Navy_Pete said:
The pension argument is a bit of a red herring, as most people now will be unable to truly retire on a full pension, and it's only getting worse. If you were to get an incremental pay raise in a new career and do something smart like pay off your mortgage early and invest a bit, you are probably better off financially.
I think the biggest kicker is probably the large size of even a modest mortgage now; it's getting increasingly unaffordable for most people to do anything less then a 20+ year mortgage. Combine that with kids in school or something else similar, and folks work well past 60.
Money completely aside, with all the ISSCs coming down the pipe the work I really like to do is mostly going to be contracted. So with all the fun work going, and our system getting increasingly paralyzed by bureaucracy (DPS anyone?), getting harder to find a reason to stick it out. I think you can almost have more a direct and positive impact on the Navy working for a future ISSC then you can in the actual Navy, which is a bit ludicrous.
Pete - you've nailed a couple of good points there.
WRT the point on ISSCs though: Is it a bad thing that skilled long service personnel like yourself "transfer" from duty with the RCN to duty with an ISSC provider?
Without wanting to create a storm about the relative physicality of the various services I believe that, at least for the army's combat arms, there is merit in moving long service personnel from the active list to the reserve list while preferentially employing them in ISSCs.
My rationale is that most of the Combat Arms field is a young man's game. They need to be physically fit for field service. And like pro sports players they wear out early. However the skills that many of them pick up during their field careers are invaluable both to their parent service and, accordingly, ISSC providers.
If the individual in question puts in his/her time in field service and then is "transferred" to an ISSC then those skills are retained and the individual's career is potentially lengthened. Between being retained on reserve status and the increasing requirement for ISSCs to deploy further and further forward in support working for an ISSC would not mean the individual necessarily gives up on field duties/sea duties right away, nor would it require the individual to sever completely connections with the military world. It would put the individual in a better position to pick and choose "postings" and manage their own career. Alternately it would better place the individual to transition completely out of the military world into civvy life.
From the government's, and the "institutional service's" position it would decrease the need to retain skills in the deployable, uniformed force which would free up positions for youngsters in the front lines meaning that a greater proportion of the 65,000 authorized regular force positions could be "teeth positions" with "tail positions" (like - for example - Small Arms R&D - being contracted out to ISSCs with long service SA experts on their staff - or marine engineers - or weapons systems operators).
Advantage for the government is not so much in terms of the cost of maintaining a national defence capability as allowing the government to supply that capability in the face of a "skeptical" public and permit them to sell a Zero-growth defence plan (Zero-growth in authorized PYs).
At the same time the budget can be more easily manipulated (not always a bad word) so as to funnel defence supporting activities through other government funded activities - labour force training, R&D, regional supports, foreign relations......
The idea, like so many (most) of mine, is not new. The most recent model is from before WW1 when the Commissary and the Wagon Train were commonly private ISSCs.
I believe WW1 to have been the aberration in history because it coincided with the arrival of miraculous technologies that were not commonly understood.
Prior to WW1 the army could commandeer a farmer, his horses or oxen, and his wagons and get good immediate service out of them.
During WW1 the army needed to teach the farmer how to drive and maintain his brand new petrol driven wagon and create a whole new logistical supply chain to support them.
WW2 followed suit on WW1.
We have followed suit on WW2.
But now everybody knows how to drive a truck and could easily be commandeered, along with the Hertz rental fleet and supply good immediate service.
More tellingly most of the miraculous technologies are being applied first in the civilian world and only after much struggle and debate, in the military world. ISSCs - as civilians - are better placed to parlay those miraculous technologies into real time support to the field elements as they are freer to experiment with things like, for example, platforms. Eyes in the sky via satellite, blimps, aerostats, UAVs, 737s, Beech Airs or even Textron Scorpions, or fleet refuelling via Waves, Berlins, Cantabrias or via DC10s or Airbuses - all those debates go away. All the end user has to do is sign a contract to have a given good or service delivered to them at a particular time and place. Managing all the extraneous risks associated with platform selection and mixed fleets also all go away from the service and become the problem of the ISSC provider.
Sorry for the long, and meandering, post .... got onto a hobby horse again.
