Deal to buy US tanks From AAP July 09, 2004 AUSTRALIA had signed a formal agreement with the United States to buy a fleet of M1A1 Abrams tanks, Defence Minister Robert Hill said today.
Senator Hill, who is visiting the US, said Australia would buy 59 refurbished and updated M1A1 Abrams, seven M88 Hercules Armoured Recovery vehicles, gunnery and driver training simulators, training and other support equipment and a range of spares.
He said the agreement was the central component of the $530 million package which also included tank transporters, refuelling vehicles and ammunition.
The Abrams tanks will replace the Army's ageing Leopards which have been in service since the 1970s.
Delivery of the tanks and other equipment was expected in 2007 with most going to the 1st Armoured Regiment in Darwin. The rest would go to training schools.
"The M1A1 Abrams tanks will provide a major increase in capability over the present Leopard tanks, particularly with their greater firepower and their potential to operate in a modern, networked communications environment," he said.
Senator Hill said the tanks provided to Australia had relatively low usage and would be refurbished to as-new condition.
The upgrading would be performed as part of a refurbishment program for the US military's larger fleet of M1A1 tanks.
He said a significant innovation was the purchase of advanced simulators for the training of tank crews.
"This is a new direction for the Australian Army, reflecting a major increase in commitment and investment in simulation to supplement and enhance training of armoured vehicle crews," he said.
America wants the bases because they will offer the US greater security than more centrally located bases in the region.
The Shoalhaven Bay base in North Queensland would provide relatively easy access to both the Pacific and Indian Oceans and offer shorter US supply lines to the Middle East.
According to Donald Rumsfeld, the three bases would be linked to the US Pacific War Fighting Centre in Hawaii, which would enable the US to rely on fast response units as an alternative to more centrally located troops from permanent bases.
The Chinese want Tonga possibly for its location to American Samoa and it stands between Australia and the Pacific Warfighting Center in Hawaii. #msg-3378078
What America wants: it's the bases, stupid July 15, 2004
The US doesn't really care if Australia leaves Iraq. It's after a more important commitment.
"There was never a plan to leave Iraq because there is no intention to leave Iraq. We (the Americans) are currently building 14 bases there. Dick Cheney can't imagine giving up that oil. The military can't imagine giving up those bases. That's why they can't come up with a plan to leave." Chalmers Johnson, author of Sorrows of Empire, in LA Weekly, July 6
Last week US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said that, based on his conversations with Australian "colleagues", the ALP was "rent down the middle" over the issue of Australian troop involvement in Iraq.
The statement was made on the eve of the annual security talks between Australia and the US. These resulted in Australia signing a new 25-year agreement on Australian support for the Bush Administration's controversial $US50 billion ($A69 billion) "son of Star Wars" missile defence system and agreeing to three new military bases in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The Armitage statement was pure mischief-making. Whether the small Australian contingent remains in Baghdad or comes home by Christmas won't make the slightest difference to the US occupation. But the decision to co-operate on missile defence and the establishment of three bases involving "tens of thousands" (according to Defence Minister Robert Hill) of US and Australian troops in joint exercises has profound implications for Australia's regional security and national sovereignty.
The Chinese (and the North Koreans) quite rightly see the missile defence program as directly aimed at them.
The Korean regime will probably now be reinforced in its belief that having some form of nuclear arms capability is the best guarantee that it won't suffer the same fate as Iraq.
The program would also push China towards an acceleration of its nuclear weapons capability, in line with the nuclear doctrine that massive retaliation is the best response to a missile defence program.
Most likely the missile defence program should be seen as a multibillion-dollar handout to what former US president Dwight Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. But seen from the perspective of Beijing, the Chinese have to take into account the Bush Administration's 2002 National Security Strategy, which claims the right to pre-emptive strikes against nations (such as Iraq) that, in the opinion of the US, threaten US security.
The Bush Administration's unilateral abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001 and a lowering of the nuclear threshold so that tactical nuclear weapons might be used against non-nuclear armed nations (or terrorists) compound the risk that America could ignite a new nuclear arms race.
Hill's statement that to oppose missile defence is "anti-American" would be banal if the issue wasn't fraught with danger for global security.
Latham Labor is right to oppose Australian co-operation on this issue, although logic suggests that opposition to "Star Wars" means opposition to the use of the US communications facilities already in Australia if they were to form part of the missile defence network.
Mark Latham has said Labor will support the three new bases. As a consequence, there has been virtually no public debate (and, I suspect, no private debate in the Howard Government) about how the bases will contribute to regional and Australian security.
America wants the bases because they will offer the US greater security than more centrally located bases in the region.
The Shoalhaven Bay base in North Queensland would provide relatively easy access to both the Pacific and Indian Oceans and offer shorter US supply lines to the Middle East.
According to Donald Rumsfeld, the three bases would be linked to the US Pacific War Fighting Centre in Hawaii, which would enable the US to rely on fast response units as an alternative to more centrally located troops from permanent bases.
And what's in it for us? Well, Australia would have a use, in joint exercises, for the 59 US Abrams tanks bought in March. These exercises would enable Australian troops to slot into US mobile forces in their adventures around the world in pursuit of terrorists. The tanks are incapable of serving any useful purpose in the defence of Australia and in the region.
Set against the military and communications bases, I don't think the Bush Administration would care greatly about Australia "cutting and running" from Iraq, except to the extent that it might marginally affect the presidential election in November (which of course is before Christmas).
Arguably, the Iraq occupation has already failed. This is the issue a mature nation would have debated after Latham's policy decision - not the rights and wrongs of the Armitage statement.
It's the bases, stupid, as Chalmers Johnson points out in Sorrows of Empire. He claims that Gough Whitlam was sacked by John Kerr in 1975 after Kerr was told by the CIA that Labor threatened the security of Pine Gap by exposing it as a CIA operation totally outside Australian control. Maybe.
But Johnson is probably on firmer ground when he claims that in 1977 Warren Christopher, then US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, "promised the deposed Whitlam that the US would never again interfere in Australian domestic politics".
Christopher was a civilised man and I am sure his assurance was sincerely meant. But he couldn't make promises on behalf of future administrations any more than Australian governments should sign agreements that could hold future generations to ransom, based on the tawdry premise that to be anti-American is to be anti-Australian.
Kenneth Davidson is a staff columnist. Email: kdlv@ozemail.com.au
Pacific Warfighting Center Rapidly increasing exercise activities, training complexity, and C4I modernization have outgrown our training and exercise simulation infrastructure and operational support capabilities. This deficiency significantly reduces the ability to train our commanders and test our plans; degrades interoperability with friends in the region; and increases costs for our forces.
Our proposed solution is a state-of-the-art operations, training, and simulation center, the Pacific Warfighting Center, or "PWC". The PWC will be a key node on the Joint National Training Center's global grid of operational warfighting centers. It will be fully integrated with Joint Forces Command's Joint Training Analysis and Simulation Center and the European Command's Warrior Preparation Center. It will also enhance regional security cooperation using Internet-based information exchange and training opportunities via the Asia-Pacific Area Network. We see the PWC as integral to our efforts in the War on Terrorism and other security challenges, and ask your support in making it a reality. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:izUh5bdT5IAJ:www.pacom.mil/speeches/sst2003/030312_hac.shtml+US....
More than one million tonnes of oil a year -- well over 80 percent of China's imports -- are shipped through the narrow strait, if the U.S. gains control China would be in big trouble.
It is obvious China understands this is not about the U.S. wanting command of the Strait of Malacca solely to fight terrorism.
-Am
China pipeline plan to secure oil supplies By Ching Cheong
HONG KONG - China wants to reduce its vulnerability over imported oil shipped via the Malacca Strait by building a pipeline to a port in Myanmar.
This will ensure that supplies will continue even when passage through the narrow and already very congested waterway is disrupted for whatever reasons.
According to sources, Chinese leaders discussed the project with Myanmar Prime Minister Khin Nyunt when he visited Beijing recently.
China estimates that by 2010 and 2020, its demand will reach 340 million and 440 million tonnes respectively, while domestic production will yield just 175 million and 190 million tonnes.
The shortfall of about 165 million and 250 million tonnes will have to be met by imports, largely from the Middle East. These work out to a high dependency ratio of 50 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.
Given that four-fifths of its oil imports now pass through the Malacca Strait and the fact that China does not have a blue-water navy to protect the route, Beijing is distinctly uneasy about the risk of blockage should fighting with the United States break out over Taiwan.
This issue was first raised by Chinese President Hu Jintao at a Central Economic Meeting on Nov 29 last year. He asked officials to come up with possible solutions.
According to a source, the officials proposed four, with the first three centred on building a pipeline from the south-western province of Yunnan to Myanmar, from north-western Xinjiang province to Pakistan, or from Tibet to Bangladesh. The fourth solution entailed helping Thailand to build its Kra Canal.
The source said the Bangladesh option was ruled out almost immediately because it meant passing through Indian territory.
The Pakistani option is being considered in tandem with a railway line that China intends to build, linking up Kashi (Kashgar) in southern Xinjiang with the Pakistani port of Karachi in the Indian Ocean.
But this route has to pass through rugged terrain with harsh climatic conditions, thus posing formidable technical difficulties.
By comparison, the Myanmar option is more appealing, both politically and technically.
Historically, Myanmar has always been China's gateway to the Indian Ocean. During World War II, when the entire eastern part of China fell into Japanese hands, General Joseph Stilwell, commander of all American forces in the China-Burma-India theatre, built the famous Stilwell Highway to bring supplies from Indian Ocean ports to the Chinese resistance movement.
The Myanmar option was proposed by Yunnan University's Institute of South-east Asia.
According to Dr Li Cheng Yang, its director, the proposed pipeline will run from Kunming, Yunnan's capital, to the Indian Ocean port of Sittwe (Akyab), a straight-line distance of about 1,250km.
Compared with the current oil route via the Malacca Strait, this means a saving of about 2,000km. Cost of construction is about US$2 billion (S$3.4 billion).
According to Dr Li, this pipeline is the preferred option because it also tallies with another strategic railway that China wants to build, the Kunming-Yangon line, which opens up an Indian Ocean outlet for its otherwise landlocked south-west provinces.
Meanwhile, Thailand is also canvassing for Chinese support for its Kra Canal project, estimated to cost about US$28 billion.
As an interim solution, Thai representatives at the Fifth Conference on Petroleum Trade in April proposed building a pipeline connecting both ends of the isthmus.
Although this pipeline is estimated to cost only US$600 million, using it means double-handling of oil - once at each end - and is therefore not economical in the long run.
The United States is trying for control of the Strait of Malacca. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during a visit to Singapore that he hoped to have US troops fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia "pretty soon". His comments fuelled speculation that the United States wants to deploy US forces in the Strait of Malacca, the narrow and busy shipping lane straddled by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore that is seen as a likely terrorist target. More than one million tonnes of oil a year -- well over 80 percent of China's imports -- are shipped through the narrow strait. #msg-3404130 #msg-3542419
The United States is moving into Australia as Australia decides to end decades of non-intervention in its South Pacific. In a major policy shift last year that brings Australia more in line with the strategy of the United States, Australia has abandoned its hands-off policy of the past 30 years, sending troops to end lawlessness in the Solomon Islands and has agreed to send police to crime-infested Papua New Guinea.
The Chinese want Tonga possibly for its location to American Samoa and it stands between Australia and the Pacific Warfighting Center in Hawaii. #msg-3378078
THREE major defense training bases will be upgraded under plans to allow US forces greater access to Australian training facilities, Defence Minister Robert Hill announced today. July 08, 2004 #msg-3542419
Being an astute student of the United States Australia has also taken up stealing oil from East Timor one of the poorest countries in the region. #msg-3743255
-Am
Australia PM says Pacific intervention paying off 06 August 2004
CANBERRA: Australia's decision to end decades of non-intervention in its South Pacific backyard is paying off, Prime Minister John Howard said today, before heading to a Pacific meeting on tackling economic instability.
Representatives of 16 Pacific nations, among the world's smallest and poorest are meeting in Samoa at the weekend to hammer out strategies for growth and better governance.
"Everybody is now taking the Pacific Island Forum far more seriously because they've seen what has been achieved in the Solomon Islands and that is if Pacific countries work together in a cooperative way then they can achieve a lot," Howard said.
"There's a new spirit in the Pacific and I'm very pleased that Australia is playing its part," he said.
In a major policy shift last year, Australia abandoned its hands-off policy of the past 30 years, sending troops to end lawlessness in the Solomon Islands and has agreed to send police to crime-infested Papua New Guinea.
Australia fears that failed states on its Pacific doorstep could become havens for terror groups and argues that stable governments are needed to avoid such a possibility as well as to build stronger regional economies.
Before leaving for the Pacific Islands Forum, Howard said 14 of its members that receive aid understood that Australia's annual contribution of more than $A1.2 ($NZ1.32) to the region depended on good governance. Australia is the Pacific's largest aid donor. In recent years island states have been rocked by coups, mutinies and ethnic clashes.
"There's a recognition that small countries have got to pool their resources. There's also a recognition that good governance is crucial to attracting investment. That's a view Australia has pushed," Howard told reporters.
"There's also an understanding that we do tie governance to aid and that is reasonable, because the Australian taxpayer is entitled to a good return for their investment," he said.
The forum has generally welcomed the Solomon Islands intervention, which also included troops from member states New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
The other forum members are the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said one priority proposal to be considered at the forum on Saturday would be the benefits of creating a regional airline, a perennial subject at the annual meeting.
"There are a number of airlines and some of them are very big loss makers and costing those governments and those communities very dearly," Downer told reporters.
Air travel is crucial in a region of more than 500 inhabited islands, spread over 30 million sqkm, with more than 1000 languages.
But Downer said the possibility of establishing a Pacific central bank was a long way off because of the difficulties in creating a common currency and common fiscal targets.
"In the short term, that's not going to happen. In the medium to long term, who knows? It would depend how countries felt," Downer said.
In July last year, Australia led a regional team of 2225 troops and police into the Solomon Islands, the largest military deployment in the region since World War 2, to stop the nation spiralling into anarchy after years of ethnic militia fighting.
Late last month, crime-ridden Papua New Guinea approved plans for neighbouring Australia to send in 230 police and 64 officials to help keep the peace and improve the country's economy.
Forum members range from Australia with a population of 20 million, to tiny Niue, which has fewer than 2000 people.
Excluding Australia and New Zealand, the main industries of the Pacific islands are tourism, small agriculture, fishing and textiles.
This is getting dangerous. The world has seen this kind of regional psychosis take hold before, a time when every country blames everybody else for rising tensions, and they all ratchet up the bellicose rhetoric and the various defense budgets and start the technology arms races. Europe went down this path in the years before 1914, and we know how that ended. East Asia is becoming a very troubling place.
This has occurred before, it is very recognizable, yet the people of the United States do not see what is happening.
-Am
Walker's World: Asian arms race heats up By Martin Walker UPI Editor Published December 15, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The publication of Japan's new National Defense Program Outline, the first serious re-statement of Japan's security policing in a generation, declares the obvious: that Japan has to consider both China and North Korea as potential threats.
North Korea's nuclear ambitions and its staging of missile test flights over Japanese territory would worry anybody, and China's costly re-armament program has the entire region nervous. But Tokyo is worried by its own boldness in saying so, and even more worried about its highly important strategic decision to deepen its close security links with the United States into something that looks very like a formal alliance.
Japan's Defense Agency Director, Gen. Yoshinori Ono, won the internal political battle in Tokyo to put his concern about China on the record, and cited "the recent case where a Chinese submarine intruded into Japanese waters" when demanding that Japan pay attention to China's new naval capabilities.
The bulk of Japan's foreign ministry and half the Koizumi government were against naming China, but the Bush administration was delighted that Japan is increasingly ready to admit that it has now grown out of the 50 years of self-abnegation and official pacifism and it now a serious U.S. military ally.
If the presence of Japanese troops in Iraq and the logistics support for the U.S. operations in Afghanistan were not clear enough symbols of Japan's new stance, the new defense policy also eases Japan's arms export controls to enable the sales of missile defense components to the United States. The new strategy, revised to take account of such new security dangers as terrorism, emphasizes Japan's determination to strengthen its alliance with Washington, saying Japan will be "proactive in bilateral strategic dialogue on security issues."
Japan's top officials seemed stunned by their own boldness in finally daring to call a spade a spade. "It's not that Japan sees China as a threat," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference immediately after the Cabinet approved the new Defense Program. And Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said it was "not wholly correct to say China is a threat because the Program only wrote that there is need to watch out for China's increase in military spending."
Well, yes. Japan's new program does not come right out and say that China's re-armament is aimed at deterring the U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers from coming anywhere near the Taiwan Straits, and thus strategically aimed at slowly but surely excluding the Americans from the Asian security equation. But why else would China be buying silent new submarines that can lie in wait for the carriers, or buying the long-range ship killing missiles and the Su-30 fighter-bombers to deliver them?
The government of Junichiro Koizumi has now made a fateful decision, that Japan's future would not be secure in an Asia dominated by China as a regional superpower, and unrestrained by a U.S. military presence as a balancing power.
This is important. Japan's defense budget is nearly $50 billion a year, close to that of Britain or France, widely reckoned to be the two most serious military powers after the United States. Japan's Navy is now larger than that of Britain, and Japan's technological cooperation with the U.S. anti-missile defense program locks its future security into the American alliance.
While China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue expressed "deep concern at the great changes of Japan's military defense strategy and its possible impact," Tokyo said Beijing had only itself to blame -- "Japan must watch closely the modernization of Chinese armies".
For the 15th year in a row, China's defense budget has again recorded double-digit growth, and while Beijing's official figures claim it spends a mere $26 billion a year, the U.S. estimates this year's spending at $55 billion, and possibly as high as $70 billion when including the space and satellite programs, "oceanographic research" and "security costs" for the National Oil Corporation.
The rising military spending in the region is making some analysts nervous. Throw in Taiwan's own re-armament program and the South Korean defense budget, and the share of the U.S. defense budget devoted to the region, and the total military spending in east Asia is now well over $200 billion a year. This is probably the highest share of global military expenditure the region has boasted since the Korean War.
Moreover, the money is being spent, and the national strategic programs rewritten at a time of great uncertainty over North Korea's nuclear capabilities and ambitions.
North Korea has yet to comment officially, but its state-run new agency criticized Japan for "intensifying regional conditions to extremes" and added that Pyongyang "would definitely not just stand idly by and watch Japan become a military power."
Everybody is blaming everybody else. Japan blames North Korea, and North Korea blames Japan. Taiwan blames China, and China blames Japan.
"Fundamentally, the Chinese buildup has been due to Taiwan's push for independence and the U.S. and Japan's direct and indirect backing of Taiwan," argues Shen Dingli of the Institute for International Studies at China's Fudan University. "Therefore, Japan has to be responsible for this and should not say China is the source of regional instability."
This is getting dangerous. The world has seen this kind of regional psychosis take hold before, a time when every country blames everybody else for rising tensions, and they all ratchet up the bellicose rhetoric and the various defense budgets and start the technology arms races. Europe went down this path in the years before 1914, and we know how that ended. East Asia is becoming a very troubling place.
The US controls American Samoa's military affairs. Pago Pago provides the US military with the deepest, most protected harbour in the entire Pacific, suitable for large surface vessels and submarines. Nuclear ships and submarines continue to use the harbour. #msg-3378078
China vows to enhance economic ties with Samoa www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-09 21:42:09
BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said here on Monday that China will expand exchanges with Samoa, an island country in southern Pacific Ocean, at all levels and between all departments to push their friendship to a new high.
Wen made the remarks while meeting with Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, prime minister of the Independent State of Samoa, in the Great Hall of the People.
The two countries inked an economic and technological cooperation agreement and issued a joint statement after the talks.
During the talks, Wen hailed China's "good political and economic relations" with Samoa, suggesting the two countries enhance cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure construction, telecommunication, tourism, culture and education and health.
He proposed the two countries strengthen contact and coordination in regional affairs and jointly maintain peace and stability in the southern Pacific region.
Wen said he appreciated Samoa's long-term stance of adhering tothe one-China policy.
Tuilaepa agreed with Wen's comments, saying his government and people appreciate China's support and aid and Samoa hopes to further economic and trade and tourism cooperation with China.
He reiterated that Samoa will stick to the one-China policy andsupport China's reunification efforts. He said Samoa recognizes China's full market economy status.
Tuilaepa arrived in Beijing Sunday afternoon for a week-long official visit to China as guest of Wen Jiabao.
Besides, Tuilaepa will attend a reception celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of China-Samoa diplomatic ties. Then he will visit Xi'an, an ancient capital in Chinese history inthe northwest province of Shaanxi, and the business capital of Shanghai in the east.
This is Tuilaepa's second visit to China since he assumed office in 1998. He paid his first official visit to China in August 2000. Enditem
Simultaneously China is establishing bases on Tarawa and in the Spratley Islands in the Philippines, with the obvious intent of controlling another key maritime choke point, the Malacca Strait, through which much oil and other strategically important trade commodities are transported. #msg-2384357
The outlying islands -- Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia – are the first chain of defense for China. Much press has already been given to Japan and Taiwan. The Philippines have been leaning toward China and Indonesia is seeing some heavy terrorist activity which might be covertly backed by China as it is to their advantage. http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=4007221
China is trying to take back the strategically placed island of Kiribati. South of Kiribati the Chinese military influence was starting to replace that of Tonga's traditional partners. #msg-3377985
Again I am not sure how strong an alliance New Zealand and China will form. Looking at the map, the Dragon’s influence in New Zealand, Tonga, Kiribati possibly Australia not only surrounds America Samoa but draws a straight line to Hawaii.
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