Prof Ben Tonra on the Commission on Defence (4)

In this recording from the IDFOC Webinar: the Commission on Defence (Academic Panel), Prof Ben Tonra sets out his hopes for the Commission.

His first hope is that the Commission really is an independent review. He does not want to see it as a sort of conversation between stakeholders. He does not want to see the Dept of Defence represented, the officers represented, the enlisted personnel represented... this should not be a stakeholder conversation, because what you will then get is some sort of anodyne, consensus-driven document.

What is needed is a commission that is genuinely independent, having a very frank conversation about the Defence Forces, their role, purpose and function and what we need to do to give them the wherewithal to successfully complete their mission.

His second hope is for consultation - and this isn't just consultation with the stakeholders - and detailed conversation with officers, with enlisted personnel, with all the stakeholders and political interests and all the interests involved therein. He really wants to see consultation outside; he really wants to see consultation with like-minded countries overseas, whether that's New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Belgium... comparably-sized military forces to have a conversation about what we need to be doing and what we need to be thinking about in terms of our defence going forward.

His third hope is that we start from first principles. That is - again to say - have a conversation about what is the threat assessment, what are the Defence Forces designed to do and how do we give them the capacity and abilities to undertake that. Starting from first principles has got to be the starting point for this commission. There was some of that with the Garda Commission because they did talk about new models of policing, new means of policing while it was much more about function towards the end. He thinks we need to have a bigger conversation about defence strategy, purpose and function before we talk about what the Defence Forces, how they're structured, how they are governed and how they work.