{"id":48670,"date":"2019-06-27T14:30:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T04:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=48670"},"modified":"2019-07-01T11:23:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T01:23:25","slug":"revisiting-the-north-in-the-defence-of-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/revisiting-the-north-in-the-defence-of-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the north in the defence of Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The idea of the north of Australia being central to the new concept of the defence of Australia in the 1970s derived from the key strategic fact that the only country in the region with the conventional military capabilities to threaten Australia was Indonesia.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Indonesia had the world\u2019s third-largest communist party and was armed by the Soviet Union with modern submarines and long-range bombers. Australia\u2019s response was to acquire F-111 fighter-bombers and Oberon-class submarines.<\/p>\n

However, by the 1980s, much of Indonesia\u2019s military equipment was either out of date or suffering from a chronic lack of maintenance. Hence, the 1986 Dibb review<\/a> and the 1987 defence white paper focused on the potential threat of low-level conflict, which could conceivably be escalated to the use by Indonesia of its deteriorating Soviet military equipment.<\/p>\n

The 1972 defence review and the 1976 defence white paper had both emphasised the relevance of the defence of the north of Australia in such contingencies. But successive governments had done little about it, even though President Richard Nixon\u2019s Guam doctrine in 1968 had made it clear that\u2014short of nuclear war\u2014America\u2019s allies were expected to be able to defend themselves in credible conventional contingencies.<\/p>\n

It is not generally known that the real reason why Defence Minister Kim Beazley asked me in 1985 to undertake the review of Australia\u2019s defence capabilities was the entrenched differences of opinion between the senior military and civilian hierarchies in the defence organisation and their inability, after 12 months, to come to even a preliminary agreement on force structure priorities for the defence of Australia. The then secretary of defence, William Cole, advised Beazley that he should consider recruiting an independent expert.<\/p>\n

The secretary and the chief of the defence force had got bogged down in exchanging 130\u00a0classified memos about the theology of defence policy on such concepts as defence warning time; low-level conflict; more substantial conflict; and whether Australia\u2019s unique geography should basically determine its force structure, as distinct from expeditionary forces for operations at great distance from Australia. Most of the ensuing debate was not constructive: it was hostile with little agreement on even basic principles for force structure priorities.<\/p>\n

My main policy aim was to arrive at a workable compromise between these bitterly held positions. But, at the same time, I argued strongly for the priority to be given to the defence of Australia and, in that context, to stress the relevance of Australia\u2019s northern approaches. The focus of the review\u2019s recommendations about the north was as follows:<\/p>\n