Nevertheless, the 10-year equipment program attempts to make up for the neglect of the past couple of decades. Much of it does little more than restate commitments made in the 1987 and 1994 documents. The programming of some of these will delay acquisition even further. Thus, the armed helicopters which were supposed to have been operational this year will not now come into service until 2004-05. For all the discussion of strategies and capabilities, the white paper proposals depend in the final analysis on the efficient employment of such resources that are made available.
Experience commands a high degree of scepticism.
Then it will begin to decline again. In the 1987 defence white paper, a commitment was made to spend an average 2.8 per cent of GDP indefinitely to achieve that defence program. On the other hand, the best crystal ball could not offer confidence that future governments will honour these commitments. Indeed, experience strongly urges that they will not. Delaying critical decisions needed to develop defence capabilities may be good politics but it is poor strategy and poor economics.