{"id":938,"date":"2012-08-28T14:55:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T04:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=938"},"modified":"2012-08-31T11:44:32","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T01:44:32","slug":"lewis-lullaby-is-tough-love-for-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/lewis-lullaby-is-tough-love-for-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis lullaby is tough love for Defence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Secretary<\/a><\/figure>\n

Defence Secretary Duncan Lewis\u2019 speech to ASPI<\/a> last week was a message (put nicely) to his own organisation to toughen up: stop squealing about spending cuts and start rebuilding the organisation to handle a harder strategic environment. According to Lewis, his speech was a homage to Sir Arthur Tange\u2019s infamous \u2018Tange harangue\u2019, a speech delivered in August 1973 which tore strips off the three Services for their \u2018triplicated\u2019 ways of doing business. And although the Secretary assured the audience he wouldn\u2019t repeat Tange\u2019s words that is exactly what he did, but in a subtler way.<\/p>\n

The Secretary\u2019s speech deserves careful reading for the messages it contains both to Government and to Defence. The first was about money: \u2018If you haven\u2019t talked dollars you haven\u2019t talked strategy\u2019 Lewis said, quoting Tange. The speech repeatedly emphasised the need to match strategic aspirations to the available dollars. Australia\u2019s strategy, Lewis said \u2018needs to be tempered by reality, affordability, and informed by the thinking and tasking of other Government agencies.\u2019 Frankly, this is a more realistic appreciation of Defence\u2019s position than in Defence Minister Stephen Smith\u2019s recent speeches to ASPI<\/a> and the Lowy Institute<\/a>. Lewis knows that it is impossible to keep cutting spending and expect that there will be no loss of capability. His message is that we need a strategy that fits what Government is prepared to spend.<\/p>\n

The second message \u00a0was about savings and efficiencies and, in content if not in tone, Lewis was every bit as tough as Sir Arthur in calling out duplications in far too many functions across Defence, particularly in acquisition, human resources management, finance and information and communications technology. His aim is to \u2018decrease the number of people that we currently have devoted to them.\u2019 The Government\u2019s mantra is that no ADF personnel will be cut, but after years of reform efforts some of the biggest potential efficiencies are in the uniformed ADF\u2014in training and education for example. Lewis was uncompromising in saying that reform would have to happen: \u2018if we do nothing our buying power will erode and diminish.\u2019 In effect he is proposing a trade-off: Defence can make radical cuts, but it needs to retain the savings to buy \u2018\u2026the capability we assess we need.\u2019 Talk about tough messages! Lewis is saying to Government, get ready to make difficult judgement calls on personnel numbers; to the central agencies, there is no easy harvesting of cash from his department; and to his own organisation (still sulking from the last budget) even deeper reform is necessary.<\/p>\n

Duncan Lewis\u2019 third message was about strategy: \u2018As things stand I don\u2019t think we are structured or postured appropriately to meet our likely strategic circumstances in future.\u2019 It\u2019s a line worth reading again. And it\u2019s no small thing for a Secretary of Defence to say. Following that, Lewis went on to talk about Chinese defence spending, the US \u2018pivot\u2019, regional economic growth and the rise of \u2018more outward looking countries.\u2019 He noted the challenges of managing competing economic interests and the region\u2019s rather threadbare security institutions. It is a necessarily restrained presentation of what Defence considers to be a more worrying set of strategic trends.<\/p>\n

The solution Lewis proposes is twofold. First, we mitigate risks to our national security by \u2018working with regional neighbours and partners, participating in and fostering bilateral, trilateral and multilateral linkages.\u2019 Defence\u2019s posture in the region\u2014that is, what we do with what we have\u2014is emerging as the lead theme for the next white paper. That will be a refreshing break from big talk about capabilities we don\u2019t have and won\u2019t have for several decades (if at all). The challenge for Defence will be to think big about what can be achieved in regional engagement. Just tinkering with the Defence Cooperation Program won\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n

Lewis\u2019 second response is to \u2018reduce our risk by doing Defence business differently. \u2026 We have come a long way since Tange \u2018harangued\u2019 the Services in 1973, but if we don\u2019t go further \u2013 much further \u2013 we run the risk of becoming irrelevant.\u2019 Defence, irrelevant? I can imagine how that line will go down at the Russell Offices. It\u2019s an uncompromising message for Defence, but, as Tange might have seen it, it\u2019s right on the money.<\/p>\n

Peter Jennings<\/a>\u00a0is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defence Secretary Duncan Lewis\u2019 speech to ASPI last week was a message (put nicely) to his own organisation to toughen up: stop squealing about spending cuts and start rebuilding the organisation to handle a harder …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[17,26,38],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy-guns-and-money","tag-australia","tag-defence-spending","tag-department-of-defence"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLewis lullaby is tough love for Defence | 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\/lewis-lullaby-is-tough-love-for-defence\/\" 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