A defence proposal that cannot be explained briefly in plain English may not be understood well enough by its advocates. Applied to a contemporary procurement argument, this test exposes how competing sides use specialist buzzwords before audiences that do not share their vocabulary. The result is confusion rather than persuasion. The passage makes a practical point about civil-military communication: technical complexity does not remove the duty to state a policy's purpose and reasoning clearly.
Notable Point · 52:47-54:18
Plain English as a test for defence policy
A discussion of British politics argues that defence proposals lose public support when specialists rely on buzzwords instead of explaining policy in plain English.