Your humble correspondent was reading the papers this morning and came upon this in the SMH:
The Australian Defence Force is thousands of people short of its staffing targets, putting the nation’s military under intense strain as it confronts heightened tensions in the Indo-Pacific and the risk of conflict between global powers.
Hmm. Interesting. The nation’s military under intense strain. Hmm.
Then I recall reading something else recently. Greg Sheridan in the Australian quoting the brilliant Paul Dibb:
Dibb referred me to figures that show the mind boggling proliferation of “star-ranked” officers in the Australian Defence Force over the past 20 years. It’s nearly doubled from 120 to 219. That’s one star-ranked officer for every 260 other ranks, whereas in the US it’s one to 1526, and in the UK one to 1522.
So how do you solve the military’s recruitment problems and the “intense strain” in one go? Make everyone in the Australian military a stared officer - general, admiral, marshall. It can’t cost that much additional given the high current proportion.
Throw in a gold lapel pin to go with the other epaulet jewellery.
Pretty soon the Australian military might look like the North Korean military. With the exception that the North Koreans have defence and force projection capabilities.
Bonus 1 year free subscription to anyone who can spot the Order of Australia pin in this image:
You lost me at "Your humble correspondent was reading....the SMH." Why do it to yourself?
"'Strain"'. Haha. I don't know if anyone else saw the ABC doco that found that of our 6 subs only one is in water and capable on a good day. NO Australian is capable of captaining. All our captains are ex-pat Americans. We are 40 years behind US, UK and China and others. Yet our government thinks we can just buy the most complicated vessel in the world, with no-one to captain it, no sailors to man it, no-one to fix it AND no-one being trained to do so and that will solve all our defence problems. This is pink batts all over.