From: ghm@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Geoff Miller)
Subject: Citizen Marksmanship and Defence
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 03:27:21 GMT


[The following letter was published in "The Marksman", the journal of
the New South Wales Rifle Association Incorporated, August 1992 issue.
I have reproduced it in the hope that it will be of wider interest.
I have deleted the first two paragraphs, as they refer to the views of
a specific individual and subsequent correspondence which prompted
this letter.  ghm]
__________________________________________________________________________

The end of the Second World War and the introduction of atomic and then
nuclear weapons heralded a major policy shift regarding the strategy of
future conflict.  For the past forty years the general perception among
strategists and policy makers was that if war were to break out again, 
it would be fought using weapons of mass destruction therefore reducing 
the need to invest capital on equipment, training and infrastructure
support on lower level conflict scenarios and the conventional forces
that may be called upon to fight them.  The bottom line being that basic
soldiering, militia training, civil defence, weapon handling, marksmanship
and all the other elements needed for a nations defence were to be 
gradually phased out with the adoption of the new strategic doctrine.
All but a handful of first world countries generally fell in line, 
notable exceptions being initially Switzerland and Sweden.

Since 1945 there have been approximately 155 armed conflicts, none of them
relflecting the portraits painted by grand strategists even though there
has been some serious sabre rattling by the superpowers on a number of 
occasions, notably the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The collapse of the cold war and the shocking revelation of the bankruptcy
of socialism, both economically and morally, in many parts of the world
has reduced the possibility of nuclear confrontation while at the same time 
increasing world instability for conventional conflict at various levels
of technical sophistication as previously captive nations are rediscovering
their past suppressed freedoms and hatreds and are exercising their 
perceived rights to reclaim their former ethnic, religious, cultural,
geographic and in some cases politico/military identities.

The more enlightened countries such as Switzerland and Sweden have not 
forgotten the lessons of history as many other western nations have, and
have therefore worked on the principle that one does not cultivate
national defence responsibilities by taking it away from the people.
Maybe that is why these countries have avoided conflict for well over a
century?

With the increasing technological sophistication and costs of weapons
systems (including small arms), and the continual government cutbacks on
procurement of equipment, personnel, training programmes, (critical for
proficiency and optimum performance of equipment and manpower, no matter
how sophisticated or unsophisticated), the small size of defence forces
sees them becoming increasingly hard pressed to perform the myriad of 
functions required of them, not just overseas, but also here in Australia.
Not even sophisticated force multipliers such as FA18s armed with harpoons
and supported by inflight refuelling aircraft etc, etc, can provide 
solutions for all the combinations fo threats, especially lower level ones.

There is a point at which the cost/benefit ratio of reduced defence
preparedness, and technological sophistication, manpower performance
requirements can no longer sustain satisfactory results unless constant
refresher training programmes are implemented over and over again.  A
condition that for ideological, economic or whatever reason many 
governments, including the Australian, are very reluctant to support or
pay for on a continuous basis.

A number of western countries have recognised this phenomenon over the last
two decades and have introduced, and in some cases (Norway and Denmark)
reintroduced, a form of citizen militia, reserve force or whatever, to 
complement, support and provide emergency (semi) trained manpower for the 
main force structures so that they can be released to perform the more
demanding defence tasks required of their specialised high-tech skills
in times of emergency.  Safe small arms indoctrination is one of the 
elements recognised as being a crucial factor in this force structure
development.

Norway and Denmark reintroduced a Home Guard in the 1960's.  Both countries
were in the process of abolishing substantial sections of their reserve
forces before World War II and paid dearly for it.

In Norway there are now 130,000 Automatisk Gevar 3 (H & K G-3) assault
rifles at home;  Denmark has 60,000 M/66 in the "Hjemmevoernet" hands.
There have been none of the hysterical social problems associated with
this concept as predicted by the many good intentioned, short sighted,
self-styled expert (sic) social commentators.

Combined Norway/Denmark homicides totals number under 30 in 25 years of
operation.  (At this point I should state that it is outside the scope
of this letter to comment on public safety aspects regarding weapons in
the home.  However, suffice it to say that the true picture is completely
different from what the mindless nostrums popularised by the press, some
politicians and academics, grandstanding pressure groups and some social
commentators would have us believe.)

There are now at least five countries in Western Europe where government
support for citizen marksmanship training is practiced, namely Switzerland,
Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.

In 1989, after twenty years of at times heated debate, Austria, the home
of the Australian Steyr AUG (F88), has allowed the militiamen of the 
Tyrolean province of Vorarlberg to take home their AUGs on a trial basis
for a potential nationwide implementation of this scheme.  So far the
jury is still out, but early reports have been encouraging.

Ironically, across the valley of Vorarlberg is the Swiss border where 
militiamen have had this privilege for nearly four hundred years.  These
countries are recognising that in a modern democracy where at every turn
its citizens are assured of incomparable political maturity it is expected
that the citizen play his/her part in the defence of the nation no matter
how small, and that the citizen's enjoyment of bearing arms  -  which is
essential to a sound national defence and serves as a token of the 
mastery of the people over the State and not as its servants  -  may not
be suppressed.

Unfortunately the lessons of recent history in the twentieth century have
been all but ignored again, and it has become the trend in all matters, 
especially on ideological political grounds, to transfer an excessive 
amount of faith from the individual to the State, the end results of
which are for all to see in the upheavals of Eastern Europe, the 
defunct Soviet Union and moribund communist China amongst others.

M. Etzel
Bungendore Rifle Club
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns