Recognition
for service within Australia
Just acknowledgement
I
WAS one of many (ex-PAF) reservists that deployed to Darwin, in
the operations command post, RAAF Base Darwin, in support of the
operations in East Timor.
All of the reservists volunteered for the deployment knowing that
they would be away from their families over the Christmas and
following turn of the century new-year period. This issue was
not a problem as we felt it was our duty to support our fellow
troops.
There were Army personnel serving in Australia who did get recognition
for their services. They were all issued with and allowed to wear
the East Timor INTERFET brassard as recognition of their support
to the operation.
I agree with the comments made by WOFF Paul Dowdle and SGT M.
Lyttle [Air Force Volume 47, No. 3 and No. 10] that all those
who deployed in support of operations should have been recognised
in some way, not just a select few.
I would like to hear why the Army [members] were recognised and
not the Air Force.
FLTLT
Trevor Grant
No. 92 Wing
RAAF Base Edinburgh
Just
a medal
IT
IS good to see the top left of the uniform once again attracting
the eye.
In the past, the criteria for awards may have tended towards the
“stingy”. For example, I note my grandfather’s
“Mut and Jeff” plus MM – a total of three medals
– for four years’ frontline combat on the Western Front,
and my father’s four medals for flying combat in World War
II.
Although change for the better is right and proper, it would be
unwise to devalue something as vital to the Australian military
tradition as the honours and awards system. When it comes to “being
home in time for tea and medals”, less really is more.
Kevin
Morris
Maritime Patrol Systems
RAAF Base Edinburgh
Evolution
doesn’t stop
By
WGCDR Peter McLennan
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Air
Power Development Centre
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The
Air Force is continually evolving. It needs to do this for two
main reasons: first, what is required of the Air Force may change
over time in response to changes in its external environment,
and second, the Air Force needs to continually refresh its resources
with newer generations of people and equipment.
This evolution needs to be guided by expectations about what the
future may hold, to ensure that the future Air Force is well suited
to the circumstances of the day. The obvious thing to do is to
make predictions, or forecasts, about what the future will be
like, and then to use these to guide the development of the Air
Force. But how well does forecasting work?
Among other things, the answer depends on how far ahead we attempt
to forecast. For example, weather forecasts for tomorrow are fairly
reliable, but weather forecasts for two weeks’ time are much
less so.
How far ahead does the Air Force need to look? We need to take
into account the duration for which decisions taken today will
be influential. Consider the decisions currently being made regarding
new aircraft types for the RAAF, such as the Joint Strike Fighter.
Such decisions will not start to have any practical influence
until the aircraft start entering service, which is almost a decade
away. And the aircraft may well be still in service in 50 years
time, and we want them to be relevant throughout their service
life, and not just at the beginning. So our forecasts need to
look out somewhere between 10 and 50 years.
Unfortunately, forecasting the strategic environment even 20 years
ahead is very difficult. Forecasts tend to be extrapolations of
the current situation, because it is almost impossible to predict
if or when major changes might occur. Consider a 20-year forecast
made in the year 1980.
At that time, the Cold War was still dominant. Hardly anybody
predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union until just before it
happened in 1989, so most 1980 forecasts for the year 2000 retained
the Cold War as the defining feature.
The fall of the Berlin Wall is a very visible sign of the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Nobody anticipated this dramatic change in
the security environment even a few years in advance.
As a further example, consider 20-year forecasts made in the year
2000. The Cold War was over, and most forecasts simply assumed
that the then-prevalent trend for smaller, often intra-state conflicts
would be the way of the future.
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The
1989 fall of the Berlin Wall was a very visible sign of
the collapse of the Soviet Union – 1980 forecasts for
the year 2000 retained the Cold War as the defining feature.
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Photo
provided by APDC
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Very
few people predicted the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001,
and the subsequent attacks on Australian interests in Bali and
Jakarta. And yet such threats are now dominating many people’s
thinking about the security environment.
Even shorter-range forecasts failed to predict the North Korean
invasion in 1950, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the Yom Kippur
war in 1973, the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, and the Gulf
War in 1990. Pessimistic predictions about Vietnam in the 1960s
proved to be accurate but failed to convince politicians.
Closer to home, the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s made
a major impact on regional security assessments, but was not predicted
even a few months in advance. The only recent conflict that has
been an unqualified forecasting success is the outbreak of violence
in the former Yugoslavia in 1990.
Why is forecasting so difficult? The problem is that forecasting
relies on the basic system remaining unchanged in all important
regards. For example, short-term weather forecasts are based on
current pressure regions, fronts, winds, and so on.
Those features remain fairly similar for a few days, allowing
short-term weather forecasts to be made with some accuracy. But
beyond that, the weather system could look quite different, so
extrapolating from the current system is no longer reliable.
The same phenomenon occurs in the security environment. While
the basic system will probably be the same tomorrow as it is today,
there are many opportunities for significant changes in a 20-year
period. Major countries could collapse, currently unheard-of groups
could become prominent, radical new weapons could be developed,
and so on.
Nobody can know if and when such fundamental changes to the security
system might happen. But in any 20-year period, it seems likely
that something significant will probably happen. As a result,
we are unable to accurately forecast that far ahead.
And yet, the need to make plans for 20-plus years ahead still
remains. If we cannot predict that far ahead, what do we base
our plans on?
Fortunately, there are alternatives to long-range forecasting.
One increasingly common approach is scenario planning, which will
be discussed in a subsequent article.
Wing Commander Peter McLennan is on staff at the Air Power Development
Centre.
