Brian Toohey: Australia plays dangerous game with defense shift

Almost unnoticed, Australia has reverted to a forward defense doctrine abandoned during the Cold War in the 1960s.

 

Australian Army soldiers fire their weapons in a live fire exercise in Hawaii. © Reuters

     The change is all the more remarkable because the earlier policy did not threaten the profitability of the country's biggest businesses, while the resurrected policy appears to be aimed at its biggest trading partner, China.

     Although the specifics are classified, there is now backing across the political spectrum for preparations for the forward deployment of ground troops, ships and planes equipped for high-intensity warfare. Key components include large destroyers equipped to contribute to an anti-ballistic missile shield against China and North Korea; frigates that could help enforce a trade blockade; and big new submarines capable of firing cruise missiles into China. This may suit countries near China, but it represents a huge change for a more distant Australia.

     The switch began five years ago with the insistence by then-Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that the defense White Paper should ditch the established doctrine defining the Australian military's area of operational interest as rarely extending beyond the archipelagic chain of Indonesian and Melanesian islands to its near north. Prime Minister Tony Abbott now enthusiastically promotes the new...(Click for more)