Does anybody know whether as possible Rudd Goverment will effect the ADF in a negative Way? (Less Equipment,Disbanding of Units etc)
There is a rumour that a Labor government, if elected, would like to go through the books (that's everything, not just defence). There is a whisper of a razor gang.
This from the 20th - as it says, defence hasn't figured highly in the electoral debate. And if no one asks, don't expect the government or the opposition to poke their heads above the electoral parapet.
Mind you I am wondering if the 4th AWD will be announced. If so, I'd expect a Rudd guvmint to 'me to it.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22615152-31477,00.html
"Greg Sheridan, foreign editor | October 20, 2007
ELECTION 2007 has not yet had much taste of a khaki election, despite the fact 4000-odd Australian service personnel are deployed overseas in a variety of theatres, from hot conflicts, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and demanding peacekeeping, such as East Timor, to a range of other less intense peacekeeping and surveillance roles.
Partly this is because Kevin Rudd has largely accepted the new Howard paradigm in defence policy.
I argued in The Australian this week that in foreign policy Howard has been mostly a continuation of the Hawke-Keating legacy in that he has simultaneously sought deeper engagement with Asia and the US.
In defence policy, however, John Howard can be more rightly seen as a revolutionary. I don't mean by this Iraq. I believe that if Labor had been in government it, too, would have committed some level of troops to supporting the Americans in Iraq, even though it opposed the operation in Opposition. This was partly revealed by former Labor leader Kim Beazley who, in an opinion piece in the lead-up to the Iraq war, argued that Labor would keep the Australian naval deployments in the Persian Gulf.
While these deployments were initially about enforcing the trade embargo on Saddam Hussein, they later supported the US operation in Iraq.
What Labor may have done in government remains one of the ghostly ifs of history, inherently unknowable, but my guess is that a naval deployment would have been maintained and Labor would have acquiesced in the Americans describing this as support for the liberation of Iraq from Saddam.
As the Iraq debate played out, Labor did not object to toppling Saddam in principle, nor did it contest the idea that he possessed weapons of mass destruction. Rather, it said it would support the invasion only if it got UN Security Council approval. Labor's position was thus one of process rather than principle.
In any event, all that is water under the bridge, as they say. My point is that the Iraq commitment was not unusual in Australian history nor did it represent a truly fundamental breach between the parties, especially as we look to the future. If elected, Rudd will keep even the combat troops in Iraq for another nine months and make an increased commitment to non-military aid for Iraq. And he is likely to increase Australian troop levels in Afghanistan.
Where Howard has been revolutionary in defence is not in Iraq but in his ditching of the defence of Australia doctrine, his reconfiguring of the Australian Defence Force to emphasise a larger army and a greater global deployability, his recognition of terrorism as a strategic threat and his commitment to an annual 3 per cent real increase in defence expenditure through many years so we can afford the equipment necessary for our strategic needs.
Rudd has completely accepted this paradigm. This is greatly to his credit. For Howard's new defence paradigm did not spring wholly formed from Howard's brain. Rather, it is a considered, pragmatic response to the strategic changes in the world and in our region that have occurred during the past 11 years.
Howard, in keeping with previous Australian governments, has made a shrewd assessment of the circumstances Australia faces and responded accordingly, ditching doctrine and past practice along the way. What is to Rudd's credit is that he, too, has recognised the new realities and not been bound by old dogmas such as DOA.
A few weeks ago I interviewed Rudd about foreign policy for Inquirer. He had so much that was interesting to say on foreign policy that I did not have the chance, before today, to report what he said about defence policy.
Here is Rudd's take on defence force structure and terrorism as a strategic threat: "Our view is that when it comes to the design of a force structure it has to be capable of three tasks: one, the defence of Australia, the ultimate responsibility of any government; two, the maintenance of Australian security across the wider air-sea gap; and three, we're an ally of the US and therefore we need a force structure capable of participating in common allied operations. For example, when it comes to the future of the amphibious ships, I believe that level of force projection capability, in terms of our responsibilities in the wider southwest Pacific, is necessary, for military, police and natural disaster management purposes.
"I'm pretty robust about all three of those requirements and the challenge for defence planners is to have a force structure that has that elasticity about it."
Rudd has made here an explicit and carefully considered commitment to the giant amphibious ships the Government is acquiring. These are demon objects in the eyes of the old DOA brigade because their primary purpose is to transport large numbers of soldiers and they do not in any configuration conform to a force structure designed solely for the defence of Australia. They represent the new, robust, deployable paradigm very starkly and it is interesting that they are the one piece of defence equipment that Rudd chose to explicitly commit himself to.
Another aspect of contemporary reality that the old DOA crowd can't cope with is the idea that terrorism can constitute a strategic threat. However much the old DOA crowd may believe that Howard is an aberration in believing that terrorism does constitute a strategic threat, they had better get ready for the fact Rudd believes this also. The insights of Howard and Rudd here show the superiority of politicians over academic strategic analysts. The analysts spend their lives on a particular paradigm that they are loath to junk even when it no longer describes reality. Politicians, on the other hand, have to deal with the real world day by day.
I asked Rudd whether terrorism was indeed a strategic threat.
He said: "If you're describing threats for the future of Australia and therefore the force structure to meet those threats, it covers the whole spectrum of soft power and hard power threats, and right across the middle of this spectrum is terrorism.
"When does terrorism become a strategic threat? Obviously when it acquires force projection capabilities that it can inflict large-scale death and destruction with; for example, weapons of mass destruction. One of the key challenges with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and why it is in urgent need of reform and rejuvenation is how it deals with the possibility of nuclear weapons proliferation to non-state actors, principally terrorists. If terrorists possess such a capability, of course it would constitute a strategic threat. Therefore the object of policy has to be to prevent any such acquisition occurring."
Members of the Government argue, reasonably enough, that they have greater credibility on defence because they have undertaken the defence build-up and the robust deployments, whereas Labor has only talked about it. When Labor was in office it allowed the defence forces to deteriorate, such that the army was disgracefully underprepared and almost could not make even the very modest commitment, in terms of manpower, logistics and so on required of it in East Timor in 1999.
This is a reasonable argument, with some substance. However, in fairness, it has to be acknowledged that Labor in office did not face the circumstances the Howard Government has faced. It was not taught the hard lessons in office that the Howard Government was. And between 1996 and East Timor in 1999, the Howard Government itself did not urgently begin rebuilding the ADF.
One cannot really ask more of an Opposition than that it commit itself to the right policies, while recognising what the Government has done in office.
Finally, everybody's promises at this stage are pretty fallible. I wouldn't bet the house on the Government implementing, five years from now, the new tax scales it has promised. By the same token, Rudd's commitment to keep the 3 per cent real increase in defence spending going must be contingent on circumstances. The best we can make of today's promises is that they are general statements of intention.
And on defence, both sides of politics certainly have good intentions."
You wouldn't expect anything else from an opposition that is trying to not look too different to the incumbent governement, but still trying to present a 'fresh face'
rb
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