Ron Smith: Talking about war

A hundred years ago, the government department responsible for the use of armed force, was called the ‘War Ministry’. Now it is called the ‘Ministry of Defence’ and we like it to engage in ‘peace-keeping’ and not ‘war’. Most citizens are not in, in a strict-sense, ‘pacifist’ (they do not repudiate the use of violent means in all circumstances) but they regret the all too evident human consequences of war, which makes them lukewarm supporters of ‘defence’, as an abstract proposition.

One consequence of this is a perpetual failure, by societies like ours, to make adequate provision for likely defence contingencies. Thus the period up to the New Zealand humanitarian intervention into East Timor (now Timor Leste) in 1999, was characterised by vociferous criticism of defence expenditure (‘toys for the boys’) by people who were then enthusiastic advocates of the operation. The consequence, of course, was to deploy forces that were inadequately trained and inadequately equipped.