The headline gives you the guts of the idea. In the diarchy that runs Defence, the military man sits atop the civilian: the chief of the Australian Defence Force now looms above the secretary of …
Tag Archive for: "Defence Secretary"
Here’s one version of the creation story of Australia’s defence organisation and civil–military relations: God made heaven and earth, and on the sixth day, just before He rested, God made Arthur Tange. No, wait, that’s …
Beyond running a huge civilian workforce, the Secretary of the Defence Department is torn at by an extraordinary array of g-forces: government, generals, gear (the buying, building and running of), geopolitics and geography. On bad …
Like the term Asia-Pacific, the Indo-Pacific is such a large concept that it conceals as much as it conveys. Why is the idea of the Indo-Pacific so powerful that it is a key motif of …
My previous column compared the only Australian mandarins who have headed both Foreign Affairs and Defence, Dennis Richardson and Arthur Tange. To further pursue that comparison, step forward two other mandarins: Philip Flood, former Secretary …