{"id":5974,"date":"2013-05-03T13:24:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T03:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=5974"},"modified":"2013-05-05T21:24:41","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T11:24:41","slug":"wheres-the-beef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wheres-the-beef\/","title":{"rendered":"Where\u2019s the Beef?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mark<\/a>Back in the day, you could get a free Big Mac from McDonalds by reciting\u00a0\u00a0\u2018\u2026two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun\u2026\u2019<\/a> in less than 5 seconds (limit one per customer per day). As a hungry teenager I made it my mission to master the art.<\/p>\n

My summer of eating for free was a spin off of the Burger Wars<\/a> of the late 1970s and 80s between the large hamburger chains in the United States. Over that period, millions of dollars was spent on television advertising by McDonalds<\/em>, Burger King<\/em>, Hardee\u2019s <\/em>and others to entice customers to the drive-through window. The most lasting legacy of the era has been the \u2018Where\u2019s the Beef?\u2019 campaign from Wendy\u2019s <\/em>(which was revived<\/a> in 2011). <\/em>Take a moment now to watch the original advertisement<\/a> and one of its follow-ups<\/a>. It\u2019s hard not to laugh even today.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of the classic Wendy\u2019s campaign today as I was reading the new Defence White Paper. Not because it\u2019s entirely lacking in nourishment for the ADF\u2014twelve Growlers is a substantial addition to the force structure. And there\u2019s even a promise of some additional money over the next four years, not just for the Growler purchase but also to address budget pressures within Defence. My concern is for the longer term, when we\u2019ll have to pay to maintain a mixed fleet of Super Hornets and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter while building twelve new bespoke submarines at great cost and risk, not to mention maintaining today\u2019s troop numbers and enhancing ADF base infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country. None of this will come cheap.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll get more details on funding in the Budget next week, with expenditure guidance out a decade promised. This is a positive step, but we\u2019ll have to look closely to see if there is sufficient money allocated to do all that has been promised today. It\u2019s only then that we\u2019ll be able to lift the bun of the burger and see how much beef there really is.<\/p>\n

Even if there\u2019s a hearty chunk of bovine protein sitting amid the tomato sauce, there\u2019s the question of what comes next? It\u2019s unrealistic (and clearly pointless) to ask the government to commit to defence spending so far into the future. As we\u2019ve seen over the past four years, governments can and will change their mind as events intervene. That\u2019s okay, we need them to do just that. Nonetheless, we should also expect that due regard is paid to the compatibility of today\u2019s plans with longer-term economic expectations. There\u2019s little point investing billions of dollars in military equipment if we cannot be sure of being able to afford to operate it in the future.<\/p>\n

On this count, we must be concerned. The unexpected collapse of this year\u2019s surplus heralded the emergence of a long-term structure deficit of unknown dimensions. Unfortunately, we will not be getting an Intergenerational Report this year so we don\u2019t know how realistic it is to aspire to spend 2% of GDP on defence, or how long it might take us to get there, or indeed how much money might amount to in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the case that if we say \u2018three air warfare destroyers, special forces, tanks, planes, rifles, bombs and lots of regional engagement\u2019 fast enough that we\u2019ll get it all for free.<\/p>\n

Mark Thomson is senior analyst for defence economics<\/em>\u00a0at ASPI.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the day, you could get a free Big Mac from McDonalds by reciting\u00a0\u00a0\u2018\u2026two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun\u2026\u2019 in less than 5 seconds (limit …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1425],"class_list":["post-5974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-white-paper-2013","tag-defence-white-paper-2013"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhere\u2019s the Beef? | 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\/wheres-the-beef\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where\u2019s the Beef? 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