Shifting sands: From regional intervention to continental defence (Part 3)

As Vietnam's civil war between the US-backed Diem regime and Soviet-backed government of Ho Chi Minh continued to spiral out of control in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Australia's fear of regional communist expansion grew at an equal pace, further supporting the validity of the Menzies government's doctrine of 'Forward Defence' and regional intervention.

Australia's alliance with the US in its struggle against global communism further strengthened the nation's resolve and positioned the nation as a pivotal US ally, in the politically and strategically disastrous proxy conflict between the US and Soviet Union that would come to serve as a defining point of the Cold War and the nation's relationship with its regional neighbours. 

Mounting domestic political dissatisfaction, the new Whitlam government and the mounting cost of Australia's involvement in the conflict, combined with rapidly declining US support for the conflict, saw the nation's post-Second World War strategic reality and doctrine begin to shift away from regional intervention and towards a policy favouring the defence of the Australian mainland and outlying territories. 

While largely unofficial until the introduction of the 1986 Dibb report and subsequent 1987 and 1994 Defence white papers, the Defence of Australia (DoA) policy marked a dramatic shift in the way Australia viewed itself and its role in the changing regional political and geo-strategic dynamics. 

Dibb identified, "Until the late 1960s, Australian defence planning and policy assumed that our forces would normally operate in conjunction with allies, and well forward of the continent. We saw our security inextricably linked with the security of others." 

The Dibb report sought to reorientate the nation's strategic and defence industry posture with a focus on greater autonomy and self reliance, placing less emphasis on 'paying' dues to its strategic benefactor, the US, through regional interventions in the hope of insuring a 'security dividend' in the form of direct US intervention and protection.  

Dibb's report leveraged the 1973 Strategic Basis paper's focus on the nation's isolation to reinforce the concept of the 'tyranny of distance' as justification for reducing Australia's interventionist role and capabilities in the region: "Australia is remote from the principal centres of strategic interest of the major Powers, namely western Europe and east Asia, and even those of secondary interest, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the north-west Pacific."

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Changing the role and shape of the ADF 

As a result of these shifting geo-political and strategic dynamics, Dibb's report suggested a number of force structure changes to the newly formed Australian Defence Force that would focus on protecting Australia's northern maritime and air approaches, known as the 'air-sea gap', including: 

• Retaining the approximate size of the Regular Army at 32,000 – with a focus on reducing the mechanisation of the Army and operational focus on dispersed operations in northern Australia; 
• Retaining the F-111 force with a minimum update to maintain service capacity until the mid-1990s, while enhancing the capability of the F/A-18 Hornets to receive information from the JORN network; 
• Retain the planned acquisition of the Collins Class submarines to replace the ageing Oberon Class vessels with a focus on "retain[ing] the program for six new submarines but establish a financial ceiling and, if necessary later, explore options for lesser capabilities";
• Acquire eight light patrol frigates (future-Anzac Class) to enter service from the early-to-mid-1990s, cancel the acquisition of a second fleet replenishment vessel, while cancelling the acquisition of an additional Tobruk Class and the six heavy amphibious landing craft vessels; and  
• Focus on replacing the Air Force's 22 Caribou and 12 Hercules with a fleet of 20 new Hercules-type aircraft. 

 These reductions also saw the cancellation of the HMAS Melbourne replacement and a number of additional changes, including: 

• Raising three Regional Force Surveillance Units for long-range patrols in northern Australia; 
• Redeveloping RAAF Base Tindal as an operational fighter base;
• Developing three 'bare bases' for the RAAF in northern Queensland and Western Australia to support the rapid domestic deployment of Army units in event of invasion; and
• Upgrade and enhancement of the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) to support the long-range air and sea defence of the 'air/sea' gap. 

The post-Cold War 'peace dividend' and the new regional paradigm

For many, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War marked what Francis Fukuyama would describe as "the end of history", and the triumph of liberal-democracy and capitalism with the US emerging unrivalled came as a surprise. Nevertheless, the new global balance of power would serve to support the introduction of the DoA doctrine as Australia sought to embrace the 'peace dividend'.

Despite the apparent collapse of potential peer adversaries, the ADF would be called upon numerous times to support the maintenance of the international order, which saw Australian deployments during the first-Gulf War and humanitarian interventions closer to home marked by the highly-successful, Australian-led international intervention in East Timor in 1999-2000, which stretched the ADF's expeditionary capability. 

While both Australian and much of the global attention was focused on humanitarian interventions like East Timor and in Bosnia, an ancient threat emerged in 2001 with the attack on the US, drawing Australia into conflict with the asymmetric challenges of radical Islamism, first in Afghanistan and then subsequently in Iraq as part of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. 

The ensuing chaos in the Middle East and Australia's continued engagements both there and in Afghanistan have served to draw much of the nation's strategic and political attention at a time when a major regional and global power, China, with additional continues to emerge following a century of slumber to challenge the post-Second World War geo-political and strategic paradigm and the balance of power upon which Australia has become dependent. 

Stephen Kuper

Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.

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