Add to that a fundamentally flawed "command" structure and the Liberals failure to stop the decline of defence spending.
The post Korea period had been a time of major spending but even before Hellyer real dollar spending had been flat and spending as a % of GDP had been dropping like a rock.
In the decade after Hellyer spending in real terms went up from around ~$1.8 billion to ~$4.0 billion but dropped as a % of GDP from ~2.5% to ~1.7% while the annual consumer price index was ranging from ~4% to ~10%. Visibly the period showed the loss of many defence outputs in both deployable units and equipment for all three services while new headquarters proliferated.
Like many things, the issue is spread between a bad idea and bad execution of the idea. It was one thing to leave army aviation with the army and naval air and aviation with the navy (after all that's where they were before unification), but who thought it made sense to give CF-5s to the army (Mobile Command's 10 TAG)? Or that all military training systems run under one "Training Command?"
I've always found
this article by LGen Bill Carr to be interesting - not so much for what it says but the tone for how it is said and the squabbles that it reflects on.
