Military philosophy and Lord Fisher. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: Leo Hogan's article ("Insecurity in Defence", October 2002) suggests that the Australian Defence Force lacks a clear and coherent understanding of its role and that the capacities of the Army (which is where he spent his service career) are limited to small group operations. He makes what appear to a lay person a number of persuasive points. For example, we know enough about the problems shown up by the East Timor operation to find plausible what he says about the Army's equipment and logistics limitations. These are however not well known in the community at large, to whom that operation was presented as a huge success of Australian arms. It was no doubt a very professional operation. But the potential opposition (which could have been overwhelming) had been persuaded (mainly and firmly by the United States) not to interfere and there were large gaps in our capabilities which had to be covered by the Americans.

Nor is this a new story. Recent media stories on the Kokoda Track campaign present it as a stunning victory by the Australians against much larger enemy forces. But there was no Australian victory in the Pacific War against the Japanese when we did not enjoy numerical superiority and allied air control or air superiority.

The historical record gives no ground for complacency about the defence of Australia, and certainly no ground for prejudicing the effort to produce a credible capacity to defend this continent and its approaches in order to return to the doctrine that we need a capacity to engage significantly in conflicts in the Middle East, for example.

Hogan says we need to decide what sort of country Australia wants to be before taking the big decisions about defence. But he does not himself offer any answer to that "philosophical" (as he describes it) issue and he finds a reluctance on the part of defence bureaucrats to address it. He calls on the example of Admiral Lord Fisher, who set about reforming the British navy from 1903 and struck "some 154 ships off the navy list". Fisher was no doubt a great administrator of adamantine determination and political brilliance. He was the champion of the Dreadnought battleship and tested the budgetary resources of what was still the world's richest empire to outspend Germany. He created a navy the big ships of which ended up having only one great naval engagement in the course of the First World War. But Fisher remained influential on into the prime ministership of Winston Churchill (who was always fascinated by him despite major vicissitudes). He was by then long past his use-by date.

Neither the times nor the Australian political system or temperament would suit a Fisher for our defence policy decisions. Mass public opinion matters much more in the Australia of 2002 than it did in the Britain of 1903. We need people to think about the defence implications of Australia's size, now and prospectively. They need to be persuaded that a main part of the answer to Leo Hogan's "philosophical" issue is that we should aim to grow at least to the point where we can generate a capacity to look after the defence of Australia and its approaches against any but a great power attack. That seems consistent with the defence "philosophy" which Kim Beazley and Paul Dibb put together all those years ago and which despite all the recent static must still be at least a major part of what we are aiming at.

 
Rawdon Dalrymple, 
Sydney, NSW. 

SIR: Two points about Leo Hogan's mention of Sir John Fisher, Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, the naval reformer.