Why do so many Deputy Secretaries responsible for strategic policy come from backgrounds that positively avoid tertiary qualifications or formative experiences in things strategical?
Wearing his second hat as the Chief of Joint Operations, and because you cannot keep an ex-Melburnian away during the pre-season practice matches, Barney (my boss, Air Marshal Barney Stoush, the VCDF) thought it best that he extensively inspected the defence force’s support to the staging of the Commonwealth Games.
Of course this also allowed him to view the odd sport involved. He was particularly drawn to the caber tossing and shinty – two ancient Commonwealth sports that have contributed so much to higher committee processes at Russell Offices.
On the operational front, all those attending the games would have felt even safer if they had but known that Barney had personally flown one of the protective fighter sorties on the afternoon of the closing ceremony, at least before it got too dark to land safely at his age.
Then again, they might not be comforted, particularly if they realised that his sortie owed as much to our shortage of experienced fighter pilots as it did to his professional determination and mid-life cockpit crisis.
I got to see a few minor events too, although my main job was carrying and frequently referring to the VCDF’s copy of the Guidelines on the Participation of Australian Public Service Employees, Statutory Office Holders and Appointees and Ministerial Staffers in the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, just to check that the VCDF did not accidentally contravene its strictures.
As Barney remarked afterwards, it was a pity that its authors did not get the job of writing the code of ethics for AWB Limited or BHP Billiton.
A new Deputy Secretary Strategy has now occupied the other big office in the power suite. Barney has been busy at times teaching him the rudiments of strategy, starting off with a discourse on the elements of national power and the differences between ships and boats.
It is, of course, a bit easier this time around, especially after all the practice Barney has had with some previous occupants.
Now some may find it strange that the deputy secretary in the Department of Defence responsible for managing the development of the nation’s defence strategy is a common-or-garden variety public servant, rather than a defence strategy specialist such as a senior and experienced ADF officer.
Some readers might be further puzzled to learn that most occupants of this post have come there by a path that positively avoided tertiary qualifications or formative experiences in things strategical.
I used to ponder the meaning of this too. One day, after reading a particularly shallow draft strategic update in Barney’s in-tray, I asked my boss why.
Knowing my mid-career pride in membership of the profession of arms, and ever so gently, he appraised me of the lingering power of deference, ancient tradition and form over substance. ‘It’s a bit like the powdered wigs on judges and barristers’ he counselled.
As always with Barney, this explanation was reassuring. Later on I realised that he had commanded a squadron, wing, and a joint force on operations, and also studied progressively at the RAAF Academy, RAAF Staff College, Joint Services Staff College, the Royal College of Defence Studies and two universities, just so he would be adequately prepared to coach senior public servants in both strategic policy and the ways the defence force could or could not execute it.
A heretical thought has kept creeping into my head though. Perhaps someone like Barney should do the strategy job instead, or perhaps the public servants might be similarly career-groomed, trained and academically (and otherwise) qualified before being appointed to the position.
These thoughts may have been subconsciously prompted by my recent reading matter: the newly published biography of Sir Arthur Tange, (appropriately but perhaps inaccurately titled Last of the Mandarins); and the book Sea Control and Maritime Power Projection for Australia.
Not that I was especially interested in the latter topic at first, but it was written by Barney’s new Chief-of-Staff Operations, a Navy captain, so I thought it politic to bone up a bit. The tome makes eminent sense on several weighty force structuring and strategic problems.
No doubt when this is discovered all the Russell Library’s copies will ‘be disappeared’ and the author treated similarly by being posted as Defence Adviser at our High Commission in New Zealand.
Another tradition regularly exercised in the Department of Defence – massive re-organisation – is occurring again, albeit a bit late from the biennial norm.
The particular bureaucratic beauty of this one is that it manages to cancel out most of the bits of the last two re-orgs rather than just the usual last one.
This will add renewed spice to one of the highly competitive games played among Russell Hill’s personal staff officers to the great and good: find the most silly job title in the Defence bureaucracy.
I thought I had this month’s match won with ‘Corporate Identity & Popular Culture Co-ordinator’ (R8-LG-060) but it was not to be.
I was trumped completely by the Flag Lieutenant to Chief of Navy with ‘Assistant Director Green Buildings’ (BP3-2-B089).
I should add that to play the game you have to record the physical location of the incumbent to prevent competitors just inventing sillier job titles than the real ones – if that were indeed possible.