Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- http://www.smh.com.au/news/0107/31/world/world2.html Sydney Morning Herald July 31, 2001 Don't mention the sleeping giant There are deep misgivings in Australian defence circles about an Asian NATO, writes Hamish McDonald. After the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, yesterday revealed the first moves to co-ordinate America's key military alliances in Asia, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, quickly jumped in to warn against any "hares" rushing away about a new NATO to contain China. He has about as much hope of preventing that as Alice in Wonderland did of detaining the White Rabbit on his way to a most important date. Both Powell and Downer can stress as much as they like that there is no proposal for a new organisation, just "informal dialogue", but clearly they want significantly more than the present level of interaction between American, Japanese, South Korean and Australian defence officials. Downer has already raised it with the Japanese Foreign Minister, Makiko Tanaka, and presumably not been knocked back. The Chinese reaction is predictable but the idea has already caused deep misgivings in Australian defence policy circles. When last year the Harvard University strategic scholar Robert Blackwill proposed the linkages in a new study, America's Asian Alliances, his Australian co-editor, the Australian National University's Paul Dibb, appended a note of disagreement. Blackwill, now Bush's new Ambassador to India, thought it "prudent for the four allies to begin now to build enhanced patterns of co-operation and co-ordination, lest they be forced to do so in the midst of a crisis". The aims: to encourage a great defence role for Japan, engage North Korea but "prepare for the worst", and harmonise policies on China. Australia should steadily raise defence spending "to give itself the sort of military and analytical capacities necessary to sustain its relationship with Washington" and "insert itself" into US policy-making as Britain does. Dibb, a former deputy head of the Defence Department, strongly disagreed. It was unrealistic to expect Tokyo and Seoul to commit in advance to questions like Taiwan's defence. It would distort Australia's defence structure towards high-level warfare in north-east Asia and signal a "harsh unilateralist stance" towards China. None of these reasons has diminished, and the new coolness between Seoul and Tokyo over World War II accountability could be added. The joint statement from yesterday's AUSMIN talks indicated strong US pressure for Australia to keep up "interoperability" with US forces. There will be a new "top-down" study ready for next year's meeting. The US alliance offers a dazzling array of technology and intelligence, but the flipside is less freedom to disengage from the American defence industry and closer alignment with a view of a hostile China that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
