Australia's strategic reach - President Bush looks to his friends

AUSTRALIA is increasingly committed to making its voice better heard in the international arena, showing a willingness to commit substantial military resources to the expanding business of maintaining international security.

Australian territory is growing. Last month, Australia made a submission to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, extending its maritime jurisdiction over an area of continental shelf equal to half the country's landmass. The 3.4million km2 claim is probably the world's largest, according to the government.

A ministerial statement said: "It is in Australia's interests to gain legal certainty on the outer limits of these areas, which give Australia exclusive rights to explore, exploit and conserve the natural resources of the relevant seabed areas."

Australia has also demonstrated its determination to police its territorial waters, pursuing illegal fishers of the Patagonian toothfish thousands of kilometres in 2003 before boarding the offending vessel in the South Atlantic and bringing it back to Australia.

This willingness to act internationally has gained Australia the respect of its main ally, the US. When a grateful President George W Bush addressed the Australian parliament in October 2003 he spoke of 100 years in which US soldiers have come to know "the courage and good fellowship of the diggers at their side". He quoted General MacArthur's address to the same house in which he spoke of "the code of free people" that "embraces the things that are right, and condemns the things that are wrong".

Bush did not manage to complete his speech without heckling from the floor. Australia is not without a powerful anti-war lobby, but the fact is that since 11 September 2001 Australia has stood as one of the US's most reliable allies in its overseas conflicts, sending troops to Afghanistan, as well as to the much less popular war in Iraq, to which Australia contributed 14 F/A-18 aircraft, three C-130 transports, two P-3C-Orion Maritime patrol aircraft, three naval ships, and perhaps most useful to the US command, a 500-strong special forces task group with its own helicopter support. In total, a force of 2,000 Australian Army personnel served in Iraq.

Australia has also been willing to take a robust stance on intervening in problem states in its own region, notably taking the lead in the UN-backed operation to stabilise East Timor in 1999, and, with its regional partners, intervening to restore order in the Solomon Islands (see map) with a combined police and military force of more than 2,000 personnel in 2003. Elsina Wainwright, of the government's new think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), wrote of the change in attitude that the mission reflects: "The operation amounts to an acknowledgment that the stability of the region directly affects Australia. A noteworthy feature of Australia's policy towards the South Pacific since the intervention has been that it now seems predicated on preventing future state failure in the region through increased Australian engagement." She also notes: "The US has been demonstrably supportive - and expectant - of Australia's leadership role on the Solomon Islands."

It hasn't all gone swimmingly though, as in September 2004, the South Pacific island of Vanuatu expelled two Australian Federal Police officers based there for setting up their own office. Foreign minister Barak Sope told Australian radio: "We are just putting things straight. You cannot have something for which there is no agreement. Vanuatu cannot just turn up in Sydney and set up a police station there. It's not on."

The Australian military found itself somewhat limited in the kind of forces it could supply in Iraq, notably regarding its inability to supply an effective armoured unit. But it is now in the middle of an ambitious plan to acquire the kind of equipment capable of backing up this extended reach in future, with new Abrams tanks on order, a commitment to the Joint Strike Fighter and new strategic transport aircraft, as well as, most notably, a plan to replace its two 8,500-ton amphibious warfare vessels with two 27,000-ton Landing Platform Dock/Helicopter (LPD/LPH), as well as a replacement sea-lift vessel. With each ship able to transport a battalion group and its equipment, including up to 12 helicopters, Australia will step into the big time of amphibious warfare and force projection when they enter service beyond 2010. A new class of 3 Aegis-equipped air warfare destroyers, also scheduled to come into service beyond 2010, will give the Royal Australian Navy "12 ships of higher order capability" according to naval chief Vice-Admiral Chris Ritchie. There is a heavy US flavour to most of Australia's new and planned acquisitions, in recognition that Australian forces will most often be working alongside US forces.

All in all the Australians seem committed to maintaining an effective military, and also to getting a reasonable bang for their buck. This commitment is seen clearly when compared with the situation obtaining in Canada, a country with a similar history, although with a population and economy around 50 per cent larger than Australia's. Australia will spend US$11.72 billion in 2004-05 or 2.1 per cent of GDP on defence, whereas Canada spends US$10.2 billion (2004) or 1.2 per cent of GDP to sustain forces of roughly equal size to Australia's, although with a more budget-driven structure than one directed by confident strategic planning.

Our prediction: Expect Australia to play an increasingly visible role in international military operations as a reliable US ally. Expect it also to be willing to enforce its security policy to serve its best interests in the South Pacific.

Australia to expand its mechanised infantry

IAN BOSTOCK JDW Correspondent
Sydney

The Australian Army may double its mechanised infantry capability in the course of its transition from a predominantly light infantry to a light mechanised force.

The army's senior leadership favours forming a second mechanised infantry battalion to counter what it sees as the increasing lethality that even unsophisticated opponents could bring to bear in complex operating environments.

Light infantry would normally be tasked with fighting lightly armed conventional and unconventional forces. However, combat experience in Iraq and elsewhere has demonstrated the vulnerability of troops on foot or in soft- skinned vehicles to rocket- propelled grenade attack and asymmetric threats such as improvised explosive devices.

"To operate effectively against insurgents in urban terrain you need everyone to have a degree of protected mobility," an army source told JDW.

If the formation of a second mechanised infantry battalion is approved by the government, this would be attached to the 1st Brigade based in Darwin, Northern Territory.

As part of the wider push by Chief of Army Lieutenant General Peter Leahy to 'harden' the army, 1st Brigade units will receive new tanks, upgraded armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and new self-propelled artillery before the end of the decade.

Manpower constraints, however, suggest the army is unlikely to raise a new battalion. Of the other options being canvassed, the most feasible appears to be the conversion of one of the existing regular light infantry battalions. The Australian Army currently has one mechanised infantry battalion, four light infantry battalions and a commando battalion.

The principal advantage of converting an existing battalion includes the ready availability of manpower and equipment stocks, which could be transferred directly to the new formation. Such assets include weapons, general service vehicles and trailers, and engineering and logistics elements.

A new mechanised infantry battalion would also require around 100 armoured fighting vehicles. These would be M113 tracked APCs, some 350 of which are undergoing major upgrade to the AS3/AS4 standard.

The army is expected to identify its preferred option concerning the mechanised infantry requirement during the first half of 2005 and then submit its recommendations to the government for consideration.

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