Dumashie calls for Defence Policy

Air Marshal Harry Dumashie, former Chief of Defence Staff of the Armed Forces, on Wednesday called for a strategic defence policy for Ghana.

He said a defence posture should not necessarily be warlike rather the military should be developed to handle national disasters and emergency including development strategies.

Air Marshal Dumashie was speaking on "Defence Sector Restructuring: the Need for Improving Civil-Military Relations," at a round-table discussion on "Reflections on Security" organised by the African Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR).

It is an independent, non-profit institute, which research security, conflict and civil-military relations in emerging African democracies using the experiences and thoughts of seasoned professionals.

Air Marshal Dumashie said institutions linked to Ghana's National Security should be the concern of all during constitutional rule.

" I believe, only through a national security strategy can we lay proper plans for national decisions on national objectives that can be passed on for conversion into freedom and justice for the people of Ghana," he said.

Air Marshal Dumashie noted that political leaders identify many national aspirations and objectives. Normally, they produce a long list of aims, such as peace, prosperity and liberty, which are mostly, promises to the electorate but these are not implemented because of the absence of national institutions to do so.

"Experts are needed to actively transform the intangible ideas into real missions. The institutions that should actively pursue the task of reducing concepts into missions must be established to take form and authority from our constitution and its directive principles".

Air Marshal Dumashie said a national strategy must mandate the security services to develop plans to deal with recurrent objectives of government and national contingencies. He emphasised that Ghana has to recognise the fact that strategy and policy are the basic tools for reconciling genuine conflicts.

"All instruments of national power like political, diplomatic, economic and military instruments, are relevant to resolving conflicts" he said.

The various instruments have their own strategy to national objectives, he said, adding that the national mission could be attained by co-ordinating them.

Although Ghana's economic and diplomatic instruments have acquired some muscle and respectability because of some international operations, integrated strategic co-ordination is lost at all levels of national security concerns.

"May be we too easily assume a complacent 'no enemy' position. However, when in time, facts turn out to be other than flimsy assumptions, we would have no plans, no development, no co-ordination; so therefore our strategic development will dangerously let us down".

The former CDS stressed that the formulation of a defence policy should not only be an annual affair but must also be directed and supported.

"The facts rather than assumptions about economic, political and the diplomatic realities of the sovereign state must take conspicuous place in determining defence policy for the year," he said.