BRITAIN IN S.E. ASIA THE CARRINGTON FORMULA THOUGHT "JUST ABOUT RIGHT”

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32393, 4 September 1970, Page 12

BRITAIN IN S.E. ASIA THE CARRINGTON FORMULA THOUGHT "JUST ABOUT RIGHT”

(Reprinted from the "Economist” by arrangement)

Qne mark of a good defence minister is that he can rise to a nonpartisan view of the national interest. There is a powerful argument for a continuing British military presence in the Far East. Lord Carrington is alive to it, as Mr Healey was when he first sat behind the same desk at Whitehall. But in 1968 the Labour Government allowed its financial panic to obscure the real issues: what Malaysia and Singapore need from Britain, and what the British presence in that part of the world can be expected to achieve.

Lord Carrington’s return from his trip to the Far East has cleared the decks for a new experiment in collective security. At the end of this year, or early in 1971, Britain Will come to a fairly loose arrangement with Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. The five powers will agree to consult in the event of a military emergency. This is one way of getting rid of the Anglo - Malaysian Defence Agreement, which looked suspiciously like a tripwire. The new pact will contain nothing remotely like an automatic commitment to take up arms on behalf of Malaysia or Singapore.

Beyond Europe So this is neither a bit of empire-building, nor an attempt to reverse the last government’s Far Eastern policy completely. But it is an attempt to look beyond Europe. It also means a meeting of minds between Lord Carrington and the men he talked with during his trip. The new pact should be a nice compromise between their view of what Britain should be doing and Britain’s own need to keep down costs and steer clear of embarrassing pledges. When the Government stops the present rundown, Britain will have about 6000 men left in Malaysia and Singapore, and it should cost less than £25 million a year in foreign exchange to keep them there. These are reasons why the new arrangement deserves to be relatively uncontroversial in the Commons. Mr Heath and Lord Carrington are not stacking up a house of cards that Mr Wilson would huff away with his first breath if the Labour party managed to come back at the next general election. The new pact can be palatable to reasonable men on both sides of the house. Not A Garrison

The shape of the British contribution is now reasonably clear. It will probably look very much as the “Economist” said it should look in April: a streamlined support force, not a garrison. The army’s part will probably be limited to two battalions of infantry with supporting artillery and engineers. The aircraft will be mostly for transport and sea reconnaissance, with a squadron of helicopters; the present squadron of Lightning fighters will almost certainly be withdrawn. There will also be four or five frigates, maybe with a commando carrier. And British infantry will move in shifts through the jungle training school in Johore, possibly at the rate of three battalions a year.

This kind of commitment tallies with Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s advice to Britain to think about providing military teeth sophisticated equipment without a burdensome tail of support troops and camp followers. But it will also be necessary for Britain to contribute more to the training and reequipment of local forces. There have been veiled complaints, for example, about the limited Malaysian entry into the Dartmouth naval college. But the main problem now is neither the size nor the cost of the British presence in the Far East It is to define the functions of that presence. The way in which this subject has been publicly discussed has led to unnecessary confusion. It is not sufficient to distinguish between “internal” and “external” threats, or to talk breezily about the * stability of the region. It is necessary to think about the possible situations in which Britain might be asked to take up arms in defence of Malaysia or Singapore, and which of these it should be willing to do so. Broadly speaking, there are three different would be a resurgence of I ? do "“ ian p ° Filipino expansionism. Pre sident Marcos is still claiming Sabah, and his mapmakers in Manila go on diligently colouring in that comer of Borneo as a part of the Philippines. But the Filipinos do not pose a serious military threat, and they would almost certainly be reined in by the Americans if they did. The Indonesian problem is more remote, but also more serious. President Suharto has built up fairly armcab e relations with both Malaysia

and Singapore, and/ many intelligent men in both those countries are looking forward to the time when Indonesia might become the centre of a new regional defence arrangement. But there is always the possibility that a future , Indonesian leader might seek to exploit nationalist feeling as Sukarno did during the frontier war in Borneo in the mid-19605. If that happened, could Britain afford to shoulder the burden of defending eastern Malaysia again? Britain coped very well last time, but no-one is prepared to answer the question at this stage—and the Australians are equally reluctant to entertain the idea of a conflict with their nearest Asian neighbour. Britain’s immediate role is to encourage the emerging entente between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia that would make a repetition of “konfrontsai” even less likely. But in the last resort the five-power pact might deter the Indonesians from crossing the border.

Chinese Intervention The second possibility is of Chinese intervention. Of course, a direct Chinese invasion is highly unlikely. But there is plainly a danger of Chinese support for internal subversion. This is the most probable situation in which Britain might wish to intervene. After all, the British put down an insurgency in Malaya very effectively in the 19505. But the danger of becoming involved in a second counter - insurgency campaign, apart from the possibility that it might get too big for the British army to handle, is that it may be hard to distinguish between racial conflict and externally inspired subversion. Last year’s race riots have left a legacy of bitterness, and many Chinese in Malaysia are disturbed by Government policies that they regard as discriminatory. Britain could hardly presume to judge the rights and wrongs of a racial conflict, much less to spread out a thin white line between two angry mobs. But the presence of a multi-national force

in the region may serve as a curb for racialism as well as a deterrent to another Communist attempt to seize power.

Family Quarrels That raises the third pos-sibility-quarrels within the family. The causeway that joins Singapore to Malaysia is very narrow, and now looks more precarious than ever. A trivial frontier incident inspired Mr Lee Kuan Yew to cancel what would have been his first official visit to Kuala Lumpur since Singapore was shoved out of the Malaysian federation in 1965.

The continuing feud between Singapore and Malaysia is pure loss to them both. The economics of the two countries are indivisible; even the taps in Singapore houses could be turned off in Malaysia if someone chose to cut the pipeline. But the quarrel has it roots in mutual fears of domination. It is a quarrel between Chinese and Malays, rather than between sovereign states. The new defence pact may help to ease racial tensions. It will be tenable only so long as Malaysia and Singapore agree to remain allies. Since they both want it, that thought may help them to transcend their present differences. The most useful byproduct of the Commonwealth presence may be to help keep Malaysia and Singapore, together.

A Sage’s Wisdom It can still be said that the best strategists are those who understand how to avoid war. The British forces in the * Far East have to be ready to fight, and to be seen to be ready. But the aim of putting them there is to make it unnecessary for them to be used. It is possible to imagine crises that could erupt despite the presence of the British and the Anzacs—crises they could do little to -■ check. But their presence does make a crisis within that comer of South-East Asia just a little less likely. One of those know-all Chinese sages said it all: “Defence forces are successful only if they are never used.” Lord Carrington, remember Sun Tsu.