" Power " - and the MilitaryCulture !

There is nothing either new or surprising coming out of the revelations of sadistic practices and bullying at our Defence Forces training facilities.   The old " Duntroon Military College " was notorious for what was termed " bastardization " and " initiation " rituals going back to the middle of last century.

This was covertly encouraged by the top brass.   They held the notion that if you wanted  " iron men " who would be invincible on the battlefield, a degree of pain was necessary to stamp out the civilian culture and replace it with an unflinching dedication to duty under all circumstances.   Without the safeguard of rules in place to curb excess, what started as mild initiation rituals soon took on darker form and in many cases involved sexual humiliation.

Half a century ago, military training facilities were virtually an all male institution.   Psychologists tell us that there are some people with psychopath tendencies in any group of people and these come to the fore whenever power is put in their hands.   The events now under investigation go back a long way and some of the people involved will now be in the middle and top rank of our officer corps.   If this investigation leads to punitive action, it could well gut our defence forces of it's leaders.

There will be a tendency to put a line under the past and concentrate on evolving a new military structure that will not tolerate a return to past practices.   The structure of our defence forces has evolved out of sight in recent decades.   Women are now an integral part of the three services and this whole sorry matter burst into national prominence when a boorish male cadet used a hidden camera to record him having consensual sex with a female cadet - which was showing live to a distant male audience.

The presence of women will certainly have a softening effect in military academies, but as we are seeing in schools, bullying is often instigated by girls who use the Internet to launch cruel and vicious attacks against others of both sex.    Psychopath tendencies are not limited to males and unless checks and balances are in place - and rigorously maintained - this undesirable sub-culture will quickly be replicated.

Wise heads are contemplating the next move.   A Royal Commission is on the cards.   The deeper the investigation digs, the more dirt that will surface.   If history is to be followed, a few hapless scapegoats will be offered in ritual sacrifice and compensation will be handed out to some of the victims.  The " fog " of memory will protect any highly placed and valuable officers from adverse comment and the whole matter will soon be bundled in red tape and consigned to a remote pigeon hole somewhere.

What matters is how the outcome affects the future of the men and women who join our defence forces as a career path.   The days of a macho " brawn and guts " training regimen are over and our present needs are for highly trained technocrats to understand and operate a technology that is ever expanding - and truly frightening.

The time has come for the defence academy to be dragged - kicking and screaming - into the twenty-first century !