Strategic Planning Process and the Need for Grand Strategy

This monograph explores the strategic dilemma facing the Australian Strategic Planning System in the post Cold War environment. Previously the Australian Government and Australian Defense Organization produced Defense White Papers to provide an articulation of government policy regarding Defense. These white papers provided the primary guidance to the military from the government for setting strategic objectives and major defense tasks. Consequently, military strategy sought to attain the objectives set forth in the Defense White Papers. Since the end of the Cold War, the strategic environment in Australia's strategic area of interest has changed dramatically. These changes reflect increased regional instability, occasioned by cultural, economic, military and political change. The development of a globalized market economy has further complicated these changes. The result is the need for the Australian Government to articulate Australian national interests as a means to focus the development of economic, diplomatic, informational and military strategy. Presently no national security document exists in which to guide the development of a national approach to strategy development. This monograph proposes the development of a National Security Organization responsible to the National Security Committee of Cabinet for the production of a grand strategy that will coordinate currently separate economic, diplomatic and military strategy.