FEATURE-Australia shopping for a global defence force http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nSYD76126&from=business
Wed Dec 6, 2006
By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - With a squat grey body and clipped, stubby wings, Australia's newest military acquisition looks anything but threatening on a sleepy Canberra tarmac.
But the bulky C-17 Globemaster air transporter, which can move large numbers of troops and cargo, plays an important role in Australia's A$60 billion ($45 billion) defence build up.
This was underscored by conservative Prime Minister John Howard's attendance at a ceremony on Monday to welcome the new addition to Australia's airforce fleet.
Canberra is shopping for a sharpened military capable of deploying alongside close ally the United States to hot spots stretching from the South Pacific to Iraq and beyond.
On the shopping list are new warplanes, battle tanks, cruise missiles, amphibious assault ships and high-tech destroyers. As well, there are attack and transport helicopters, armoured vehicles and four C-17s, alone costing A$2 billion.
Some, like cruise missiles and the Globemasters, are a first in Australia's region, which is rapidly re-arming.
With their ability to carry Australian uniforms and armour any place in the world, the Boeing-built C-17s and their 70-tonne capacity holds are central to reversal of a decade-long adherence to home defence.
They will ferry Australia's soldiers, who are increasingly scattered across the globe, in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as closer to home in East Timor and tiny Pacific flashpoints like Fiji, where the fourth military coup in 20 years is unfolding.
"It gives us an enormous increase. You only have to have followed the events of the past few weeks in the Pacific region to have driven home to you the need for Australia to have an airlift capacity of this nature," Howard told his generals at the big band ceremony marking the C-17 arrival.
VIETNAM WAR-ERA FIGHTERS
The most contentious new buy involves the purchase by 2014 of up to 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters worth more than A$10 billion to replace long-range Vietnam War-era F-111 strike bombers and newer F/A-18 Hornet fighters.
The F-35s are largely still conceptual, although Australia has forked out millions for their off-blueprint purchase.
As well, the air force will buy the first stand-off cruise missiles in Southeast Asia to help offset a loss of strike range with the looming retirement of the F-111s. The latter purchase has upset defence strategists in Jakarta.
And if the F-35 is risky, the purchase of 59 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks has most defence watchers simply puzzled.
At 67 tonnes each, they are too heavy for the sandy hills and roads of Australia's Pacific neighbours, and even some roads at home. And then there are the aircraft carriers.
Australia is looking at two designs -- one French-built and the other a 27,000 tonne Spanish model -- to be constructed by 2012 at a cost of A$2 billion.
When completed, each will be able to ferry 1,000 troops, armoured vehicles and support aircraft on peacekeeping missions across Asia and the world. They will be guarded by three to four of the most lethal destroyers outside the U.S. fleet, costing up to A$8 billion.
Australia's U.S. ally is impressed, with Washington helping fast-track the C-17 delivery as America scrambles for support in the face of a deteriorating security environment in Iraq.
"Acquiring such heavy-lift capability places Australia into a small group of countries that can rapidly and reliably bring substantial resources to bear in response to military threats, armed conflicts, internal unrest, or humanitarian crises," U.S. ambassador Robert McCallum told Howard at the delivery ceremony.
"The arrival of this aircraft and the three that will follow establish for all to see an operational effectiveness that will deter those who foment violence and instability."
DUD'S ARMY
But not all analysts are impressed. One news magazine said the government was making "Duds Army" for dangers the country would likely never face.
Professor Hugh White, who helped devise strategy for Australia's defence department between 1995 and 2000, said the military was reintroducing a deployable capacity it surrendered years ago after the Vietnam War.
And Australia's neighbours, White said, are asking why. "The level of suspicion, particularly in Indonesia, about Australia's strategic motives has gone much higher. They just think we're dangerous," White told Reuters.
While many of the purchases make strategic sense, White said Australia's government has so far done a poor job of explaining its underlying rationale of increasing global instability.
"A strong emphasis on our capacity to project power into the immediate neighbourhood and beyond, and particularly the proposal to build amphibious forces that can intervene in other people's territory ... have added to a sense that Australia is developing an aggressive strategic posture," he said.
While Indonesia and Malaysia publicly say Canberra's defence decisions are its own, a 2002 threat by Howard to carry out pre-emptive strikes on regional terrorist threats still rankles.
"Relations are good, but there is a suspicion Howard still wants to be America's deputy-sheriff in Asia," said an Indonesian government defence strategist, who asked not to be named.
ACTIVE MILITARY DEPLOYMENTS
Australia has almost 3,000 military personnel overseas, representing a sizeable chunk of the 51,000-strong Australian Defence Force. More than 1,000 are in Iraq, helping rebuild from a war Canberra's elite troops helped Washington wage.
It is all part of what the government calls a "networked and hardened" military adapted for a post war-on-terror world.
The government at the last budget set aside A$19 billion for defence, or 1.9 percent of GDP, with a commitment to increase defence spending over the next decade.
White said the build-up makes sense only if the government envisages wars far from home alongside its U.S. allies. Smaller transport ships in bigger numbers would be better suited for stability missions close to home, he said.
But White dismisses fears Australia may fuel an regional arms race by purchasing high-tech weapons, especially cruise missiles, citing the long arms buildup already underway in Asia.
"Australia has always had the capacity to put high-explosive just about wherever it likes in Southeast Asia," White said.
"To the person underneath it doesn't make much difference whether the thing comes in on the front of a new missile or drops courtesy of gravity from an F-111."
($1=A$1.27)
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