ISSUE 34 : May/Jun - 1982 - Australian Defence Force Journal

64 DEFENCE FORCE JOURNAL No. 34, May/June 82
long term schooling; rather it requires a different
concept of professional socialisation and
education and an integration of political factors
and methods of analysis into tactical and
strategic thinking. Although battlefield competence
and the skills and attitudes that contribute
to it are not irrelevant in Sarkesian's
model, they are not mentioned much in this
book, except as a barrier to the adoption of
the thinking which he advocates. And herein
lies the major weakness in his model.
For, whilst few would surely disagree with
his assertion that,
"While conventional military forces remain
essential ingredients in strategic deterrence,
the utility of such forces for purposes of
intervention has declined" (p 112),
the political basis of "armed diplomacy" (nice
phrase, that!) for a nation is the latent strength
of that nation's forces. And, since Western
armies (and, indeed, most others) are based
on a hierarchical, authoritative, disciplined
character, if it is to maintain latent strength,
the military institution must continue to have
that character. This institutional character
tends to produce a particular kind of person.
It is not denigrating that kind of person to
suggest that, especially in peacetime when the
maintenance of this institutional character is
difficult and internal efforts to so maintain it
are thus intensified, the kind of person Sarkesain
would like to see in the military institution,
would not be particularly comfortable
there. Indeed, the military institution, as a
socialising environment, could find it rather
difficult to produce significant numbers of
officers of each type who also appreciated the
views of the other. Unfortunately, Sarkesian
brushes over this. Perhaps he feels that, as a
political scientist, he should give direction and
that the sociologists could then tackle the
practical problems in the social system; but it
is disappointing that there is not more on these
problems.
Sarkesian also gives very little space to the
question of how the civilian leadership and the
community would react to this new professionalism.
I am inclined to think that the
community would be somewhat apprehensive
of a move in this direction. In essence, he says
that it is up to the military to demonstrate, by
example, how this new style would be of more
use to the state than would alternative models
of professionalism.
My final criticism of this book is that I
found it a little difficult to read, perhaps
because of the small typeface, but also because
it was somewhat repetitive. It started life as a
series of essays, and could have done with
some rigorous editing to trim these into interrelated
chapters. Nonetheless, this is a thoughtprovoking
book and deserves to be widely
read. One of its strengths is the evidence of
considerable background reading, and anyone
interested in studying this issue will benefit
from the many reference notes and bibliographical
items.
It is intriguing, of course, to speculate on
whether the issues addressed in this book are
of relevance to the Australian military profession.
Despite our size, we do have a distinct
threat environment, and there is no reason to
think that political sophistication — in its
application to problems of military strategy
and tactics — is no less needed by Australia
than by America.
But for me, the most important lesson in
this book is that it points up a fundamental
difference between the Australian and American
military establishments. This difference is
one of scholarly reflectiveness: the propensity
to study the past and the present as guides tothe
future, and to discuss alternative courses
of action in deciding how a desired future is
to be sought.
Australian servicemen do not have a good
record in reflectiveness, even in terms of the
conventional area of "military history". Quantitatively
at least, our collective contribution
to the literature on military sociology and
history is almost as nothing compared to that
of the American services. Vietnam alone has
stimulated all sorts of writings from Americans;
some arguing that they went wrong,
others arguing that they didn't and many
proposing lessons to be learned from the
experience. Contrast this mountain of print
with the Australian equivalent: a few novels
and a handful of articles, largely about CRW
techniques, in periodicals such as this. Locally,
moreover, there is almost no debate about
professional dilemmas such as those Sarkesian
discusses.
Someone once remarked, at an "Australian
Armed Forces and Society" conference, that
Australia had yet to produce a Janowitz. It's
worse than that, I'm afraid: we haven't even
got to the stage of producing a Sarkesian. y