AUSTRALIAN military bases will be used by US forces to test next-generation warfare, staging mock attacks from aircraft carriers and conducting hi-tech war games. Details of joint Australian-US military training has centred on using three bases. They will test the latest weaponry, including precision munitions, tactics and cutting-edge communications, according to Ross Babbage, a former senior ANZUS treaty adviser. Professor Babbage, just returned from US defence and Pentagon briefings as part of the Kokoda Foundation, said the public was yet to be told the significance and benefit to Australian forces of the planned training.
Tens of millions of dollars would be spent upgrading Shoalwater Bay Training Area, in Queensland, and Bradshaw Training Area and Delamere Air Weapons Range in the Northern Territory, Prof Babbage said. "What I can see happening is rather more than what has been revealed," Prof Babbage said. "There will be things that will be learned together, they will try completely new things."
The program would place Australia among the highest-priority training grounds for the US in the world and send a strong message of US support for Australia throughout the region, Prof Babbage said. "We are making it very clear that when push comes to shove, Australia and the US governments operate very closely together," he said. "When it all goes to custard we can rely on their support."
He said the Howard Government could be expected to launch another round of briefings for Asian-Pacific countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea, to allay neighbourhood concerns. But Prof Babbage conceded more US-Australian exercises would be a sensitive issue further north. "The Chinese, who are running on several levels, are trying to bring most of South-East Asia and Australia closer to them."
Prof Babbage said the Delamere range would see experimentation with new smart bombs and live or dummy bombing raids into Australia from US aircraft carriers.
He said the smaller-version smart bombs, which could be tested, would be able to hit not just a specific tank, but a specific hinge or weakness of the tank.
| "I bet you a pint you can't put one through the hatch, mate." |
Special operations, ground force and surveillance training would take place at Bradshaw. Shoalwater Bay will host Exercise Talisman Sabre in 2007, which will see joint training of more than 20,000 troops with live bombing raids, amphibious landings, sea manoeuvres and simulations. A yet to be built Joint Combined Training Centre will connect each of the Australian bases with US mainland complexes and the US Pacific War Fighting Centre in Hawaii to provide real-time battlefield assessments.
"The Americans and our own Government are putting more meat on the bones of the alliance," Prof Babbage said. "When you put all these things together and you fast-forward five years, there is a significant evolution of Australia's ties with the Americans. ". . . in Washington, what they were saying - very senior defence people - was when it comes to the cutting edge, you guys and the Brits are who we can work with. "There is a frankness of exchanges, a special level of trust."
Prof Babbage said the potential for US equipment being set up in Australia to stage deployments to hot spots remained on the table, but initial agreements were restricted to training. "There is no proposal to base any US combat units here . . . (but) they could stage through Australia if they needed to in the future," he said. "What we are going to see is more exercises and a variety of exercises. "I think it will be a significant advance, but what will be significant is the quality. "This does not mean the Australian Defence Force has to commit to any future conflict (with the US). "What it means is that if there is commitment they can operate almost seamlessly." |