Value of A.N.Z.U.S. treaty questioned in Australia

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 28

Value of A.N.Z.U.S. treaty questioned in Australia

NZPA < Melbourne A recently published report by a Federal Parliamentary committee argued that there were few countries which could defend themselves against a conventional attack as well as Australia could. The report also found that three vital United States defence and intelligence installations in Australia — North West Cape, Pine Gap, and Nurrungar. “are likely to be on the Soviet nuclear target list." The report of the Katter committee (the sub-commit-tee on defence matters of the joint committee of foreign affairs and defence), published at the end of last year, assessed the nature and probability of threats to Australia’s security. The report raised serious questions among political and defence analysts outside the defence establishment about the value of the A.N.Z.U.S. (Australia. New Zealand and United States) treaty. The issue of what Australia had to gain by becoming a nuclear target for hosting the installations as its contribution to the treaty was put under particular scrutiny.

The Katter committee itself argued in favour of A.N.Z.U.S.. who said that "the risks associated with nuclear attack on Australia are outweighed by the advantages Australia derives from its alliance with the United St a f pc ** Under the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty, ratified by the three, countries in 1952, none of the signatories are under an obligation to come to the aid of each other if any of them are attacked. Article 111 of the treaty said “the parties will consult together whenever ... the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened in the Pacific.” One critic of A.N.Z.U.S. and the price Australia pays to stay in it is Andrew Mack, aged 43, a senior politics lecturer, specialising in defence Laues, at Flinders University in Adelaide. In a recent interview, Mr Mack argued that Australia’s continued support of A.N.Z.U.S. was based on a number of “highly dubious assumptions.” They are: • Australia’s security is actually under threat and it cannot defend itself without the help of a powerful ally like America. "Most Australians believe that Australia is fundamen- . tally defenceless. In fact, we have enormous natural strategic ■ advantages in terms of continental defence,” said Mr Mack. He said that the Katter committee found only America had the capability of successfully invading and occupying Australia. “Soviet forces may be well adapted to project armies across the U.S.S.R.’s borders but” (as the report said) “they are not well designed to undertake an opposed

landing on a distant continent." "Australia’s greatest security asset is the distance which any potential invader has to cover in order to project its forces effectively onto our shores,” said Mr Mack. He said that no regional Power currently had anything remotely like the logistics capability needed to invade Australia successfully. “For a nation to constitute a real danger to our security it must display not only an aggressive intent but also have the material capability to translate that intent into a real invasion threat. “In no State of the world do the two necessary conditions of hostile intention and invasion capability currently obtain." • America is a reliable ally and could be counted on to come to Australia’s aid in

time of ( crisis. "America today is an increasingly ordinary power. Its economy is in crisis and is threatened by the economies of Europe and Japan. It can no longer afford to provide unstinted aid to its allies, and it can no longer coerce or persuade its allies to go along with it,” said Mr Mack.

He argued that in the event of a regional conflict, Australia might want and may receive direct American support, but such support could not be relied on to be automatic. "If we cannot rely with some certainty on our ally then we should develop defence capabilities to meet anticipated threats independently. “If the benefits of A.N.Z.U.S. cannot be guaranteed, if we can go it alone with independent defence forces, the arguments for incurring the costs and risks of alliance (in hosting the United States installations) become far less compelling.” Mr Mack argued that the Falklands war demonstrated that the United States could not even be relied on to supply vital military supplies that Australia might need in a confrontation with such regional allies as Japan or Indonesia. “The Falklands crisis was a war fought between two American allies — Britain and Argentina, the leading anti-communist country in Latin America. “In that conflict America sat for a long time on the fence until eventually the United States Administra-

tion, pushed by American popular and congressional' opinion, went to Britain’s aid. "But the one thing that the British desperately needed, which was an airborne radar warning system, the British did not get — precisely because it was so important to the British operation. “It would have given them such a massive advantage against Argentina that that very fact alone would have alienated all of America's Latin American allies.” @ A.N.Z.U.S. may serve to protect Australia from long-

term Soviet threats. "One problem with this argument is that the most probable Soviet threat to Australia arises precisely because we host vital defence installations for our alliance partner.” said Mr Mack. He said that this particular Soviet threat would not exist if the American defence facilities were removed. "Consider two possible Soviet threat scenarios. First, a general w T ar between the two superpower alliances. In such a conflict a Soviet attack on Australia, apart from nuclear strikes on United States defence facilities, would be extraordinarily unlikely. "Like Japan in World War 11. the U.S.S.R. would simply lack the resources required for a big assault on Australia while locked in military conflict elsewhere." Mr Mack said that the second scenario, a Soviet at-

tack against Australia alone, was “almost impossible to conjure up. “Moscow would gain geopolitical and strategic advantages from successfully occupying Australia. But setting the anticipated gains of invasions against the probable costs wmuld make such an exercise utterly irrational

for the Soviets." He said it was ironic that this was the least plausible of threats yet the one in which Australia could definitely rely on the United States to use its own forces to counter Soviet attack. "Australia may expect that a Soviet attack against it would be countered by the United States, even if .we hosted no United States defence installations, were no longer members of A.N.Z.U.S. and relations with Washington were decidedly cool. "The United States would see any Soviet threat to Australia as a threat to its own interests and that is what would determine its response, not a treaty signed 30 years ago.” • As part of A.N.Z.U.S., Australia is playing its part in maintaining world peace by helping to stabilise the central balance. The balance of power between the two superpower alliances, N.A.T.O. and the Warsaw Pact, and their fellow travellers such as Australia and New Zealand. Mr Mack said that the problem with the central balance argument was it assumed precisely what it was that had to be demonstrated.

“First, that a growing Soviet threat is in fact dangerously undermining the central balance, and second, that current American strategic doctrine is stabilising rather than destabilising. "The Soviet Union has fewer nuclear warheads than does the United States, and American weapons systems are, on balance, more accurate, more lethal, more invulnerable, more reliable, and have a higher state of readiness than their Soviet counterparts. “When we turn to the

crucially important conventional military balance in Europe we find that the Soviets do have important advantages in many cases. “But when the N.A.T.O. forces as a whole, including France, are compared with Warsaw Pact forces as a whole, much of the numerical imbalance disappears.” He argued that American strategic policy was no longer stabilising but destabilising — that it accelerated the arms race and increased the risk of nuclear war. The United States emphasis was no longer on steering clear of nuclear war because of “assured mutual destruction,” but had shifted to planning for limited nuclear confrontations.

“The stress is now on clear war-fighting capabilities. Soviet military installations are being targeted rather than cities. "There are 40,000 Soviet targets on the official United States targeting plan. Attempts by the United States to maximise its ‘damage limitation’ capability inevitably creates a Soviet counterresponse — the nuclear arms race accelerates still further.”