Editorial: Government response to defence report devious

The Government's ineptitude and duplicity in defence matters know no bounds. Not content with reducing the Defence Force to anaemic peacekeeping duties and emasculating the Air Force in the process, it has now turned its back on an urgently needed overhaul of defence structures. Despite the strong recommendation of Don Hunn, the highly regarded former State Services Commissioner, there will be no merger of the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Force. Divide and rule is, it seems, the preferred option for a Government with an inbuilt mistrust of the military. No matter that the cost of that phobia is an utterly ineffective defence system.

The splitting, in 1990, of the defence forces into the ministry - a civilian wing which develops policy and buys equipment - and the Defence Force, consisting of the military services, has proved to be calamitous. The outcome was the dysfunctional Defence Force of the late 1990s. Long-term inter-Service feuding culminated in the Army's disowning its traditional political neutrality to campaign vigorously for the biggest slice of defence spending.

Among its ambitions was the influencing of key politicians and the appointment of supporters to senior positions in the ministry. The strategy worked, so much so that in the past few years the Army has enjoyed the major slice of the defence budget - at the expense of the Navy and the Air Force.

Mr Hunn's report pulls no punches about the degree of dysfunction. The problems are, he says, "cultural and attitudinal as well as organisational and systemic". And the organisation is "at odds" with "an effective defence system".

The implication is clear. The friction between the Army, Navy and Air Force will not disappear as the senior officers at the centre of the feuding retire. The system, in fact, creates friction. It will recur, no matter the personalities involved and the attempts to paper over the problems. In Mr Hunn's words, there is a risk of "back-sliding". The solution, he says unequivocally, is the establishment of a single organisation.

That advice has sat on the desk of the Minister of Defence, Mark Burton, for six months. Only now, as attention is distracted by events in Iraq, has it been released. Only now has the Government summoned up nerve to disown it. Its limp response is that many of the recommendations and problems identified by Mr Hunn have been overtaken by time.

According to Mr Burton, significant changes have already been made to create "jointness" and to better define roles and responsibilities. That, of course, ignores the inherent flaws in the defence structure. Mr Hunn confirms that little has changed. Despite attempts at co-operation, the underlying environment in many areas remains one of suspicion and contention, he says.

The Government's reasoning for not following his advice is as feeble as the country's defence capabilities. Mr Burton says he wants to receive "contestable advice" from the ministry and the Defence Force. More likely, he fears the unity and purpose of a merged structure. As long as the bickering continues, the attention of the defence arms will be diverted from the more important task of pressing for a sane policy and adequate funding.

The Government has no reason to mistrust the military, even if its approach to defence creates a mutual enmity. It controls the purse-strings, and under a merged structure the interface of a Secretary of Defence would remain. But mistrust there is. The discarding of the Hunn Report is a telling indicator. The Government wants malleability, in addition to minimalism, in the armed forces. In an increasingly unstable world, that is a wretched notion.