With our high local number of Defence families we follow what is happening in Afghanistan fairly closely.
This week there were three articles in the national press that help to tell a Defence story with implications for us locally here.
Why is Australia in Afghanistan? Put simply it is to stand by our ally the US.
Why do we send our young men off to foreign wars to support our ally the US? As an insurance policy. We are seeking to buy their support for us as a nation if we ever need help to defend ourselves against a stronger external attacker who we can’t have a hope of repelling on our own. Note that there are absolutely no guarantees in this. We didn’t get a contract signed when we committed troops to Afghanistan in support of the US that the US would support us reciprocally under specific circumstances of our need.
Some of the possible directions that aggression to Australia could come from have received stronger marks of friendship that Australia has even though they are not sending their troops to fight beside the US.
Ultimately US self-interest will determine who it does or does not stand by.
Right now the US has a massive budget deficit and it is actively making huge cuts in its Defence budget. This month the White House announced an extra US$400 billion in Pentagon cuts by 2023. This is after the retiring Defence Secretary Robert Gates has already killed the most inefficient programs and the ships and planes acquired during the Reagan build-up are near expiry. Analysts say even deeper defence spending cuts may be necessary.
This is causing the US into a broad rethink of priorities steering it clear of interventionist policies and scaling back US military forces garrisoned in Europe and Asia. Unconditional support for the defence industry no longer equals patriotism.
The White House is saying it is a “time for hard choices and the Pentagon must be strong and disciplined in applying the US’s limited resources to defending America.” That is not Australia. “There’s always going to be somebody asking the US to respond to some global 911 call. It’s going to be the new head of the Pentagon Leon Pannette’s job to say ‘No’.”
In the meantime the global oil supply is running out rapidly and the countries in the Middle East that supply oil are destabilising like a row of dominos. Australia derives more than 30% of its oil from the Middle East. China derives 58% of its oil from the region set to rise to 70% by 2015. For India its 73% and Japan 85%. This is all transported through the Indian Ocean and area of nearly 6 million square kilometres.
Many of the resources that Australia relies on for wealth lie close to or just off the coast along the Indian Ocean shoreline.
40% of humanity are also located around the Indian Ocean.
As oil supply becomes harder and harder to meet extreme and drastic measures to secure it are kicking in. These include drilling impossibly deeply under the ocean. They include wars. They include a mad scramble of the richest and most powerful nations to secure control and ownership of energy resources around the planet.
Being Australian is almost irrelevant is far as owning Australia’s natural resources. Right now China is moving in fast. At the same time our Prime Minister has just visited there and has told the Chinese their [navy] ships are welcome in our ports. The 2009 Defence White paper warned that China would soon become the most dominant military power in our region “by a large margin”. Australia is pursuing closer defence links with China’s miitary with Chinese warsihps expected to visit our ports this year and the possibility of live fire exercises with China.
Back in Afghanistan and Pakistan the leaders are strongly questioning their own future ties with the US. The US might be fighting in Afghanistan in theory to protect its citizens from the Taliban. In practice the Afghanistan government is thinking about a future in which it makes an ally of China not the US. Fighting in Afghanistan isn’t building gratitude from that direction.
As Australia’s latest contingent of troops are fairwelled to Afghanistan the Taliban are moving in for a fierce summer offensive there. Our troops are the pick of our young men our genetic cream. Down at ANZAC Day recently I couldn’t help but be bowled over by what fine specimens of manhood they are. While they are fighting in Afghanistan the country has to do without them at home. If they are killed we lose our finest and the cost to their families cannot be measured.
We need to consider very carefully when making defence commitments to other nations’ wars. The financial cost of the wars that Australia has participated in in Iraq and Afghanistan is immense.
Right now Australia’s dollar is going through the roof against the US dollar. So are other currencies because the US is sliding after living well beyond its means. Are we really sure of what we are doing as allies of the US?