MARTIN DUNN
Since the Second World War there has been a global trend for formerly independent armed services to be brought together in a more cohesive defence force, and at the same time seek greater integration of the military organisation with the civil bureaucracy that supports them. In the past, the Services had their own chiefs, their own budgets and their own ministers - all strictly independent. It is now normal to have a single military commander, one budget and a defence minister. Today's armed Services are still recognisable, but with much less autonomy than they had in the past.
The process worked very differently in different countries. Canada was characterised by a period of sudden and rapid transformation. In Australia, the process was more gradual. While the Tange reforms of the 1970s were the most pervasive and far reaching, from the end of the war to today there has been a gradual trend towards creating a single military commander with a powerful joint staff.
The Canadian example has few admirers in Australia. The consensus is that it went too far, too quickly. It tells us that there are limits to how much jointery is sensible. What is not as clear is exactly where those limits are. How do you know if you have enough?
The trend towards centralisation has been driven primarily by two concerns: the recognition that modern war is now joint, and the desire to minimise costs. Pulling against these is the influence of the operating environment and the past.
The Imperatives of the Joint Battlefield
Up until the current century, joint operations were rare. There were some amphibious operations and some naval gunfire support to troops ashore, but these were uncommon experiences. The inadequacies of communications and the brevity of the support made the thought of a single commander quaint, and ad hoc arrangements prevailed. Even at the strategic level there was no great need for coordination beyond that which occurred in cabinet deliberations.
The rise of air power changed the equation. Soon it became unthinkable that armies and navies would operate without air support, but the commanders of the air arm tended to emphasise the importance of their independent campaigns - air control and strategic bombing - as well as the unique technical demands of their weapon.
The very flexibility and ubiquity of aircraft meant that operational command needed to be joint. It compelled the establishment of joint staffs, and arrangements for employing assigned or supporting assets from a different service. More broadly it affected the way we thought about warfare and compelled peacetime planning and development staffs to also become increasingly joint.
The Search for Efficiency
As the Services became more technical, so the support they required grew. In many cases similar or identical skills were being demanded. Resources were always constrained and rationalisation became a real possibility. Logistics, training, personnel management, and other areas all became attractive targets. In some cases, single service logistic management arrangements prevailed, while in other cases fully joint organisations were created.
The use of information in an organisation was another area where improvements were sought. Intelligence became one of the first areas to create joint structures, but increasingly there has been pressure for all decision-making to be centralised to be more easily subject to a single corporate direction. Autonomous organisations, such as the Services, were at times accused of duplication on one hand and running their own agenda on the other. Centralisation became a way of more securely placing both sources of information and advice in the hands of higher decision-makers. Today, with technology - wide area networks, CD-ROM publication, etc - the physical location of information sources is less important. And there is no definitive way of determining how many sources of advice are to many.
The Influence of the Environment
Driving against the pressure for unification is the uniqueness of the different environments. The equipment used is different, the tactics are different and the doctrine is different. Even where superficial similarities exist, as in logistics, the closer one gets to the coal face the less strongly analogies hold. An army echelon cannot be compared to a navy oiler except in the broadest of possible senses. Command and control also tends to work differently, defying ingenuous expectations. Navies and air forces control relatively few units, relying on generally good communications. Armies depend heavily on doctrine and several levels of headquarters to control some thousands of "independent" soldiers.
The Pull of the Past
Finally, history acts as a brake on the process. In its most negative guise, conservatism simply fails to recognise the benefits of change - and the armed forces are nothing if not conservative. Yet in a more positive light, the traditions of the Services provide the esprit de corps that makes their members fight, and the image which young recruits seek to join. The past also provides the Services with their storehouse of doctrine - the collective experience that needs wars to realistically validate.
Conclusion
The current Defence Efficiency Review will no doubt examine a range of reorganisation options involving further centralisation. How well they strike the balance between the competing factors we are yet to see.
Originally published in Research & Analysis: Newsletter of the Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, Issue 12, Canberra, January 1997.
(c) Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 1997 - reprinted with permission.