Australia may test new generation weapons in Australia: Expert
Australia may test new generation weapons in Australia: Expert
Agencies, Sydney/Jakarta
New-generation weapons like smart bombs could be tested in Australia under an agreement being negotiated with the United States military, news reports said on Friday.
The agreement with the Pentagon is expected to lead to upgraded joint military training centers in Australia's north that would be used for air, sea and land exercises.
Queensland's Shoalwater Bay, the Northern Territory's Bradshaw training area, and the Delamere Air Weapons Range, are the three locations slated for the upgraded joint facilities.
Brisbane's Courier-Mail quoted defense specialist Ross Babbage, who has just returned from briefings in Washington, as saying there would be experimentation with self-guided smart bombs and live or "dummy" bombing raids into Australia from U.S. aircraft carriers.
Babbage said that smaller versions of smart bombs, which could pinpoint hinges on tanks, would also be tested.
"What I can see happening is rather more than what has been revealed," Babbage told the newspaper. "There will be things that will be learned together. They will try completely new things."
Babbage, a former government advisor, said the level of cooperation would send a strong message to the region about U.S. support for Australia.
"We are making it very clear that when push comes to shove, Australia and the U.S. governments operate very closely together," he said.
The Opposition Labor Party, which has been critical of the government of Prime Minister John Howard for becoming too compliant to Washington's demands, has approved the establishment of joint training facilities -- so long as Australia's neighbors are kept abreast of developments.
Earlier this year, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill said that joint training facilities would not amount to a U.S. base and would not include a stockpile of weapons. Hill, speaking in Singapore after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said U.S. troops would not be based in Australia.
Babbage announced details of the agreement in a series of interviews that raised questions about why he had made the announcement and not the government.
The defense department issued a statement on Friday saying Australia and the U.S. maintained a mutually beneficial program of combined training and exercising that enhances their capacity to work together effectively in defending shared interests.
But negotiations for a joint combined training center were at an early stage and no agreement had been signed over the testing by the United States of new-generation weapons in Australia, it said.
Babbage conceded that increased U.S.-Australian exercises would be a sensitive issue in the region, but said Canberra could be expected to launch another round of briefings for countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to ease neighborhood concerns.
But after extensive discussions in Southeast Asia, he believed there was a deep respect for Australia's military capabilities and some governments hoped that if they found themselves with security problems, the Australian Defense Force would help them.
In Jakarta, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said that the government expected Australia to take concrete steps in terms of defense cooperation in order to ease suspicions.
He called on Australia, and its neighbor New Zealand, to discuss the possibility of the two countries signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) during the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit in Vientiane, Laos, later this month.
Signatories of the TAC are bound to the principle of peaceful relations, including the non-interference principle and the renunciation of threats and the use of force.
"Indonesia views this as a very important issue. One step to reduce suspicion is to sign the TAC, instead of signing bilateral documents," Marty stated during a press conference on Friday in Jakarta.
ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand are scheduled to hold a Commemorative Summit in Vientiane to discuss the possibility of creating a free trade area and other cooperative agreements.
Canberra and Washington are increasingly close allies. In 1954, and with New Zealand, they signed the ANZUS Treaty, a defense pact that obliges signatories to come to the aid of another in the event of attack.
Australian National University academic Paul Dibb, a former senior Defense Department official, said in a recent paper that Australia was the "southern anchor" of U.S. engagement in the region and Japan and South Korea the northern anchors.
"Australia's defense and intelligence relationship with the U.S. is unique in the Asia-Pacific region," Prof. Dibb said. "Not even Japan shares this closeness with Washington."