{"id":1119,"date":"2012-09-11T13:31:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T03:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=1119"},"modified":"2012-09-14T15:06:46","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T05:06:46","slug":"reader-response-defence-is-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/reader-response-defence-is-different\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader response: Defence is different"},"content":{"rendered":"
I think that Alex Tewes has created a \u2018straw man\u2019 version of my argument in his rejoinder<\/a> rather than dealing with my serious suggestions<\/a>. My proposal to make Defence leadership\u2019s views public, as well as Government\u2019s final decisions, was intended to give the people a chance to hold the government to account.<\/p>\n I offered a solution which allows voters to assess the risk that the government is taking on their behalf. I also suggested that you would need to concentrate on operational outcomes rather than materiel inputs. So it would be fair to take issue on a few points; whether I identified the problem correctly, whether Defence is exactly the same as every other department, how practical or politically likely such a change might be and what other steps might be required to make this work, or whether it is possible to state a defence outcome rather than just count the inputs. Alex only picked one of these.<\/p>\n For the record, but also to fight against the comfortable stereotype of a retired General going into bat for the troops, I don\u2019t see my solution necessarily resulting in increased defence expenditure as Alex claims, and I clearly stated that in my post.<\/p>\n Alex repeats my words when he says: \u2018\u2026 what should determine how much Australia spends on defence should be the strategic environment. When this should be spent is the relationship between warning time and the time it takes to build defence capability\u2019. He then goes on to misrepresent my views by saying that: \u2018From the tenor of his contribution, the correct answer should be \u2018lots\u2019 and \u2018right now\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n