed by the individual and collective re-empowerment of the Chiefs of Staff described above.

REFORMING THE FLAWEDINSTITUTIONAL CULTURE

Service Officers ... may well feel that they are theonly real professionals in the business. They aretempted to believe that the cards are stacked againstthem, and they are bound to lose most of the contestswith the civilians, but they have no alternative tobattling away to ensure that slick and ignorantpoliticians, or obtuse and ill-informed publicservants, do not destroy too quickly the nation’s vitaldefences for the sake of a few votes at the poll orpromotion to the next public service grade inwhatever government department provides theopportunity.

Professor T.B. Millar 132

Acknowledging the Problem

The Department of Defence’s flawed structures andperverted institutional culture continually exacerbateeach other. There is also a middle ground wheredepartmental problems are part structural and partcultural but the degrees of each vary over time orcircumstance, or are hard to identify specifically orconsistently as one or the other.

Reforming the structure alone will not reform thedepartment. The institutional culture is inimical toreform and requires commensurate action. First up isthe need to acknowledge the problem, accept thatdebate is required and recognise such debate aslegitimate. Second is acceptance of the need toacknowledge and reward not punish or traduce

26 NEIL JAMES

constructive critics. A close third is the need toacknowledge the power of perception when discussinginstitutional culture.

Reforging the Ethic

It is not the intention of this paper to decry the practiceof integrated military and civilian staffs in manydefence management functions. Far from it. TheDepartment of Defence has many highly motivated andhighly competent public servants. Moreover, many ofthem recognise that the civilian bureaucracy’sstructural and cultural dominance of the military isfundamentally unsound and works against effectivecivilian–military teamwork.

There can be little doubt that integrated military–civilian staffs will work better once respectiveprofessional roles are properly delineated andrespected, and the underlying causes of friction andtension are removed. The solutions to much of thedepartment’s institutional culture problems really liein deciding what functions are best managed by seniormilitary professionals, and what balance of militaryprofessional and generalist (and specialist) civilianskills are required to support such managers.

The department’s mix of structural flaws and pervertedculture underlies the fact that no Service Chief hasbecome CDF since General Peter Gration in early 1987.The current departmental structure places the ServiceChiefs in an invidious position in that it requires themto be somewhat Service-centric in their approach. Ifthey do not effectively represent the specialistprofessional skills and capabilities of their Service, thestructure of the department lacks any other expertiseto do so. Furthermore, the culture of the department issuch that there is often no interest elsewhere in doingso except for the holistic approach of COSC andthis may involve some perceived conflicts of interest.Finally, a Service Chief’s very success at representinghis Service as its professional head is often apparentlyused to exclude him from contention for futureappointment as CDF.

Perception Can Cause as Much Damage as Reality

This situation is buttressed by the perceived (if nottotally actual) power of the civilian bureaucracy toblock the promotion or appointment of those seniorADF officers it perceives as threatening. There is awidespread belief that this exclusion is achievedthrough the civilian bureaucrats’ formal influence and

by whispering campaigns to ministers. In the case ofappointments to CDF, the actual excuse often floatedin departmental discussions is that Service Chiefs aretoo closely associated with their particular single-Service to function objectively in a joint environment,where they would have to make decisions based oncomparing their parent Service’s needs with the others.The same argument is advanced against more juniorService officers in the case of other positions. While aperceived inability to be sufficiently objective mayhave been partially true a generation ago,133 it isdifficult to credit this as a serious or insurmountableproblem in the joint-focused modern ADF.Furthermore, such objectivity would be especiallyreinforced, and inter-Service professional synergymaximised, if the COSC (perhaps by subcommittee)were the body eventually responsible and accountablefor strategic decision-making and ADF capabilitydevelopment.

There have also been occasions where it appears quiteclear that competent senior officers have been blockedfrom succeeding to the appointment of Chief of Servicebecause of civilian perceptions that they may be tooeffective at articulating their Service’s professionalneeds or in resisting civilian bureaucratic power. It isalso widely believed in the ADF that some Chiefs ofthe Defence Force have been appointed, on therecommendation of senior civilian bureaucrats,because the civilians believe (however erroneously inindividual cases) that such officers will offer nodetermined resistance to civilian bureaucratic power.Even if totally unfounded, and strong opinions are heldeither way,134 the fact that such perceptions are sostrongly and widely held demonstrates the pervertedinstitutional culture of the department, and the generalbackground of bureaucratic abuse of power that soreadily nurtures such beliefs.

Whatever the actual reality, and again strong opinionsare held either way,135 the perception is deeplyentrenched that Service officers that are adept atrecognising and resisting bureaucratic power are oftensidelined by an effective bureaucratic veto onpromotions and appointments to and above one-starrank, and to colonel-equivalent rank in joint positions;and that this veto continues to be used to muzzle ordivert criticism.136 Lower down the hierarchy,whispering campaigns alleging unsound views or asupposed inability to work with public servants havebeen mounted against colonel and lieutenant colonel-


equivalent military officers perceived as effectivecritics of the cultural and structural status quo.

The essential absurdity of this situation is demonstratedby the simple fact that an inability by civilian staff towork with military officers is not generally regardedas a handicap in important parts of the civilianbureaucracy. With grim irony it often appears that, inat least some parts of the civilian bureaucracy, such aninability is regarded as a virtue and grounds for rapidpromotion. This skewed civilian perception is,however, much less frequent and tolerated than it wasin the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.137

No corresponding military veto applies to civilianbureaucratic promotions and appointments at any leveland no perception exists that one does. Neither formof veto, however formal or informal, should ever apply.If such a civilian veto exists, a commensurate oneshould be given to the CDF, VCDF and the ServiceChiefs. The real solution is to remove the underlyingcauses of civilian−military tension that entrench suchsuspicions and fears about improper vetoes. Thesolution would also require ministers to not seek theviews of senior civilian staff, however informally, andfor senior civilian staff to refuse to provide such viewswhenever asked.

A related problem is the difficulty ADF personnel oftenface when retiring from the ADF and applying forcivilian positions in the department. Again their ADFqualifications and experience are often heavilydiscounted on the spurious grounds that it is notrelevant, or that the retired officer could not beobjective when examining a case proposed by theirprevious Service. Furthermore, despite the oftenstrongly held civilian belief in the equivalency of theirgradings to military rank, there is also often a civilianstaff belief that retired ADF personnel should drop oneor more grades in purported equivalency ontransferring to the public service; and that suchreductions should occur irrespective of the individualcircumstances in particular and the skewed equivalentgradings (in favour of the public service) in general.

There are obviously many civilian positions in thedepartment where an incumbent with prior militaryexperience would be an advantage for the departmentand the ADF. Because of public service selectionguidelines such military qualifications or experiencecannot normally be a factor in selection criteria orrecruitment processes. This is understandable to some

extent but puzzling to many retired Service personnelwhen civilians with no apparent experience for aposition are selected ahead of them. Again, whateverthe reality, the widespread perception exists that retiredmilitary personnel are often and arbitrarilydiscriminated against when applying for civilianpositions in the Department of Defence.

Reforging the Cultural Dynamics

A related, and ever-increasing, cultural and structuralproblem in the Defence organisation is the relativeinexperience or narrow experience of many senior andmiddle-level civilian staff, and the rate at which theseinadequacies appear to be increasing. In comparisonwith the broad range and depth of professionalexperience required for the promotion of militaryofficers, and the largely merit-based promotion systeminvolved, the promotion and appointment process formiddle and higher-level civilian bureaucrats appearsseverely wanting. This is especially a serious problemwhen contenders from both streams are considered forthe same position or function.

Furthermore, the military’s emphasis on professionalqualifications for ADHQ appointments such ascareer technical courses and graduation fromdemanding professional, tertiary-level institutions suchas staff college and the Australian Defence College(ADC)138 is not matched, respected or even muchacknowledged by the civilian bureaucracy. It is notregarded as important, and rarely essential, for acivilian official to be a staff college or ADC graduatein order to hold a position or undertake a function forwhich military incumbents would or do require suchqualifications. It may be that the military is tooinflexible in this regard for some positions, but it iscertainly true that the civilian structure is usually muchtoo flexible.

At the very least, the civilian component of thedepartment should have to address relevant andcommensurate professional training in its careerdevelopment and recruitment procedures. Civilianattendance at both ADF staff colleges and ADC shouldbe increased and encouraged in general; and madecompulsory for management positions gradedExecutive Level 2 and higher in areas requiring a goodunderstanding of military professional matters, suchas strategy and capability development.139 The careermanagement of senior civilian staff should also allowthem to attend such courses without having to risk not

28 NEIL JAMES

having a job to return to on completion and beingdeclared surplus.140

This problem is compounded by the skewed focus andoverall subjectivity of many civilian advanced trainingcourses, where they exist. The year-long GraduateDevelopment Program (GDP) for new civilian graduaterecruits to the department is generally well-structuredand managed. The problem is that later or higher levelentrants miss the grounding the GDP provides, andthere is also a general lack of good advanced trainingfor civilian staff. Limited places for civilian staff arealso available but are difficult to fill, especially withvolunteers from Canberra-based policy staffs, who aregenerally not encouraged to attend. Unfortunately, theloosely equivalent public-service courses to staffcollege,141 such as the now largely discredited DefenceSenior Management Course (DSMC),142 are muchshorter, much shallower, have a significantly lesserintellectual and academic atmosphere, are generallynot as morally, professionally and intellectually robust,and are not essential for promotion anyway.

The Service staff colleges and ADC generally providean in-depth and objective overview of the department,and are addressed by a wide range of civilian officialsand senior military officers from across the ADF. Incontrast, civilian-run courses, such as the DSMC, haveoften provided highly selective and subjectiveoverviews, and have deliberately limited addresses tothe course to senior civilian officials and a very fewsenior Service officers in joint appointments only.Wider perspectives, including the roles and views ofthe single-Services, have not been provided. On theDSMC in particular, some senior civilian officials havealso abused Chatham House rules and openly describedsenior military officers, both individually andcollectively, in pejorative and highly offensive terms.The fact that so few civilian staff notice this significantsubjectivity in their training courses, or are evenprepared to acknowledge it when it is drawn to theirattention, demonstrates the serious degree to which theperverted institutional culture has permeated thedepartment.

It is now a frequent occurrence for well-qualified andexperienced colonel, lieutenant colonel and major-equivalent Service officers to have to work for muchless qualified, and far less (and more narrowly)experienced, civilians. Executive Level One, thepurported civilian equivalent grade to lieutenantcolonel−equivalent ADF officers, appears to be

regarded nowadays as almost the entry level for civilianpolicy (as opposed to administrative) staff. Cases ofgraduate recruits rising to this classification within onlya few years are now common. It generally takes ADFofficers about fifteen years of broad, varied andfrequently arduous experience to reach lieutenantcolonel−equivalent rank. This marked disparity causesjustifiable resentment. When the inexperienced civiliansupervisors of experienced military officers are alsomuch younger, even more natural resentment at thecivilian’s seemingly much easier and faster promotionsystem is generated.

This problem is further compounded by several relateddifficulties:

• The arbitrary standard that equates civiliangradings to purported equivalent military rankalso causes serious friction, especially wheninterpreted insensitively by civilian officials(and senior military officers). For example,most civilians classified Executive Level Two(effectively Senior Officers Grade B in the oldterms) are clearly, in experience, competenceand capacity terms, the broad equivalent to amid-term lieutenant colonel-equivalent ADFofficer rather than a colonel−equivalent, as isoften claimed.143

• ADF officers at major and lieutenant colonel−equivalent level are generally entrusted withsignificant responsibilities and duties whenappointed to command sub-units and units, oras senior staff officers on tactical andoperational-level military headquarters. Whenthey then move into Canberra-baseddepartmental positions they are frequentlyplaced in positions where their experience isignored or discounted, their talents not utilisedeffectively and their responsibilitiessignificantly circumscribed. Coupled with thisis often a marked contrast in workingconditions, such as moving from an individualoffice in a unit to a workstation in an open planarea in Canberra.

• The operational need to post Service officersto a range of positions and functions at eachrank is often not understood by many publicservants, despite this being a hallmark ofprofessional armed forces internationally. Thislack of understanding is especially so for publicservants who experience the inconvenience that


the military posting cycle occasionally causesbut who are not able to see the longer-termbenefits for the ADF and the Department ofDefence as a whole. Some public servants evenuse the disparaging term ‘churn’ to describemilitary posting cycles. The solution lies inbetter educating all staff about the need for suchposting cycles, and with three to four yearpostings for two-star ADF officers indepartmental positions. The standard three-yearposting should be sufficient for most othermilitary staff.

• Civilian staff performing some Canberra-basedfunctions can bring an advantage of consistencyand continuity through longevity alone.However, the greater breadth and depth ofexperience gained by military staff, especiallywhen posted outside Canberra and tooperational ADF units, generally provides themwith a greater perspective and more flexibilityin both outlook and employment. Thisimbalance in experience and perspectives cancause tension both directly and indirectly.

• Many civilian staff have a quite differentcultural focus, and one that is generally aliento, and largely incompatible with, the corewarfighting focus of their military counterparts.Mutual incomprehension can lead to mutualantagonism.

• The differences between the militaryprofessional concept of staff officers andbureaucratic policy officer models also causeperpetual tension. In particular, the military’swartime tested approach to ‘staffing a problem’is a concept often not fully understood byCanberra-based public servants. Inappropriateapplication of civilian matrix managementmethods to operational or operational supportfunctions can also cause considerable tension.

• Finally, while some ‘military bureaucrats’undoubtedly exist there is a widespreadperception among professional ADF officersthat careerism and patronage fuel the civilianappointment process to an unacceptable degree,both professionally and morally.144

The combination of all these problems has producedmarked cynicism and a major morale problem in ADFofficer ranks. This is reflected in the separation ratesfor Service officers at, or on, the threshold of themilitary ranks requiring significant interaction with thecivilian bureaucracy in Canberra.145

In theory, a range of middle and senior-level ADHQappointments are open to both civilian officials andService officers and are filled by the best personavailable. In practice, especially at the more seniorlevels, this usually appears to work only one way, withcivilians replacing Service officers. The apparentexclusion or discouragement of retired Service officersfrom filling such positions reinforces this point aslongevity, the most frequently quoted objection toService personnel, is obviously not a problem in suchcases. Some crossover is probably beneficial from timeto time for some positions, but the long-term and broadsolution lies in more clearly delineating which seniormanagement positions require military professionalskills on a permanent basis. This problem requiresradical rethinking and an emphasis on operationalneeds and departmental effectiveness. In the two recentexamples already discussed, the positions of Directorof the Defence Intelligence Organisation and Head ofStrategic Policy and Plans, these types of position arenaturally regarded as appointments requiringprofessional military expertise in virtually allcomparable countries.146 Why then are such functionsmanaged by public servants in Australia and why iseven the questioning of such anomalies treated asstrange or unjustified?

The common civilian arguments that Service officersare unsuitable for many positions for reasons of postinglongevity147 or because many lack qualifications,intellectual depth, or tact are specious. For example,if the supposedly limited tenure of a military officer issuch a problem, what about the opposite one: theextended and harmful tenures of some of the lesscompetent civilian officials? The general absurdity ofcommon arguments from public servants againstmilitary officers serving in many positions is bestdemonstrated by the simple fact that the same criteriaappear never to be applied to senior civilian officials.Even if such arguments, or the other commonly-quotedadvantage of public servants their supposedlygreater networking experience were true, any long-term solution obviously lies in broadening themanagement positions open to Service officers, notlimiting them.

Recognising the Extent of the Cultural Problem

Finally, for those still in denial about the institutional-culture problems of the Department of Defence, or whodoubt the general extent of apparently unrestrainedcivilian managerialism, some statistics may be

30 NEIL JAMES

illuminating. They are also interesting for those whothink the ADF is particularly ‘officer heavy’ by eitherworld standards or in comparison to any public serviceorganisation.

In the Department of Defence a First AssistantSecretary (FAS) is regarded as the civilian equivalentof an ADF officer of major general-equivalent rank.The department has around twenty-eight civilianofficials of this Senior Executive Service (SES) gradeor higher,148 virtually all of them in Canberra.149 Evengiven the complexity of defence management issues,and the ever-increasing bureaucratic assumption ofmany military professional functions, the number ofsenior officials appears unduly large for a total of16,560 civilian staff, with much fewer of them inCanberra. The ratio approximates 1:591 across thedepartment. This low ratio is especially so when thedepartment is compared with the ADF, which is muchlarger, has a much more complex structure, more variedroles and broader and more complex responsibilities.

The 80,000-strong ADF has only thirty-nine officersof major general-equivalent rank and above,150

including four reservists,151 and two seconded totemporary United Nations command appointments.152

This is a ratio of 1:2051 across the ADF with most ofthem also located outside Canberra. At the next levelsdown:153

• there are sixty-one assistant secretary levelcivilian officials154 (a ratio of 1:271 across thedepartment) but only eighty-three full-timebrigadier-equivalent ADF officers (a ratio of1:602 across the full-time ADF), and mostlylocated outside Canberra;

• the department’s 1209 Executive Level Two(EL2) civilian officials (at a ratio of 1:13.7) isan overwhelmingly larger number than theADF’s 275 full-time colonel-equivalent officers(at a ratio of 1:181); and

• the department’s 1989 Executive Level One(EL1) civilian officials (at a ratio of 1:8.3)155 isa significantly larger number than the ADF’s1034 full-time lieutenant colonel-equivalentofficers (at a ratio of 1:48.4).

In both the latter two cases, the large numbers of EL1and EL2 in Canberra-based positions156 make thecomparative ADHQ ratios significantly smaller, andthis is addressed in more detail later.157 These

comparisons illustrate the extent of the civilianbureaucratic structure and the extent of the civilianassumption of professional military responsibilities.

It should also be noted that, while the DERsubstantially cut the number of senior Service officers,the number of senior civilian officials appears to haveincreased significantly. In part, this has been drivenby the civilianisation of traditionally military middle-management positions, ostensibly in an attempt to cutcosts but perhaps, however unconsciously, also toreinforce civilian dominance. This cost cutting has toooften been undertaken with no concern for overall ADFand departmental operational effectiveness, bothcollectively in the short term, and in individual careerdevelopment contributing to the greater organisationalgood over the long term. Furthermore, middle-levelService officers may at first glance cost more thancivilian officials in overall salary costs. However, itcan easily be argued that, for many defence functions,Service personnel are almost always more effective,and in the longer term almost invariably cheaper, whentheir broader background, greater employmentflexibility and more holistic career professional skillsare included in the equation.

Finally, about forty-one per cent of the annual defencebudget is spent on personnel costs.158 This is oftenreferred to or implied in public as the costs of only theADF. However, just under one in every four dollars ofthis sum is the cost of maintaining the department’s16,560 civilian staff.159 Even if, for argument’s sake,we allow the ‘apples and pears’ claim that civilian staffare generally as broadly employable as their ADFopposite numbers, the figures are still revealing. Theever-increasing rank creep in the classification of manycivilian positions and functions, and the seeminglyever-increasing numbers of senior civilian positionsoverall, make a mockery of the supposed highindividual costs of service personnel relative to civilianstaff. One in five civilian staff (3287 out of 16,560)160

are classified as EL1 or above. In comparison, onlyone in thirty-four full-time ADF personnel are rankedlieutenant colonel-equivalent or above.161 Even then,this figure includes many holding command and staffpositions in the ADF’s 30,000-strong part-timecomponent. This increases the overall ADF ratiosubstantially.

The simple point appears to be that, even if a civiliancosts less per head, it appears that civilianisation of


middle management does not save money because theactual number of middle managers increases,apparently inexorably. The reasons for such increasesare as much cultural as structural.

The seriousness of the rank creep problem in thecivilian bureaucracy is demonstrated by the followingcomparative figures. Even if we assume, for argument’ssake, that an EL1 is approximately the same as alieutenant colonel-equivalent ADF officer, the figureof 1989 EL1 out of 16,560 civilians (twelve per cent)is significantly greater than that of 1034 full-timelieutenant colonel equivalents in the full-time ADF(under 2.1 per cent). Furthermore, the ADF figuresinclude the very large number of officers servingthroughout the ADF (that is, outside Canberra-baseddepartmental functions), whereas just over half thecivilian figure (1014) is concentrated in Canberra.162

The ratio in Canberra-based departmental managementfunctions is approximately four EL1 to one purportedADF equivalent.163 There are effectively as manyCanberra-based EL1 (1014) as there are full-timelieutenant colonel-equivalent military officers in theentire ADF (1034).

Based on these figures, and with regard to thecomparative cultural approaches discussed above,some tentative conclusions can be drawn. It wouldclearly appear that the ADF, through organisationaldesign, training and culture, generally has a moreefficient approach to management than the Departmentof Defence. Furthermore, across the board, theexperience levels and broader focus of the ADFgenerally mean fewer middle and senior level ADFofficers than public servants are required to manage(or service) a particular function. As the above figuresillustrate, when ADF management functions arecivilianised, the actual number of civilian managerssupposedly required appears inevitably to increase. Thesize of the department’s civilian senior-managementcomponent and the apparent escalating rank-creepproblem involved are symptomatic of the department’sflawed institutional culture.

It therefore appears obvious that at least part of thesolution to reforming the department’s flawedinstitutional culture is to rationalise and streamline thedepartment’s civilian component. It is worth notingthat significant DER-inspired cuts in senior-officerranks were ruthlessly enforced on the ADF butapparently completely ignored with respect to thedepartment’s senior civilian staff.

A WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT APPROACHTO NATIONAL SECURITY

Diplomacy without arms is like an orchestrawithout instruments.

Frederick the Great

Finally, restructuring the Department of Defence is notenough. Australia’s security has also suffered from theperception that defence is somehow separate from theoverall national interest, and that professional militaryofficers are peripheral to higher defence managementmatters. It is not the intention of this paper to arguethe case for a new wider and holistic national securityarchitecture per se, however, the growing exclusionof professional military advice from all levels ofgovernment has helped to prevent recognition of theneed for such architectural changes.

External Symptoms of the Defence ManagementMalaise

Different and often conflicting lines of policy areindependently developed in Defence and theDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and to someextent in the Department of the Prime Minister andCabinet, the Treasury and even the Office of NationalAssessments. The Secretary’s Committee on NationalSecurity (SCNS) appears to do a reasonable job ofcoordinating cross-agency policies and activities, butis not really designed or structured to do so to the extentactually required. The SCNS is certainly not structured,equipped or tasked to provide an effective politico-military interface.

The current structures and processes have resulted incompartmentalisation of authority in strategic decision-making, the diffusion or exclusion of professionalmilitary advice, and inexperience at the politico-military interface. The diffusion or exclusion ofprofessional military representation has often takenplace on the mistaken assumption that uniformedpersonnel are too close to the topic, or otherwise notqualified, to play a major role in shaping nationalstrategic thinking. This diffusion and exclusion has inturn greatly contributed to a virtual policy vacuum withregard to national security in the broadest sense.

The relative inexperience at the politico-militaryinterface is especially tragic as the current NationalSecurity Committee of Cabinet has taken the mostinterest in defence and national security matters seenfor a generation.

32 NEIL JAMES

An Integrated Cure

Until such time as Australia implements a whole-of-government approach to national security, and paysdue heed to our highly professional uniformed experts,we are unlikely to lift ourselves out of this morass.Rather than subordinate the (military professional)specialists to the (mainly civilian) generalists in true‘Yes Minister’ fashion, the military need to be givenmore of a voice. An appropriate politico-militaryinterface is a vital component of any national securitystructure or mechanism.

The key problem with the current structures, wherethey exist, is that they do not effectively integrateministerial control with expert professional advice.What Australia probably needs is a National SecurityCouncil to develop a coherent, multi-agency approachto national security, and have the clout to deliver it.The Council itself should be a small secretariat to theNational Security Committee of Cabinet. The staffshould be Service personnel, diplomats and otherspecialists, preferably on secondment only from theirown departments and agencies, in order to avoidcreating further compartmentalisation or another majorbureaucratic stakeholder. A military officer should bethe senior Department of Defence representative.Under such a structure, the requirement for the SCNSand SPCG would probably remain to some extent butnot be as essential or frequent.

THE PROSPECTS FOR SUCCESSFULDEFENCE REFORM

The easiest way to cross a chasm is with asingle step

Proverb

Successful Defence Reform from Within?

Successful reform of the Department of Defencerequires fundamental recognition and acknowledgmentof the principles underlying an appropriate politico-military interface and higher defence management,fundamental structural reform and last, but not least,major changes to the department’s institutional culture.

On past experience the department appears largelyincapable of reforming itself. Even the DER, whichwas externally driven to some extent, failed torecognise or overcome much of the bureaucratic inertiaand cultural obstacles involved. Most of thedepartment’s long-serving senior officials (both civilian

and often military) apparently see no need to go backto the first principles governing civil control of themilitary, and/or have grown up in the department’sincestuous and flawed institutional culture. Many ofthem actually appear not to recognise the scope andnature of the reforms required. In most cases they canhardly be blamed as the structural and cultural flawsare so longstanding that they know no other way ofviewing and doing things.

A related difficulty is that many, perhaps most, of thedepartment’s senior civilian officials, and the middle-level management they have groomed in their image,probably lack the internal and external credibilityneeded to achieve real reform.

Successful Defence Reform from Without?

If genuine reform does not occur from within it willbe necessary to impose it from without. There are,however, serious risks involved with such externallyimposed reform in the Australian context.

The US Defense Department had a measure of reformfinally imposed from without through legislation(especially by the Gramm-Rudman Act). However,without commenting on the success or otherwise ofsuch reforms, they were at least partly founded onsound knowledge by many legislators with militaryservice experience supported by sound advice fromretired military officers.

Unfortunately, for a variety of good and bad reasons,such a degree of external understanding does not applyin Australia. For example, only two out of 223 federalparliamentarians (Tim Fischer and Graham Edwards)are combat veterans, and only nineteen federalparliamentarians have peacetime defence-forceexperience.164 More to the point, in thirteen of thesecases this experience was only as reservists or nationalservicemen, generally a long time ago and/or inrelatively junior ranks. None of the nineteen has heldoperational rank above squadron leader or served ineven middle-level command or staff appointments.165

This trend to less experience and understanding ofdefence matters among parliamentarians only reflectsthe wider Australian community. It is unlikely to everimprove to the standards experienced, and taken forgranted by the defence community, in the 1945−70period. The general decline in comparative defencespending over the last two generations simply reflectscommunity complacency, and the decline in numbers


and influence of those Australians with personalexperience of a direct military threat to their freedomand way of life.166

There has also been a strand of resentment in Australianpolitical history between those ‘who served’ (overseasin the world wars) and those ‘who did not serve’. Thisstrand has had an enduring influence on how defenceissues are managed politically. A contemporaryvariation is that many of the current crop of seniorfederal parliamentarians were of university age duringthe Vietnam War. Often, even if only subconsciously,they have views on defence issues influenced by theirperception of that war rather than Australia’scontemporary strategic situation.

Another complication in the Australian case has beenthe often marked pendulum swings betweenbipartisanship and antipathy on defence issues. Theantipathy, (such as that arising out of Australia’sVietnam commitment) has had more profile; however,it has been the bipartisanship that has often had themore long-term insidious effects. For example, in thelate 1980s the Coalition shadow spokesman fordefence, Jim Carlton, was often heard to claim publiclythat he could not lay a hand on the then Minister forDefence, Kim Beazley, because Carlton agreed withmost of what Beazley was doing.167 Suchbipartisanship, particularly when seen as an end initself, has at times resulted in insufficient oppositionor parliamentary committee scrutiny of defencemanagement, and a commensurate degree ofgovernmental complacency in their supervision of theDepartment of Defence.

Another insidious effect of bipartisanship has been theoften mindless pursuit of it in all defence matters,regardless of the degree of interest, morality, realismor relevance of individual policies or advocates. Thesimple overall truth is surely that if defence andstrategic policy is developed from genuine and robustlyderived strategic assessments, rather than being theresult of perceived resource constraints or sectionalinfluences, then genuine bipartisan and communitysupport is likely and would be sustainable.

Furthermore, ministers in the Australian context areby nature nearly always generalists in any portfolio. Itcannot be expected that they will come to the defenceportfolio with a good background in defence or evengeneral international matters.168 The structure of thedepartment must therefore support and assist control

by such generalists without infringing on theirministerial prerogatives. It does not do so at present.Furthermore, various internal bureaucratic influencesand practices, and a range of external pressure groups,appear adept at exploiting such generalist ministers.

All these factors and influences have often resulted inMinisters for Defence effectively becoming the culturalprisoners of small groups of civilian advisers acriticism often directed at Kim Beazley for example.169

At other times, they have become prisoners of outsidepressure groups, academic cliques or their own kitchencabinets. In some cases all four types of cultural gaolerhave succeeded. There is also a general politicalinclination to exploit defence equipment procurementfor party-political advantage (porkbarrelling). Theresulting lack of ministerial perspective, understandingand commensurate ‘grip’ has too often resulted inministers making the bulk of their decisions based onthe short-term party−political ramifications, or toappease sectional interests, rather than basing them onthe long-term national interest which is likely to begenuinely bipartisan.

Finally, any minister coming to a defence portfolio alsosuffers from the problem of great expectation. To manyService personnel (and indeed many civilian staff) intheir frustration at what they perceive as longstandingcivilian bureaucratic domination of militaryprofessional functions and responsibilities, each newminister provides hope. The hope is chiefly that he orshe will be the ‘white knight’ who will cut the Gordianknot of higher defence management and reform thedepartment. Consistent disappointment has notdampened such expectation, especially among middleand junior ranks.

When these factors and influences are combined withthe Department of Defence’s somewhat chequeredhistory of indifferent, inexperienced, overloaded ordiffused ministerial supervision, it becomes obviousthat the difficulties of reforming the department fromwithout remain significant. They are not, however,insurmountable.

34 NEIL JAMES

CONCLUSION

[H]ow deeply the phenomenon of folly is ingrained.Folly’s appearance is independent of era or locality;it is timeless and universal, although the habits andbeliefs of a particular time and place determine theform it takes. It is unrelated to type of regime:monarchy, oligarchy and democracy produce itequally. Nor is it peculiar to nation or class.

Barbara Tuchman 170

Achieving an Appropriate Politico-MilitaryInterface

There is a long history in Australia of inexperience atthe politico-military interface, translating intoacceptance of flawed higher defence managementstructures. The higher management of Australia’sdefence was not a golden age before 1974, or in themore distant past, but it has certainly not been a goldenage over the last twenty-five years.

The politico-military interface in Australia, the currentconfiguration of the Department of Defence andrelations between the military and the civilianbureaucracy are based on ten great myths. The mostgroundless, pervasive and destructive myth is that civilcontrol of the military means civilian bureaucraticcontrol, not civil political control.

As Australia’s experiences over the past fifty yearsclearly show, civilian bureaucratic control of thedefence force and most higher defence matters causes,not cures, inter-Service rivalry. Such control also, bothconsciously and unconsciously, tends toinstitutionalise, perpetuate and exaggerate inter-Servicetensions in order to preserve itself as the self-appointed‘arbiter’ allegedly needed.

Civilian bureaucratic control particularly works againstthe very development of a joint-Service approach tostrategy, operations and capability development towhich it purports to seek or ensure. This is especiallyironical given the most common spurious defencemounted for such excessive civilian bureaucraticinfluence and control is that it is allegedly needed to‘ensure’ inter-Service cooperation.

Effective civil political control of the defence forcesrequires firm and informed ministerial ‘grip’. This inturn requires structural and cultural reform of theDepartment of Defence. This reform will be stoutly

resisted through ignorance of no other way of doingthings than the current flawed processes and, in somecases, by bureaucratic calculation and individualcareerist motivations.

Re-exerting Civil Political Control

The debate over civil control of the military has toooften dwelled on the obvious detrimental effects ofcivilian bureaucratic domination of militaryprofessional functions. It has generally not givenappropriate attention to how such civilian bureaucraticcontrol has seriously hindered effective ministerialsupervision of the Department of Defence overall. Thisis the greatest of the many tragedies involved and theprime cause of the current and acknowledged severeproblems in higher defence management.

The structure of ministerial oversight needs to be re-examined as the size, span, complexity and culture ofthe department is defeating the intentions of evenmotivated and competent ministers. Two or more juniorministers may be part of the solution. Another part ofthe solution is to rationalise the provision ofprofessional and informed advice to the minister andreduce the ‘feudal barony effect’ caused by thedepartment’s current structure. A good solution wouldbe for the minister to use the Defence Council toformally and informally interact with the DefenceOrganisation.

Effective civil political control of the military, and anappropriate politico-military interface, require a cleardelineation of respective responsibilities in the DefenceOrganisation. The Department of Defence should berestructured so that the military provide militaryprofessional advice, command, control, strategicleadership; and the vision and warfighting expertiserequired for effective, and strategically relevant,capability development. Public servants should provide‘best practice’ business management and fulfil onlythose defence functions that the government’sprofessional military advisers cannot or should notassume.

A National Security Council is required to assistCabinet to direct a whole-of-government approach tonational security. The council should be kept small andinclude professional military advisers. The seniorDepartment of Defence representative should be amilitary officer.


Making the Defence Organisation Responsive andAccountable

However, further tinkering with the department’sbureaucratic structures, processes and attitudes will notwork. Root and branch reform is required.

Force-structuring and capability development shouldbe driven by robustly assessed strategic need, not theScylla of uncontextualised Service professional desiresor civilian bureaucratic whim, or the Charybdis of theeasily imposed (for political or bureaucratic reasons)financial constraint. Assessment of strategic need mustbe genuine and not captive to any particular political,Service, bureaucratic, industrial, financial or personalinfluence.

The Defence Council should be used as the board ofdirectors for the Department of Defence and beresponsible to the Minister for Defence (as the personresponsible by statute) for all key managementdecisions and overall supervision. Use of the councilin this way would significantly increase formalministerial participation and oversight, enable detailedand transparent ministerial consultation, andsubstantially increase the department’s capacity to beproactive in supporting the minister. It would alsoensure the Secretary’s numerous and onerous fiduciaryfunctions and responsibilities are afforded appropriateprominence, and therefore improve transparency andaccountability. To further assist in this regard, theDefence Council should include at least two‘independent directors’, appointed by the GovernorGeneral in Council from among eminent leaders ofcommerce.

In any event the COSC, as the senior professionalmanagement organ subordinate to the Defence Council,should be the principal professional mechanism todirect and coordinate all significant strategic decision-making and capability development matters andprocesses within the Defence Organisation itself. TheDefence Executive should be abolished and itsresponsibilities absorbed by the Defence Council andthe COSC. The Defence Capability Committee shouldbe a subcommittee of the COSC and continue toinclude civilian participation in order to provideappropriate financial expertise.

The COSC should also be the professional bodyresponsible for directly advising the National SecurityCommittee of Cabinet on all defence matters, unlessthe matter is one requiring the advice of the Defence

Council. If the Secretary’s Committee on NationalSecurity (SCNS) has replaced the traditional inter-departmental Defence Committee the Service Chiefsshould be reinstated as full members.171

If the diarchy is retained it should not be pushed belowthe level of CDF and Secretary; and both CDF andSecretary should equally share the responsibility for,and control of, Defence policy and inter-departmentalmatters.

Even in the joint-Service structured and focusedmodern ADF, the Services are and will necessarilyremain major institutions of the state and should bemanaged and respected accordingly. The ServiceChiefs should be re-empowered in function, practiceand status so an overall joint-Service approach canharness the resultant professional synergy.

No derogation of the CDF’s command prerogative ordilution of an overall joint approach would be lost bysuch re-empowerment. On the contrary, significantlyimproved inter-Service synergy and holistic ADFeffectiveness are likely to result. No derogation of theSecretary’s fiduciary responsibilities would beinvolved either. On the contrary, significantly greateraccountability and transparency are likely results.

The Service end-users of combat capability should alsobe empowered customers, as in the UK model. Suchre-empowerment would not affect the joint focus ofthe department’s capability development andacquisition processes. It would, in fact, strengthen them with probable lower costs.

Changing the Culture of Learned Helplessness

The structure and institutional culture of the DefenceOrganisation, especially the relationships betweencivilian and military staff, should be robust enough tohandle personality clashes between senior individualsand culture clashes between ADF and public serviceviewpoints and attitudes. This has not been the case inthe past and is not the case at present. The presentstructure often functions only through the goodwill,dedication and energy of individuals. A large part ofthe solution is to clearly delineate the respectiveresponsibilities and tasks of military and civilian staff.

The institutional culture of the Department of Defencemust be changed, not merely the structure. Such achange will probably require significant personnelchanges at the top and in middle management. Toomany civilians and Service officers in the current

36 NEIL JAMES

structure have grown up within the department’s hybridand perverted culture, and appear unable to recognisethe need for, or extent of, the reforms actually required.Too often, such personnel are part of the problem andnot part of the solution. This said, however, many ofthe department’s structural and cultural problems areof so longstanding a duration that many, probably most,current members of the Defence Organisation cannotbe held personally at fault. Most have known no otherway of viewing or doing things.

At least part of the solution to eradicating ‘learnedhelplessness’ (and solving gaps in accountability) isto align responsibilities closely with the moral, legaland professional imperatives of ADF command. TheCDF, VCDF, Service Chiefs and their subordinatesnaturally have a direct professional interest in effectivewarfighting capabilities and the general interests, safetyand survival of the men and women of the ADF. It isunethical and impractical to expect that theseimperatives and interests will be held, especially tothe same degree, by civilian staff.

Part of the solution to reforming the department’sflawed institutional culture is the removal of any hintof formal and informal civilian bureaucratic influencefrom the promotion of Service officers. If this cannotbe achieved, the CDF, VCDF and the Service Chiefsshould be afforded a commensurate influence over theselection and promotion of senior public servants.

Another part of the solution is to rationalise andstreamline the department’s excessively large civiliancomponent, in the same way the DER insisted onsignificant cuts in senior ADF officer numbers.

A Modern and Fresh View is Required

Many military and academic observers would contendthat the Defence Department’s higher managementproblems over the last twenty-five years can be directlytraced to inflexible, and too-often arrogant, civilianbureaucratic control, especially of the strategyformulation and capability development processes. Itis also often argued that the main impetus for theprocurement of virtually all the costly and ultimatelydisastrous ‘silver bullet’ technological solutions overthe last twenty-five years has been the narrowexperience or views of sections of the civilianbureaucracy and/or outside pressure groups.

Some civilian bureaucrat and political observers onthe other hand contend that the military are always

unrealistic and tend to misunderstand what combatcapability the country can afford. All would probablyagree that political pork barrelling, such as the decisionto build submarines in economically depressed SouthAustralia, has also played a prominent role. Whereverthe ultimate responsibility for strategy formulation cul-de-sacs and capability development and procurementmistakes actually reside, Australia cannot continue toremain locked in to such a mutually antagonistic andbackwards looking paradigm.

The real culprits are those who refuse to learn thelessons of such disasters, research their roots in historyand reform the Defence Organisation accordingly.

One thing should be clear to all participants in thedebate. The joint-focused, modern ADF isfundamentally different from the three relativelyseparate single Services of 1974 or the more distantpast. The tired refrain that admirals, generals and airmarshals ‘only want the latest ‘shiny toy’ and thereforemust be ‘controlled’ by civilian bureaucraticsupervision has about as much applicability to thecontemporary defence debate, and the modern ADF,as the theory of the divine right of kings. The continuedcirculation of this myth is, however, partly the fault ofthat minority of military officers who still conform tothe outdated stereotype especially in their oppositionto a truly joint-Service focused ADF employing trulyjoint combat capabilities.

Remembering Essential Truths

Under civil ministerial control we are generallycomfortable to let police commissioners run modernpolice forces, and fire commissioners run modern fireservices. We are, however, seemingly unable torecognise that professional soldiers, sailors and aviatorsare best placed to run and structure modern defenceforces and advise governments on most defencematters. Without understanding Australian history, andespecially the unique habits and practices underlyingthe current situation, we cannot hope to remedy thiscultural, structural and political myopia.

This call for debate ends, as it started, with one keyprinciple. Civil control of the military in a democracyis a political not a bureaucratic function. It is in theforgetting or obfuscation of that simple truth wheremost of the current problems with the politico-militaryinterface, and consequently higher defencemanagement, lie.


1 T. B. Millar, ‘The PoliticalMilitary Relationshipin Australia’, in Desmond Ball (ed.), Strategy &Defence: Australian Essays, George Allen & Unwin,Sydney, 1982, p. 279.

2 Dr Allan Hawke, What’s the Matter: A Due DiligenceReport (An address to the Defence Watch Seminarat the National Press Club), 17 February 2000. Anedited version of the address is at http://www.defence.gov.au/media/2000/sec1.html

3 The 1997 Defence Efficiency Review (DER) notedthat: ‘A pervasive view exists that the DefenceOrganisation is not functioning at its optimum level’,Future Directions for the Management of Australia’sDefence: Report of the Defence Efficiency Review,Commonwealth of Australia, 10 March 1997, p. E-1(finding F6). Earlier official reviews made similarjudgements and this is discussed in the paper.

4 True ‘jointery’ is not achieved by naïve unificationor homogenisation of the three Services. Canada triedthis in the late 1960s and 1970s and retreated fromthe attempt throughout the 1980s and 1990s to aposition not dissimilar to the current ADF.

5 See for example, Barbara Tuchman, The March ofFolly: From Troy to Vietnam, Abacus, London, 1985,pp. 29−34. There were, of course, many othercontributing factors.

6 See for example, Ibid., pp. 355−356, 359, 371, 374,394 and 408.

7 Future Directions for the Management of Australia’sDefence, op. cit., p. E-2 (recommendation R1).

8 Several senior ADF officers, middle-level publicservants and academics contributed to this paper. Theauthor is very grateful for the advice and assistancegiven. For reasons that are discussed later in thispaper most of these contributors unfortunately cannotbe thanked, and therefore identified, by name. Iwould, however, particularly like to thank MrMichael Hughes, my old company commander who,during a three-way discussion with Dr GraemeCheeseman from the Australian Defence ForceAcademy, challenged me to write a paper on thistopic.

9 Hawke, op. cit.10 Ibid.11 Admiral Chris Barrie, Address to the Australian

Institute of Management, Tuesday, 22 February 2000.Reported in the Canberra Times, 23 February 2000,p. 3.

12 Hawke, op. cit.13 This was a key finding of the Defence Efficiency

Review, Future Directions for the Management ofAustralia’s Defence, op. cit., pp. 7-8, 10-11, 13 andE-1 (finding F8).

14 Hawke, op. cit.15 Paul Kelly, ‘All Quiet on the Spending Front’,

Australian, 23 February 2000, p. 15.16 In a speech in the House of Commons following the

stormy Council of the Army debates at the Churchof St Mary the Virgin at Putney, 19 November 1647.See for example, Antonia Fraser, Cromwell: OurChief of Men, Methuen, London, 1985, p. 224.

17 This debate continues today between the broadlydefined ‘defend Australia in the region and with theregion’ and the ‘defend Australia only on themainland’ schools.

18 See, for example, the table of Defence Expenditure1901−39 in T.B. Millar, Australia’s Defence,

Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1965, p.170. The over-investment in warships was relativerather than absolute in that naval funding was barelysufficient to sustain the navy during the periodanyway. The essential fact is that the overall defencebudget was clearly insufficient to develop or maintainall three services to the level required.

19 To some extent this was a legacy of British colonialpractices before responsible government where theGovernor was both a civilian and military official,and therefore was his own chief military adviser.Australia is not the only ex−British Empire countrywith this problem. It has been carried to absurdlengths in India, where there is no joint military staffand the Ministry of Defence is almost entirely runby civilian officials.

20 The Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) had itsbeginnings in the Defence Committee, founded atministerial direction in May 1926, with its originalmembers being the three Service Chiefs of Staff andthe Financial Secretary of the Department ofDefence. Its tasks were to advise the Minister onstrategic matters and coordinate the three single-Service boards and the Munitions Supply Board. TheCOSC itself was formally constituted in September1939. Paul Hasluck, Australia in the War of 1939−1945, Series 4, Volume I, The Government and thePeople 1939−1941, Australian War Memorial,Canberra, 1965, pp. 439−440.

21 This is discussed in the following footnotes. It is alsoaddressed at length in the biography of Shedden byProfessor David Horner, Defence Supremo: SirFrederick Shedden and the Making of AustralianDefence Policy, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000.

22 Lionel Wigmore, Australia in the War of 1939−1945,Series 1, Volume IV, The Japanese Thrust, AustralianWar Memorial, Canberra, 1957, p. 382. In regard tothe fall of Singapore some observers have, somewhatcynically, noted that military disasters lead to thesacking of generals but the knighting of bureaucrats.

23 Noted critics included General Sir Harry Chauvel(CGS 1923−30), Major General Sir Julius Bruche(CGS 1931−35), Major General (later LieutenantGeneral Sir) John Lavarack (CGS 1935–39), Colonel(later Lieutenant General) H.D. Wynter, Major (laterLieutenant General) H.C.H. Robertson, Air ViceMarshal (later Air Marshal Sir) Richard Williams andGroup Captain (later Air Vice Marshal) S.J. Goble.Good accounts are provided in D.M. Horner, HighCommand: Australia & Allied Strategy 1939−1945,Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1982, pp. 1−15; E.G. Keogh, South West Pacific 1941−45,Grayflower, Melbourne, pp. 33−55; and Hasluck, op.cit., pp. 9−108.

24 See, for example, Brett Lodge, Lavarack: RivalGeneral, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998, pp. 37−81.

25 Horner, High Command: Australia & Allied Strategy1939−1945, op. cit., pp. 13−15 and Hasluck, op. cit.,pp. 91−121.

26 In the preceding Fadden Ministry from 29 August to7 October 1941 the Minister for Defence was theprevious Prime Minister, R.G. Menzies. In thefollowing Chifley Ministry from 13 July 1945onwards J.A. Beasley was Minister for Defence.Hasluck, op. cit., pp. 571−580.

27 D.M. Horner, High Command: Australia & AlliedStrategy 1939−1945, op. cit., p. 437.

38 NEIL JAMES

28 See, for example, David Day, John Curtin: A Life,Harper Collins, Sydney, 1999, pp. 375–376 and 398–399.

29 Menzies had served in a (militia) university regimentin his youth. Menzies, Fadden, Curtin, Forde andChifley had all not served in World War I or in themilitia between the wars. See Graham Fricke,Profiles in Power: The Prime Ministers of Australia,Houghton Mifflin, Melbourne, 1990. The Curtin andChifley ministries were particularly bereft ofmembers with military or strategic experience.

30 The Curtin Government was often strongly criticisedfor its reliance on bureaucratic advisers generally.Many also believe that Curtin’s reliance onMacarthur infringed Australian sovereignty andprevented or retarded an appropriate level ofAustralian control over strategic decision-making.See, for example, David Horner, Inside the WarCabinet: Directing Australia’s War Effort 1939–45,Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, pp. 109-118; D.M.Horner, High Command: Australia & Allied Strategy1939−1945, op. cit., p. 223; and David Day, op. cit.,pp. 548 and 581.

31 Shedden’s only military service was six months withthe 1st AIF as a lieutenant in the Pay Corps. Althoughhe attended the Imperial Defence College (withLavarack) in 1928, he apparently lacked anappropriate basis of expertise to sustain criticaljudgement, and fell under the sway of Admiral SirHerbert Richmond, Sir Maurice Hankey and otheradvocates of the ‘Singapore Strategy’. Sheddentherefore tended to lack an effective appreciation ofstrategy and warfare in their wider contexts. See forexample, D.M. Horner, High Command: Australia& Allied Strategy 1939−1945, op. cit., pp. 6−8, 17,20−23, 142, 149, 187−192, 196, 249−251, 257, 265−267, 322, 432 and 437.

32 Believed to have been Bipolar Disorder, DavidDay, op. cit, p. 123.

33 Ibid., pp. 123, 145, 180, 184, 221–222, 302–303,306–321, 331–333, 348, 365–366, 396–398, 456–458, 468, 479–480, and 565.

34 In a letter to a friend dated 19 September 1944,quoted in David Day, op.cit., p. 552.

35 Clemenceau’s aphorism that ‘war is too importantto be left to the generals’ must always be balancedwith the cautionary rider that it is also too importantto be left to the politicians. An appropriate politico-military interface is always essential.

36 Minute from Shedden to Curtin dated 23 March1944, quoted in James Goldrick, ‘Carriers for theCommonwealth’, in T.R. Frame et al (ed.),Reflections on the RAN, Kangaroo Press, Sydney,1991, p. 223.

37 Good accounts are provided in: Ivan Chapman, IvenG. Mackay: Citizen and Soldier, Melway,Melbourne, 1975, pp. 283−290; D.M. Horner,‘Lieutenant-General Sir Vernon Sturdee: The Chiefof the General Staff as Commander’ in D.M. Horner(ed.), The Commanders: Australian MilitaryLeadership in the Twentieth Century, George Allen& Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 154−155; David Day,op cit., pp. 503−505; and Paul Hasluck, Australia inthe War of 1939−1945, Series 4, Volume II, TheGovernment and the People 1942−1945, AustralianWar Memorial, Canberra, 1970, pp. 711−717.

38 Lodge, Lavarack: Rival General, op. cit., pp. 37−81.

39 The Chiefs of Naval Staff were Royal Navy officersfor the entire war. The Chief of the Air Staff was aRoyal Air Force officer from January 1940 to May1942.

40 Most politicians, senior military officers and civilianbureaucrats were in favour at the time but often fordifferent reasons.

41 The model was different in important respects to theBritish model where the Commander-In-Chief HomeForces was still subordinate to the Chief of theImperial General Staff (CIGS).

42 The position of CGS was retained but subordinatedto the position of Commander-in-Chief until afterthe end of the war. The Military Board wasreconstituted in November 1945, against Blamey’srecommendation, in tacit recognition that the use ofa Commander-in-Chief had probably not been themost appropriate means to direct a large part ofAustralia’s war effort. The whole tragedy is a classicexample of not developing robust structures andprocesses that can easily transition from peace to warand war to peace. While the post-1984 position ofCDF now provides for unified command of the ADFand, more importantly, appropriate militaryprofessional advice to Government, there are stillmany contemporary lessons for the organisation ofthe Department of Defence. The 1997 DefenceEfficiency Review recommendation ‘organised forwar and adapted for peace’ needs to become a reality.

43 See, for example, David Horner, Blamey: TheCommander-In-Chief , Allen & Unwin, Sydney,1998, pp. 75−103 and 289−509. Curtin andShedden’s views are especially covered in pp. 448−449, 453−454 and 459.

44 Ibid., pp. 459, 487−509 and 516−538.45 Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, op. cit., pp.114−116;

and Horner, High Command: Australia & AlliedStrategy 1939−1945, op. cit., p. 196.

46 Ibid., p. 116. Horner also records that the formationand activities of the conference are little known dueto the bureaucratic machinations of Shedden; andnotes, ‘The official history refers to some of thediscussions between Curtin and Macarthur butremarkably makes no mention of the formation ofthe Prime Minister’s War Conference’.

47 Macarthur for example, considered Alanbrooke as‘undoubtedly the greatest soldier that England hasproduced since Wellington’. The US Chiefs of Staff,and King in particular, had a profound respect forhim. David Fraser, Alanbrooke, Harper Collins,London, 1982, pp. 497−511.

48 Ibid., pp. 144, 172−173, 183−189, 229−236, 288−295, 358−364, 382−393, 413−417, 447−449 and497−507.

49 D.M. Horner, High Command: Australia & AlliedStrategy 1939−1945, op. cit., p. 432. Fraser,Alanbrooke, op. cit., pp. 479−480. Alanbrooke alsosensed a lack of realism in Australian cabinetministers, Fraser, loc. cit.

50 Fraser, loc. cit.51 Horner, High Command: Australia & Allied Strategy

1939−1945, op. cit., p. 432.52 Horner, Defence Supremo: Sir Frederick Shedden

and the Making of Australian Defence Policy, op.cit., pp. 328–334.

53 Letter from Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton to CaptainJ.B. Foley dated 24 October 1946, quoted inGoldrick, op. cit., p. 231.


54 See, for example, David Horner, Defence Supremo:Sir Frederick Shedden and the Making of AustralianDefence Policy, op. cit., pp. 236−339; and HarryRayner, Scherger: A Biography of Air Chief MarshalSir Frederick Scherger, KBE, CB, DSO, AFC,Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1984, pp. 119−133, 144−146, 169−176. Scherger was Chairman ofthe COSC May 1961−May 1966.

55 This would have been worse except that each Servicehaving its own minister tended to delay the trendand ameliorate many of its worst manifestations. See,for example, Rayner, op. cit., pp. 118−122 and 144−148.

56 See in particular Horner, Defence Supremo: SirFrederick Shedden and the Making of AustralianDefence Policy, op. cit., pp. 328−334.

57 A good general background to the tensions is givenin Rayner, op. cit., pp. 97−98, 118−125, 129, 132,162−163 and 167−176.

58 In a cogent speech by the respected William CharlesWentworth, a prominent but occasionally maverickgovernment backbencher, CommonwealthParliamentary Debates (House of Representatives),29 September 1955, pp. 1142−1145.

59 Alan Reid, ‘They Tips Their ’Ats To Sir Frederick’,Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), 8 April 1956, p. 43.

60 There were six departments in the defence group:Defence, Navy, Army, Air, Supply and DefenceProduction. The inquiry recommended theamalgamation of the lot but the government acceptedthe amalgamation of only the latter two.

61 The inquiry was actually commissioned by cabinetin November 1957 with the preliminary reportdelivered in December and a supplementary reportin February 1958. The committee was Chaired byLieutenant General Sir Leslie Morshead, Retd, andthe members were the Chairman of the Public ServiceBoard, Sir William Dunk, the Secretary of theDepartment of Defence, E.R. (later Sir Edwin) Hicks,and the Assistant Secretary of the Prime Minister’sDepartment, E.J. (later Sir John) Bunting. No servingor retired regular officers from any of the threeservices were included.

62 Horner, Defence Supremo: Sir Frederick Sheddenand the Making of Australian Defence Policy, op.cit., pp. 328−332.

63 Rayner, op. cit., pp. 123−125 provides an excellentsummary.

64 Speech by Prime Minister Menzies in reply to theMorshead Committee Report, CommonwealthParliamentary Debates, House of Representatives,19 March 1958, p. 436.

65 General Gration noted that when he was CDF he didnot hesitate to advise the minister on defence policymatters if he considered the circumstances warrantedit; Discussions with General Peter Gration, AC, OBE,on 14 April 2000. However it is not so much theCDF advising the minister on such matters that isthe problem, as it is the Secretary having the formalresponsibility (alone) for matters that are so broadlydefined. The current demarcation appears to workbecause of goodwill and teamwork between the CDFand Secretary. This may not always be the case. Theresponsibility for ‘defence policy’ should, at the veryleast, be shared equally by the CDF and Secretary.Sound arguments can also be made for defining‘defence policy’ to exclude military professionalmatters.

66 Previously this was based in the Audit Act.67 Ibid., pp. 433−434. It is worth noting the marked

lack of substance in the reply by the leader of theOpposition, Dr Evatt, as it was indicative of theabysmal ignorance of defence, and especiallymilitary, matters in the ALP at that time. Evatt’s replymainly concerns the matter of the constitutionalityof ‘assistant ministers’ in the defence portfolio. Italso includes criticism of a Chairman of COSC beingappointed on the grounds that the three ServiceChiefs were sufficient; and rehashed old debatesabout the defence situation the Curtin governmentallegedly inherited in 1941.

68 Sir Edwin Hicks, the successor to Shedden hadcontinued Shedden’s longstanding opposition toeither the Defence Committee or the COSC havinga military chairman. See Rayner, op. cit., pp. 124−125 and Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 19March 1958, op. cit., pp. 436−437.

69 The first Chairman of the COSC, Lieutenant GeneralSir Henry Wells was appointed to the position as athree-star officer. The second chairman, Air ChiefMarshal Sir Frederick Scherger, was promoted tofour-star rank on assuming the appointment but onlyon the proviso that his pay would not go up. Allsucceeding Chairmen of the COSC, Chiefs of theDefence Force Staff (CDFS) and CDF have beenfour-star officers. Rayner, op. cit., pp. 125 and 170.

70 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 19 March1958, op. cit., p. 436.

71 Although many may have believed they understooddefence matters, few had actually had personalexperience in the Services.

72 Formal apologies by the Labor Party and AustralianCouncil of Trade Unions (ACTU) have subsequentlyhelped to heal the rift.

73 Sir Arthur Tange, CBE, Australian Defence: Reporton the Reorganisation of the Defence Group ofDepartments, Department of Defence, Canberra,1973. It is not the intention, nor is it necessary, forthis paper to examine the Tange changes in detail(see next footnote for the best examinations). Theimportant aspect is simply their consistency with theexisting flawed approach to the politico-militaryinterface and higher defence management.

74 The reorganisation began in 1974 but was onlyformalised (retrospectively) by the DefenceRe-organisation Act 1976. The changes, whichimplemented most of the proposals of the TangeReport, went much further than comparable modelsof civil ministerial control such as in the USA andthe UK. They vested the one Minister for Defencewith most of the powers previously held by theindividual Service Boards (which had separateministerial membership), and with the soleresponsibility for the development andimplementation of defence policy. A good accountis given by Dr Graeme Cheeseman in ‘The MilitaryProfession and Defence Policy’, in Hugh Smith (ed.),The Military Profession in Australia, AustralianDefence Studies Centre, Canberra, 1988, p. 10. Othergood summaries are Brigadier P.J. Greville, ‘TheCentral Organisation for War’ in United Service(NSW), Volume 27, Number 4, April 1974, pp. 2−14; and W.G. Wright, ‘Defence ReorganisationProposals’ in United Service (NSW), Volume 28,Number 2, October 1974, pp. 114−116.

40 NEIL JAMES

75 Sir Arthur Tange was Secretary from early March1970 to mid-August 1979. The anger of senior andmiddle-level ADF officers of this period is stillpalpable today. Many civilian officials from thisperiod now express ever-growing doubts about theprinciples and methods used. Both civilian andmilitary interviewees have described the latter Tangeperiod as the ‘Tange Dynasty’ and noted the generalatmosphere of arrogant bureaucratic triumphalismthat prevailed. An early criticism (before the UtzReview) was David Beveridge, ‘Structural ChangesTowards a More Effective National Defence Force’in Australian Defence Force Journal, Number 31,November–December 1981, pp. 18−27.

76 This process actually tended to reverse what Project-Based Budgeting (PBB) had tried to introduce in theearly 1970s. PBB sought to integrate strategicplanning and defence budgeting so that budgetaryconsiderations would follow strategic ones ratherthan the reverse.

77 Although the 1974 defence re-organisation createdthe position of Chief of the Defence Force Staff(CDFS), his powers and responsibilities remainedweak and ambiguous, and he had virtually no jointstaff. The Utz Committee noted this as early as 1982,and the 1984 Cross Report and the 1986 Dibb Reportalso noted the need for further strengthening of theposition. The position of Chief of the Defence Force(CDF) was created in October 1984 but still with noeffective joint staff structure. The subsequentempowering of the CDF, and the creation of aneffective Headquarters Australian Defence Force(HQADF), were not fully undertaken until the BakerReport was implemented in 1989. Even then, theCDF was still not responsible for advising theminister on ‘defence policy’ matters and theSecretary was responsible for all inter-departmentalmatters. Hence the serious practical imbalance inpower and authority. See, for example, Cheeseman,op cit., p. 19.

78 At the end of this period, for example, the industrialistStanley Schaetzel described the department as, ‘...at least four times bigger than our conditions demand... not because of any operational necessities, butmainly due to historical reasons and the machinationsof ambitious public servants’, Stanley S. Schaetzel,Fourteen Steps to Decision Or, The Operationsof the Defence Department, SDSC Working Paper198, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre(Australian National University), Canberra, 1989, p.16.

79 Again there is insufficient space to examine the detailof each review (but see the references cited in thepreceding two footnotes). The key question is whyso many reviews were necessary so regularly andwith so little long-term result, and why they ignoredthe fundamental problems?

80 The DER at times came close to tackling keyproblems but tended to shy off.

81 Letter to the author by Major General P.J. Day, AO,Retd, dated 15 March 2000. As a senior lieutenantcolonel at Army Headquarters at the time he workedon the strategic basis papers in 1975 and 1976. Hewas Deputy Chief of the General Staff in 1985−86.

82 Charles Fair, From the Jaws of Victory, Simon andSchuster, New York, 1971, p. 22.

83 It is not common nowadays to see this propositionadvocated openly, especially in reputable academic

or professional circles, but this has not always beenthe case and it has even been advanced indepartmental publications. See, for example, GaryBrown, ‘The Management of Australia’s Defence’in the Australian Defence Force Journal, Number70, May–June 1988, pp. 5−14. His misinterpretationwas refuted in a letter to a following edition, Number73, November–December 1988, p. 6.

84 Despite the 1997 DER virtually conceding this.Future Directions for the Management of Australia’sDefence: Report of the Defence Efficiency Review,op. cit., p. 9.

85 As the DER also noted, Ibid., p. 13.86 The term ‘creative tension’ was first used by

Malcolm Fraser when he was Minister for Defencein the early 1970s (before the 1974 reorganisation).Some politicians are attracted to creative tension asa tool for debating and deciding resource allocationsin the absence of coherent direction fromgovernment. The problem is that, not only does suchtension fail in doing so, the tension diverts orparalyses the department’s energies in most otherareas.

87 Paul Dibb, Report to the Minister for Defence onthe Review of Australia’s Defence Capabilities,Australian Government Publishing Service,Canberra, 1986, p. 29. However the then Ministerfor Defence, K.C. Beazley, MHR, subsequentlystated: ‘I would not want to see the creative tensionin the present process removed ...’, Letter from theMinister for Defence to M.D. Cross MHR, Chairmanof the Joint Parliamentary Committee on ForeignAffairs, Defence and Trade, dated 3 November 1987.p. 3.

88 Future Directions for the Management of Australia’sDefence, op. cit., pp. 8–9.

89 Sir Robert Walmsley, KCB, Materiel Issues FacingMedium Navies (Address to the Maritime War 21Conference), Sydney, 2 February 2000.

90 In his regular addresses to the Service staff collegesand the Joint Service Staff College (JSSC).

91 Future Directions for the Management of Australia’sDefence, op. cit., pp. 8, 13 and E-2.

92 Ibid., pp. 13 and E-2 (findings F9 and F10 andrecommendations R3 and R4).

93 The major strategic guidance document Australia’sStrategic Policy 1997 (ASP97), for example, wasonly issued to the Service Chiefs 18 hours beforethe deadline for comment and with very strictrestrictions forbidding duplication and governingaccess. This did not contribute to effectiveconsultation in either reality or perception. Betterconsultation occurred with regard to the PublicDiscussion Paper (PDP) to precede White Paper2000, but still not to the extent the Services, andoutside observers, believe necessary in a modernADHQ.

94 Major General Day noted this practice in 1975. P.J.Day, op. cit., p. 2.

95 In the broadest sense, including functions such asbudgeting, audit, resources planning, financialestimates planning, capability program planning,acquisition finance, contracting policy, commercialsupport policy, etc.

96 Such as the Army’s Officer ProfessionalEffectiveness Strategy for enhancing operational andorganisational effectiveness, based on a continuumof recruiting, socialisation, training and education,


developmental experiences, performancemanagement and career management, and which isaligned with Army and ADF current and futurecapability requirements.

97 General Sir Archibald Wavell, Generals andGeneralship, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1941,p. 59. The quote is from the third lecture entitled‘The Soldier and the Statesman’.

98 Hawke, op. cit.99 As detailed in its charter, the DCC comprises only

the VCDF (Chairman), Under Secretary forAcquisition, Deputy Secretary–Strategy and DeputySecretary–Resources and Management as fullmembers. The Service Chiefs and the Chief DefenceScientist (CDS) are invited members, generally onlywhen an issue pertinent to their Service (or DSTO)is being considered. They have no vote in committeeproceedings although, as the committee’s currentpurpose is now only to advise the VCDF, it generallyfunctions by consensus with few, if any, issues putto a formal vote. In previous iterations of the process,the VCDF was not entrusted with responsibility forcapability development; the DCC was not anadvisory committee; it was not chaired by the VCDF;and broad military participation was often activelyexcluded. The Defence Capability Subcommittee(DCSC), which now advises the VCDF on moreminor matters, comprises two military and threecivilian members. It too incorporates a range ofinvited members.

100 As detailed in the Charter of the DCC. The vagueand ambiguous wording of the VCDF’s role isindicative of the department’s approach.Furthermore, many military and civilian staff in thedepartment believe that the VCDF has been handeda ‘poisoned chalice’ in this regard, and that the long-term ulterior intention is to reimpose civilianbureaucratic dominance of the capabilitydevelopment process.

101 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House ofRepresentatives, 19 March 1958, p. 435.

102 This was recommended by the DER and partiallyimplemented through the diarchic prism. FutureDirections for the Management of Australia’sDefence: Report of the Defence Efficiency Review,op. cit., p. 14.

103 As even the DER conceded. Future Directions forthe Management of Australia’s Defence: Report ofthe Defence Efficiency Review, op. cit., p. 13.

104 Gration, op. cit.105 Senior civilian officials already attend COSC by

invitation and would continue to do so. Somemeasure of advisory financial expertise would beessential to ensure the COSC remained cognisant ofoverall resource constraints. This is one reason whythe Defence Council may be a more appropriate bodythan the COSC in this regard. This is discussedfurther below.

106 The SCNS is chaired by the Secretary Departmentof the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) with amembership comprising CDF, Secretary Departmentof Defence, Secretary Department of Foreign Affairsand Trade (DFAT), Secretary Treasury, SecretaryAttorney-General’s, Director-General Office ofNational Assessments (ONA) and representativesfrom other departments as required.

107 Such as trans-national economic, crime, migrationand environmental issues.

108 The Service Chiefs had been foundation memberswhen the Defence Committee was created in 1926.The Secretary of the Department of Defence joinedthe committee in the late 1930s. At the time that itwas apparently subsumed by the SCNS the DefenceCommittee was chaired by the Secretary, Departmentof Defence

109 The NSCC is one of only two cabinet standingcommittees. It is chaired by the Prime Minister andnormally comprises the Ministers for Defence andForeign Affairs, the Attorney-General and theTreasurer. The Deputy Prime Minister is usuallyinvited to attend. A recent NSCC meeting wasattended by the CDF (as the sole ADF representative)and the Secretary, but was also attended by twodeputy secretaries. Given the component commandstructure of ADHQ, it is surely unjustified to allowattendance by deputy secretaries but not the VCDFand the three Service Chiefs.

110 Many participants and observers would consider thatthe COSC under Generals Gration and Baker as CDF(before the creation of the Defence Executive) wasevolving into an effective control mechanism for thewhole Defence Organisation.

111 This was acknowledged in the Menzies government’srejection of the Morshead committee’srecommendations in this regard.

112 For example, Future Directions for the Managementof Australia’s Defence, op. cit., pp. 9–10 and E-2(recommendation R2).

113 The only frequently noted exception quoted duringinformal polling was Senator Robert Ray, and in hiscase, he was also somewhat distracted by his onerousduties as leader of government business in the Senateand party faction leader. It could be that this wasjust a case of if you want something done well justgive it to a busy person. Kim Beazley is mentionedby many academic commentators, probably becausehe was one of them originally and was mostcomfortable in their company. In contrast, manyService personnel regarded Beazley as just anotherprisoner of his civilian advisers. It should be notedthat the CDF during Kim Beazley’s period asMinister for Defence, General Peter Gration, doesnot share this latter assessment. Gration, op. cit.

114 ‘Grip’ is best defined as the minister understandingthe issues himself, knowing what needs to be done,ensuring it is done, and accepting ultimateresponsibility for delivering the combat capabilityspecified and required by government.

115 Section 28.116 The Minister for Defence chairs the Council, and its

members are the Minister for Defence Science andPersonnel, CDF, Chief of Navy (CN), Chief of Army(CA), Chief of Air Force (CAF) and Secretary.Presumably the new Under-Secretary for Acquisitionwill also be appointed to the Council.

117 Most inter-departmental liaison is conducted, asrequired, by the SPCG comprising deputy secretariesfrom Defence, PM&C, DFAT and other departmentsas necessary. The VCDF may be invited to attend.This practice is not effective because the inclusionof the ADF representative is not mandatory.Furthermore, the VCDF is often not the appropriateADF representative if operational matters are to bediscussed as his function is outside the ADF’soperational chain of command. The system has oftennot been flexible enough to allow the Head of

42 NEIL JAMES

Strategic Command Division (a major general-equivalent ADF officer) to attend in such casesbecause he is not regarded as a ‘deputy secretary-equivalent’. Lower-level working groups comprisingrepresentatives from the above departments andADHQ usually conduct the detail of theinterdepartmental co-operation required.

118 The use of independent external expertise would onlywork if they were truly independent and external inboth reality and perception.

119 Walmsley, op. cit.120 The University College, University of New South

Wales (Australian Defence Force Academy)conducts several post graduate programs in strategyand defence studies. These programs are undertakenby a wide range of Service personnel, diplomats,public servants, academics and members of thegeneral public. Interestingly, probably because oftheir greater understanding of the political andprofessional risks involved, Service participants insuch academic discussions are often the leasthawkish in their willingness to employ militarypower rather than another element of national power,especially early in the hypothetical crises discussed.

121 In the days of the department’s old Strategic andInternational Policy (SIP) Division, militarystrategies were rarely given appropriate functional,cultural and bureaucratic prominence. It was not untilthe 1997 DER that all areas dealing with strategywere integrated under the one senior Service officer.Sadly, this was discontinued in mid-1999.

122 Sir Arthur Tange, CBE, Role of the Department ofDefence in Army Affairs (Address to Army StaffCollege), Queenscliff, 19 September 1974, p. 17.

123 Letter from Major General P.J. Day, op. cit.124 This is desirable but should never be institutionalised

as requiring one from each Service. Selection at thislevel must always be absolutely on merit.

125 Future Directions for the Management of Australia’sDefence, op. cit., pp. 20 and E–3.

126 Two military brigadier-equivalent ADF officers andtwo civilian assistant secretaries.

127 A common complaint among the staff has been howdifficult it is to get to interact appropriately with theDeputy Secretary–Strategy because he is alreadyextremely busy.

128 Interestingly, many perhaps even most of themiddle-level civilian staff involved have expressedstrong criticism of the military to civiliantransposition. It has been described to the author asan appalling and retrograde decision.

129 In the USA for example, both the DefenceIntelligence Agency (DIA) and the National SecurityAgency (NSA) are headed by three-star militaryofficers. In the UK, the Defence Intelligence Service(DIS) is also headed by a three-star military officerknown as the Chief of Defence Intelligence. In someother countries retired military officers hold suchpositions as civilians.

130 As was recommended by the Defence EfficiencyReview, Future Directions for the Management ofAustralia’s Defence, op. cit., p. E–3 (recommendationR10).

131 In the era of contract support and integrated logisticsmanagement, there is little distinction between theoperational and strategic levels of logistic support.The proposal to merge SC–A and DAO is already

being examined by commercial businessmanagement consultants.

132 T.B. Millar, op. cit., p. 279. Professor Millar’s quoteis from 1982 and should be primarily read as anobservation on the situation at that time.

133 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 19 March1958, op. cit., pp. 436−437.

134 General Gration, for one, does not believe this hasactually occurred and considers that the mainproblem is simply that there is a small field of choiceat that level. Gration, op. cit.

135 General Gration does not believe an effective civilianveto existed in his time as CDF, although ministersmay have sought views from senior civilian stafffrom time to time. Ibid.

136 See, for example, a recent letter to the CanberraTimes on this issue, ‘Govt Must Shoulder any Blamefor Defence’, 23 February 2000, p. 8.

137 In this era, an organisation called Force Developmentand Analysis (FDA) branch existed to play the devil’sadvocate role in capability development. This wasdue to a perception that there was a need to keep theServices honest in their development proposalsthrough a capacity for independent and thoroughanalysis. However, instead of informed criticismbeing focused on capability development proposalsearly on in their development FDA action tended tobe focused on later stages, particularly after theServices had invested considerable effort. Theresultant marked acrimony with the Services resultedin FDA being nicknamed the ‘Forces of Darknessand Anarchy’. Civilian staff in FDA were often proudof their ‘spoiler’ image and the nickname. No oneinvolved benefited from such a structure or suchconfrontation and a more cooperative and efficientcapability development process evolved through the1990s. The fact that such confrontation wasencouraged for so long underscores the long historyof civilian−military tensions in the DefenceOrganisation.

138 This also includes the former the Joint Services StaffCollege (JSSC) until 1998 and, before theestablishment of ADC, by sending senior Australianofficers to overseas defence and war colleges.

139 Executive Level 1 or 2 should be the entry grade forADF staff colleges. Executive Level 2 or SES1should be the entry grade for ADC.

140 This was a major reason for the collapse of the PublicService’s Executive Development Program for EL2officials. A similar problem was common for EL1officials attending the JSSC, and it is a majordisincentive for prospective civilian attendees at theService staff colleges.

141 The now defunct Defence Management DiplomaProgram (DMDP) was not really a staff college-equivalent course although it did include the DSMC.The DMDP is to be relaced in 2001 by civilianattendance at the new joint staff college at WestonCreek in Canberra.

142 Outside commercial consultants were eventuallyengaged to conduct a needs analysis for the course.Interestingly the terms of reference issued to theconsultants only covered the 1998 and 1999 coursesand did not include earlier courses, especially thosethe subject of formal complaints by military attendeesdetailing incidents of syllabus bias, inappropriate‘instruction’ and staff insensitivity and arrogancewhen faced with legitimate criticism.


143 This was formerly recognised in many parts of thedepartment where only the former Senior OfficerGrade ‘A’ were regarded as so equivalent.

144 It is worth noting that all the proofreaders of thispaper commented that careerism and patronageconstituted a problem in the military as well. Theydiffered only as to the severity of the problem.

145 The three Service career management elementsconfront this problem regularly. The problem alsoemerges in the ADF attitude surveys and attritionmodelling conducted by the Directorate of StrategicPersonnel Planning and Policy (and in surveysconducted by its predecessor units).

146 In some countries they are at times held by retiredas well as serving military officers.

147 This issue is relatively easily dealt with by requiringa three to four-year incumbency in senior andspecialist appointments.

148 Canberra Times, 25 February 2000, p. 2.149 Defence Science and Technology Organisation

(DSTO) facilities in Salisbury and Melbourne arethe only other concentrations.

150 There were 35 full-time two-star and above officersas at 6 January 2000. The number varies slightlyover time due to operational commitments andpersonnel administration reasons.

151 Surgeon-General, Judge Advocate General, AssistantChief of the Defence Force – Reserves, andCommander 2nd Division.

152 Chief Military Observer UNTSO in the Middle Eastand Deputy Force Commander UNTAET in EastTimor. Both positions are temporary and exist onlyfor the current incumbent’s secondment.

153 These comparisons use the 50,000-strong full-timecomponent only, not the 80,000-strong ADF.

154 Senior Executive Service (SES) band one.155 All totals were correct as at 6 January 2000.156 About 501 of these EL2 are in Canberra and about

another 570 in DSTO facilities in Salisbury andMelbourne. About 90 are in various elements inNSW. About 24 are overseas and the remaining smallnumber is distributed in the other state capitals. About1,014 EL1 are in Canberra. Other largeconcentrations of EL1 are DSTO facilities inSalisbury (about 340) and Melbourne (about 360).About 165 are in NSW, about 50−60 are overseas,and the rest are distributed in small numbers in theremaining states (Qld 27, NT 8, Tas 6 and WA 17).

157 Even if it is accepted that DSTO is effectively thefourth arm of Australia’s defence effort, the numbersof EL1 and EL2 outside DSTO is still huge incomparison to the number of their purported ADFcounterparts.

158 Directorate of Portfolio Reporting and Evaluation,Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements 1999−2000: Defence Portfolio, Canberra, November 1999,pp. 31 and 42.

159 Ibid., pp. 13 and 42. This break-up includes salaryand superannuation costs for both military andcivilian staff, and the housing costs of military staff.

160 Ibid., p. 13.161 1464 out of 50,000.162 As at 8 March 2000.163 For example, of the RAN’s 275 commanders, 190

are employed throughout the Navy and onlyapproximately 85 are employed in ADHQ and otherdepartmental positions. The commensurate Army

lieutenant colonel figures are approximately 85 (outof 442). The RAAF wing commander figures areapproximately 90 (out of 317). To put the total figureof 1034 in even more perspective it should also benoted that, particularly in the Army’s case, this totalincludes officers serving in reserve headquarters andunits (that is, across the full 80,000-strong ADF ratherthan just the 50,000-strong full-time component).

164 Eleven Liberal, three National, three ALP, oneAustralian Democrat (in the Rhodesian Air Force)and one Independent.

165 This does not count medical or legal specialistappointments.

166 Defence spending as a proportion of GDP is at itslowest since 1938. It has also declined from beingthe single greatest Commonwealth budgetary outlayto, at approximately 7.1 per cent, being only sixth.Education, health, welfare, payments to the Statesand public debt repayment are all greater.

167 At several academic conferences during this period.168 There has not been a Minister for Defence with

personal Service experience since Jim Killen(November 1975−May 1982). The last Ministers forDefence with extensive combat experience wereDavid Fairbairn, DFC (August 1971−December1972) and Sir John Gorton (March−August 1971).

169 Beazley tended to be quite popular among Australia’srelatively small circle of defence academics anddefence press commentators. He was reasonablypopular among civilian staff, especially on a personallevel. Among Service personnel he was well likedbut often regarded as a disappointment because ofhis (perceived or actual) marked reliance on civilianadvisers. This disappointment is probably due inlarge part to a greater manifestation than usual (givenhis background as a defence academic) of the ‘whiteknight’ phenomenon described below. It is also nodoubt due to a lack of understanding about thesignificant political constraints within the LaborParty at that time, especially the party left wing’soften simplistic views on disarmament, internationalrelations and defence matters in a period when theCold War was ending.

170 Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troyto Vietnam, Abacus, London, 1985, p. 4.

171 As the Service Chiefs were on the DefenceCommittee.

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Reform of Defence Managemen - ada.asn.au · duties in Kashmir, New York and Iraq. He was the senior defence intelligence officer in northern Australia ... complementary and well-accepted