There is an excellent editorial in the Jul-Sep issue of the Navy League of Australia’s magazine NAVY. It’s a regular byline called “From the Crowsnest” by Aeneas and it discusses this very topic with particular reference to the RAN.
I don’t have a subscription but I do buy the magazine so unfortunately I can’t link the piece.
It lists three existential and interlinked crisis currently effecting the RAN.
The first is a crisis in senior leadership which is illustrated by the fact that by the time General Campbell completes his term Navy will not have had a CDF for 20years. The question is why? Why are Army and RAAF Chiefs being selected ahead of Navy and what is Navy doing to position it’s future leaders to compete for the position in 2022?
Navy has systemic gapping in its recruitment targets but it is also aiming for success in gender diversity in inclusion and recruitment. It’s KPIs for success will be:
- The number of women recruited is at or above the number required to meet the participation targets, initially 25% for Navy increasing to 35% this year.
- women remain in recruitment pathways at rates comparable to men.
-and women’s satisfaction with the recruitment process is comparable to that of men.
It then discusses the the huge disparity of deaths, 98.5% men and wounded in Afghanistan and asks the question, what effect does this disparity in burden sharing have on morale and on what empirical grounds do these KPIs show that the ADF will be a better fighting force?
This links to the second crisis Navy may be facing, recruitment and retention.
If these gender based KPIs are to be met and understanding that retention rates are higher for men the only way these KPIs can be met and noting the tokenism and the impact upon morale for both sexes, the only way the increase in Naval complement can be met is to recruit 55% females for the next 14 to 15 years! And all this before addressing the elephant in the room - that by the 2030s Navy need a complement of 20,000 to crew their new fleet.
The third crisis deals with how our sovereign shipbuilding is hardly sovereign however I disagree that this is a crisis, those who read the article can make up their own minds.
He considers the way these crisis; senior Navy ADF appointing, crewing Navy and sovereign capability over the future fleet, are connected all come down to strategic leadership competence, confidence and knowing how to conceive, conceptualise, build and crew a navy that can think and fight win.His final words “Australia is at risk of creating a perfectly ethical ADF potentially incapable of securing and defending its own walls”
I think that this is a particularly gloomy interpretation of what is occurring however surely it’s rime to closely study the demographics of the recruiting and retention statistics and tailor the gender policy so that there will be no future gaps in those who “subordinate ourselves to the political professional elites who rise and sleep under the blanket of the very freedom that we provide and who would never consider picking up a weapon, and keeping a vigil, or standing a lonely watch.
