{"id":39049,"date":"2018-05-04T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39049"},"modified":"2018-06-18T11:54:41","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T01:54:41","slug":"talking-chiefs-greg-moriarty-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/talking-chiefs-greg-moriarty-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking to the chiefs: Greg Moriarty (part\u00a01)"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The hard part of running the Defence organisation is the trade-offs\u2014lining up capability, strategy and resources to work out what can and can\u2019t be done, says Department of Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty.<\/p>\n

\u2018A challenge I\u2019ve faced, that I think is an essential role of the secretary and the Chief of the ADF, is aligning those three elements,\u2019 says the department head who\u2019s now eight months into the job.<\/p>\n

\u2018A lot of people have views about either defence policy or platforms and it\u2019s good to be able to read, to listen to all of those. But the hard challenge for government is the decisions that I and the CDF, and the senior leadership group in Defence, take to make recommendations to government about shifting resources to respond in an agile way to changing circumstances.\u2019<\/p>\n

Moriarty says that\u2019s very difficult work but it\u2019s also incredibly important and rewarding. \u2018To think I’d like to be able to do this but I can’t do as much of it, or as quick as I’d like. So how am I going to balance that with a whole range of other work that the government\u2019s asked us to do?<\/p>\n

\u2018The hard part is to bring it together and make really hard choices, and to offer government advice on those trade-offs. I take that responsibility very seriously. And I know the CDF does, as well. They’re hard choices to make.\u2019<\/p>\n

With a decades-long $200\u00a0billion re-equipment program underway, is the government pushing too hard to get things done too fast?<\/p>\n

\u2018No,\u2019 says Moriarty. \u2018The government is ambitious and has set a very demanding timeline. But the institution has also been given the resources to deliver to the timeline and we\u2019re going to deliver as best we can to meet the government’s objectives.\u2019<\/p>\n

So is the whole program achievable? \u2018It\u2019s achievable but it\u2019s challenging. And it\u2019s putting some pressure on the organisation, but we just have to respond to that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Far from coming to the job as a Defence neophyte, Moriarty has spent a lot of time there before. He joined the department in 1986, and in 1988 he graduated with the Sword of Honour and top of his class as an officer in the Army Reserve.<\/p>\n

Moriarty spent most of that first decade in the Defence Intelligence Organisation, and in his mid-20s he was sent to Saudi Arabia as an intelligence officer in the headquarters of US Central Command working for General Norman Schwarzkopf during the First Gulf War.<\/p>\n

He was part of a DIO detachment and on full-time army service as a uniformed captain during Operation Desert Shield and then Desert Storm as part of a team of ground forces analysts preparing intelligence briefings for General Schwarzkopf and his senior commanders.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was there with outstanding Australian Defence Force personnel, including some who are still serving with the Defence organisation,\u2019 says Moriarty. \u2018It was an amazing experience. I greatly admired General Schwarzkopf, who was a very charismatic leader. Everybody who worked on his headquarters was very impressed with his personal dynamism, but also by his strong strategic vision and his view of the importance of allies and partners.\u2019<\/p>\n

Defence, security and diplomatic issues have remained the focus of Moriarty\u2019s working life, with key points as ambassador to Iran and to Indonesia, Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, International and National Security Adviser and chief of staff to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.<\/p>\n

Moriarty was ambassador to Iran from 2005 to 2008. The Americans didn\u2019t have an embassy in Tehran and invited him to Washington to brief President George W. Bush and a small number of his senior advisers.<\/p>\n

\u2018They were very interested in a range of perspectives. We have something to offer through the presence we have in our embassy and people in our system who have deep insights into Iran and the Middle East,\u2019 he says. \u2018We benefit from the US information and intelligence picture in so many places globally, so being able to share perspectives with the Americans, I thought, was a useful thing that Australia could do.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018US presidents receive a lot of briefings on Iran and the other strategic challenges in the Middle East, and President Bush was interested in our perspective.\u2019<\/p>\n

How did such experiences shape the thinking he brings to Defence?<\/p>\n

\u2018When it comes to Australian national power, we need to think more holistically. When the government talks in defence and foreign policy white papers about the need for integrated, coordinated policy approaches, I think that\u2019s absolutely right.\u2019<\/p>\n

As a diplomat, he spent considerable time considering how the various elements of Australia\u2019s national power could be used to influence policy outcomes or to convince another country’s government to adopt a position or to accept an Australian view. \u2018You have to think about how countries meet the challenge of having their strategic preferences accepted. You need to think about the range of tools that a government has to exercise influence or power.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought a lot about Australian power, our economic power, military power, diplomatic capacities. And about how all sorts of things contribute to that\u2014from the standing and the reach of our educational institutions, our universities, to how we are perceived and how our business community is perceived. That includes things like the New Colombo Plan, our students, the reach that we have in the region through our businesses.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Security cooperation and collaboration contribute in a very positive way for Australia,\u2019 he says. The role of the ADF doesn\u2019t simply involve delivering operational outcomes, but also what can be done through exercises, exchanges, and training and development through the defence cooperation program.<\/p>\n

\u2018I have thought about what we do well and what we don\u2019t do well. In the strategic environment that we face, boundaries are blurring between traditional security threats and contemporary security threats. That\u2019s making whole-of-government responses even more compelling.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hard part of running the Defence organisation is the trade-offs\u2014lining up capability, strategy and resources to work out what can and can\u2019t be done, says Department of Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty. \u2018A challenge I\u2019ve …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":39050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[338,38],"class_list":["post-39049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-defence-policy","tag-department-of-defence","dinkus-talking-to-the-chiefs"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTalking to the chiefs: Greg Moriarty (part\u00a01) | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/talking-chiefs-greg-moriarty-part-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talking to the chiefs: Greg Moriarty (part\u00a01) | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The hard part of running the Defence organisation is the trade-offs\u2014lining up capability, strategy and resources to work out what can and can\u2019t be done, says Department of Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty. \u2018A challenge I\u2019ve ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/talking-chiefs-greg-moriarty-part-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-03T20:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-06-18T01:54:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/20171010adf8630742_007-e1525346327981.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brendan Nicholson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Jerry Cashman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brendan Nicholson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/talking-chiefs-greg-moriarty-part-1\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/20171010adf8630742_007-e1525346327981.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/20171010adf8630742_007-e1525346327981.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":427,\"caption\":\"The Secretary of Defence, Mr Greg Moriarty and Acting Chief of the Defence Force, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs launched the Defence Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2018-2023 on World Mental Health Day. 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