I just read Jim Molan’s response to Australia’s 2013 Defence White Paper presented to the United Services Institute of the ACT. It’s a typically forthright contribution from the former Major General, with some particularly strong criticism of Paul Dibb’s geographic determinism and support for an Australian maritime strategy that emphasises the importance of aerial and maritime forces at the expense of a heavy army.
However, what caught my eye was his dismissal of civilian academic strategists and assertion that “you should never be permitted to speak on strategy unless you have at least a passing familiarity with operations in the real world”.
While he was perhaps playing to his audience, as a student of strategy, I disagree with Molan’s position. Indeed, lacking first hand military experience may even be a bonus if it means civilian strategists are devoid of bias toward a particular service arm and are able to see the bigger picture, conceiving of military strategy as only one branch of grand strategy.
I am, however, keen to learn what readers think. If you have an academic interest in strategy, do you believe you would have a deeper understanding of the field if you acquired first-hand experience?
If you do have military experience, has it afforded you greater insight into the art of strategy or do you believe you could have acquired comparable knowledge through academic study?
Asia Pacific Briefing 
Great idea to ask the question. Suggest that you do not try to influence the answers. My objection to Dibb’s and Beasely’s Defence of Australia had nothing to do with preference for one service over another, more to do with dupolicity in stategy that was a justification for defence cuts unrelated to the strategic environment. Emphasis on one service over another might have been the outcome but was not my objection to it. To think that serous military writers on the subject are so silly is patronising. If you are going to comment please read the paper (yes, I was playing to my audience at times – defence and security should be fun) and I suggest also read my essay in the march edition of Quadrant. My objection to those with no exposure to operations making strategy is that they tend to make strategy that cannot be implemented, ie there is no real connection between the strategy made and the ability of anyone to implement it. Hence DOA becomes such a large target for the Doers in defence. DOA as a strategy relied on defining an enemy down to an insignificant and unrealistic level that even the underfunded ADF could pretend that they could handle it. The proof of its failure was seen when the ADF had to respond to East Timor. When the circumstances derived from the strategic environmet are of a certain kind, of course the ADF mix between services should change. Have fun. Jim Molan