Playing war on Australian shores

On 2 May 2007, 20,000 troops from the United States Armed Forces landed in Australia. They joined 7,500 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel for a massive military training operation called Talisman Saber. Occurring every two years since 2001, Talisman Saber is designed to enhance the way Australian and US forces work together to make them better prepared for combat. Talisman Saber is conducted at three major sites—Shoalwater Bay in Queensland, and Bradshaw and Townsville Field training areas in the Northern Territory. Based on fictional war scenarios, it includes live artillery firing, bombing, and the use of nuclear-armed warships. While the ADF claims that the war games enhance Australian defence, organisations such as Peace Convergence and Friends of the Earth, call Talisman Saber an exercise in aggression—‘offensive’ rather than defensive in nature. They argue it sends the wrong message to our neighbours and the international community. Talisman Saber is the hallmark of heightened US military influence on Australian soil, the product of Australia becoming more and more influenced by US foreign policy since 2001.

While Australia has always supported and shared a strong alliance with the US, 2001 saw a significant deepening in this relationship. Just one day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, Prime Minister John Howard invoked the ANZUS treaty—a written treaty of cooperation on Asia-Pacific defence matters signed in 1951—which had never before been invoked. ANZUS does not bind Australia to come to the aid of the US, however Howard offered unequivocal military and strategic support, labelling 9/11 an attack on ‘shared values’ held dear by America and Australia alike.

International Relations Lecturer Scott Burchill claims that the Australian Government sought to gain the closest possible partnership with the US based on a misguided view that 9/11 ‘changed everything’, and that regional security could only be guaranteed through a stronger defence relationship with the US. Head Professor of Global Studies at RMIT, Joseph Siracusa argues that the deepening of the US relationship has in fact had a negative impact on Australia’s reputation in the Asia-Pacific, particularly with Indonesia, a country with a large Muslim population, which perceived Australia’s involvement in the ‘War on Terror’ as a war against Islam.

Siracusa argues that some of Australia’s neighbours, including Malaysia and the Philippines, see the US as an arrogant power and Australia as its regional ‘lackey’. US President George W. Bush’s branding of Australia as America’s ‘sheriff’ in the South-East’ at a 2003 press conference, only fuelled this perception. Dr Zohl de Ishtar of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies argues that Talisman Saber effectively makes Australia a strategic ‘lily-pad’ for the US military to exercise and extend its force in our region.

Former Labor foreign affairs advisor, Dr Phillip Dorling, claims that other activities, such as a new spy base to be built outside Geraldton, Western Australia, would make it near impossible for Australia to remain neutral in future conflicts involving the US. The Geraldton base is set to become a crucial link in providing satellite communications to US military in Asia and the Middle East, adding another tier to US military influence—spy bases already exist at Pine Gap, Darwin and Shoalwater Bay (built for Talisman Saber). Democrat Senator, Andrew Bartlett, believes that this will ‘handcuff’ Australia to US foreign policy.

It should not be a question of whether or not Australia maintains its strong relationship with the US but how the alliance is played out. Australia is seen by its neighbours and the US to be playing a subservient role rather than a balanced partner in the alliance, as expressed in 2004 through comments made by US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. His claim that ‘US allies could not pick and choose the parts of the relationship they wanted’ implied that Australian governments would be bound to follow US military policy if they wished to maintain a strong relationship.

US military policies, particularly the principle of ‘pre-emptive strikes’ as used in the invasion of Iraq, have been heavily criticised throughout the international community for being aggressive and more likely to incite war that to prevent it. A situation where Australia is required to follow this type of policy without equal regard for its own interests could hinder our government’s ability to make independent political decisions.

Australia generally identifies itself as a nation keen to maintain a reputation as peaceful and humanitarian. Professor Tilman Ruff, President of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, believes that Australia should take the lead in building peace rather than as a follower in plans for war. Cooperating with the US in aggressive military training methods such as those used in Talisman Saber increases the likelihood of Australian involvement in future US-led ‘pre-emptive’ conflicts. Australians have every right to question whether acting as a subservient follower in plans for war is the right game for their nation to be playing.

How do I know this?

Australian Defence Force 2007, Talisman Saber 2007, http://www.defence.gov.au/exercises/ts07/default.htm  

ABC 2007, Talisman Saber War Games under Fire, 19 June, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/19/1954922.htm

Bartlett, A 2007, ‘Peace Convergence at Talisman Sabre’, The Bartlett Diaries, 22 June, http://andrewbartlett.com/blog/?p=1546  

Brown & Rayner 2001, Upside, downside: ANZUS after 50 years, http://www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/Pubs/CIB/2001-02/02cib03.htm  

Burchill, S 2003, ‘The Perils of our US alliance’, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/30/1056825317955.html  

Carney, S 2004, ‘A Question of Sovereignty’, The Age, 12 June, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/11/1086749892789.html  

CNN 2003. ‘Bush: Australia ‘Sheriff’ in the Region, October 20 http://www.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/10/20/
apec.special.bush.asia/index.html  

De Ishtar, Z 2007, Talisman Saber and Australia’s Guam connection, http://www.shoalwaterbay.org/guam.php  

Lyon & Tow 2003, The Future of the Australia-US security relationship, https://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB50.pdf  

Nicholson, B 2007 ‘Us Gets Military Base in Western Australia’, The Age, 15 February, http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/us-gets-military-base-in-australia/2007/02/14/1171405295243.html  

Peace Convergence, Talisman Saber 2007, http://www.peaceconvergence.com/  

Siracusa, J 2006, John Howard, Australia and the Coalition of the Willing, www.yale.edu/yjia/articles/Vol_1_Iss_2_Spring2006/
siracusa217.pdf