RI asks clarification over Australia's new cruise missile plan
RI asks clarification over Australia's new cruise missile plan
Agencies, Jakarta
Indonesia expressed on Thursday its concern over neighboring
Australia's plan to beef up its offensive capability by acquiring
long-range cruise missiles able to hit targets up to 400
kilometers away.
"We are talking here of an offensive capability, no longer
defensive capability, and we have to ask ourselves against whom
will these long-range cruise missiles be aimed," Ministry of
Foreign Affairs spokesman Marty Natalegawa told The Jakarta Post
on Thursday.
"We have no doubts about the sovereign and legitimate right of
any country to pursue its own defense policy. At the same time,
one should be mindful that there are facts, and there are
perceptions.
"Unless properly understood, the decision has a potential to
raise certain questions about Australia's intentions," he said,
and that transparency on the rationale for the offensive
capability was essential.
In Canberra, Defense Minister Robert Hill said on Thursday
that Australia planned to acquire air-to-surface missiles able to
destroy air and sea targets up to 400 kilometers away.
Australia's F/A-18 Hornet fighters and AP-3C Orion maritime
patrol aircraft would be equipped with the air-to-surface
missiles, chosen from among three new long-range cruise missiles
produced by Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Taurus Systems
GmbH. Taurus is owned in part by carmaker Saab.
The three types of missiles under consideration are: Joint
Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile (JASSM), which has the longest
range; a variant of the cruise missile KEPD 350; and the Stand-
off Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), based on the
Harpoon antiship missile.
The Hornets, which have a combat flight radius of 740 km and
can be refueled in flight, will also be equipped with Advanced
Short-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. The Hornets' new long-range
missiles will be installed between 2007 and 2009.
"Combined with the new air-to-air missiles and upgraded
precision-guided bombs, Australia's fighter jets will have the
region's most lethal capacity for air combat and strike
operations," Hill said in a statement.
The range of the new US$319 million missiles are up to four
times the range of any missile now available to the Air Force,
The Australian newspaper reported.
The plan comes amid mixed relations with Indonesia, the
world's most populous Muslim nation.
A study by an Australian think tank revealed on Wednesday that
the Australian public ranked Indonesia as the country's greatest
security threat.
Neil James, executive director of security strategy think tank
the Australian Defense Association, said the missiles would give
Australia a technical edge in the region that had eroded over the
past 15 years.
"There are other aircraft in the region that are at the moment
better than our F/A-18s, so what this is, is a technological
catch-up to give us the capability edge again," James said. "They
will achieve it partly."
Australian Prime Minister John Howard tried to tone down
regional concerns.
"We have no hostile designs on any of our neighbors and they
won't be concerned about this, because we don't have any hostile
designs on them," Howard told reporters.
Meanwhile, the opposition Labor Party said it did not oppose
the new missiles, but warned they could create friction with
Indonesia if the government did not carefully explain the reasons
for their procurement.
"It's obviously something that needs to be carefully explained
and the government has never been very good at this," Labor
lawmaker Kim Beazley, who oversees defense policy, told ABC
radio.
Last month, Australia pledged to work with the United States
on its ballistic missile shield plan and to establish joint
defense training centers in northern Australia.