Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s remarks on the eve of Anzac Day about the future posture of the Australian Defence Force were enormously significant. From now, he said, the “core business [is] making sure they are keeping Australia safe and secure”, presumably rather than being able to project our defence capacity to distant parts of the world such as the Middle East, where we have just ended our involvement in Afghanistan.
Then prime minister John Curtin at a rally in 1942. Credit:Archives
“The threats are understood,” Dutton said, “and we’ve come to the end of our 20-year engagement in the Middle East, so there is a refocus and pivoting back to our own region.”
So much history. See, for the first 40 years or so of our existence as a nation, the broad plan was to amass enough Frequent Fighter points with Great Britain that we could cash them in when necessary so it would come to our aid if we were threatened. And we so identified with Australians being the “loyal sons and daughters” of Great Britain – Great Britain in the South Seas – that such a stance of having a “forward defence” and sending off “expeditionary forces” was rarely questioned.
Just before World War I the man who would be prime minister, Andrew Fisher, famously said Australia would “stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling”.
And our opening PM of World War II, Robert Menzies, so took it for granted that we would enter hostilities in support of the Motherland his famous words announcing our entering the war took the inclusion as automatic. “It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.”
Following Japan entering the war on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, though, Australia saw with such growing alarm Great Britain’s incapacity or unwillingness to thwart the threat to our north. So much so, that the new PM, John Curtin, famously announced just before the end of 1941, “without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom”.
President Roosevelt was said to be appalled, until it was pointed out to him that Australia was an independent nation and was free to do that. The wisdom of the move was demonstrated just weeks later when, to our extreme alarm, Singapore fell and our Frequent Fighter points were rejected by the Brits. Churchill’s view was, broadly, “save Europe first”.
Britain’s inclination to be more than a little free of any pangs when it came to its traditional kinship with us was emphasised with British prime minister Harold Wilson’s assertion in January 1968 that Britain was going to withdraw its military forces “east of Suez”. Good luck, you Australians.
But at least we had the Americans, yes, with whom we were now amassing Frequent Fighter points in Vietnam? That is, after all, why Prime Minister Harold Holt had won the previous election on the slogan, “All the way with LBJ!”
To which Gough Whitlam replied: “It’s all very well saying all the way with LBJ, so long as you know which way LBJ is going.” Precisely.
For then the Americans wavered too, with Lyndon Baines Johnson’s successor, President Richard Nixon, announcing in 1969 his “Guam doctrine” that while “the United States would assist in the defence and developments of allies and friends”, it would not “undertake all the defence of the free nations of the world”. Broadly, we will do our best if our interests align, but you cannot necessarily count on us.
This was all a bit grim, with the man who would become Defence Minister, Jim Killen, acknowledging the truth to BBC listeners that Australia’s defence forces combined “would be unable to protect Botany Bay against an enemy on a hot Sunday afternoon”. Were we going to have primarily defend ourselves?
The Hawke government certainly took that view in the 1980s as, led by Defence Minister Kim Beazley, much of our defensive infrastructure was moved from the South-East of the continent to the North-West, as naval bases, air-bases and army barracks were broadly moved from the coast-line from Brisbane to Melbourne – only ever usefully placed if the Kiwis or Tasmanians invaded – to the other side of the continent where there was more likely to be action.
Despite the wisdom of that we still joined the disastrous Iraq and Afghanistan wars with forces re-configured to be able to fight in such distant climes.
For now Dutton seems to be calling for sanity again, saying first and foremost our defence forces need to be able to defend this continent, or at least fight in this increasingly troubled region. Excellent. It might be a surprise for him to know that John Curtin would agree with him.
When there was a full-on blue with Churchill early in WWII as to whether Australian troops should be diverted to Burma to defend the British Empire’s crown jewel of India from the Japanese thrust westward, instead of where Curtin wanted them, defending Australia from the Japanese thrust downwards, Curtin immortally said: “There are numerous geographical centres where an AIF or any other division would be useful. But from the viewpoint of Australia, “there is none east of Suez of greater importance than Australia [itself].”
It was an eternal verity, and never more true than right now. No more far-flung wars. Let us set up to defend this country.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.
Most Viewed in National
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNtaC5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvZGVmZW5kLWF1c3RyYWxpYS1maXJzdC13aHktam9obi1jdXJ0aW4tbWlnaHQtc2FsdXRlLXBldGVyLWR1dHRvbi0yMDIxMDQyNi1wNTdtamcuaHRtbNIBdWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLnNtaC5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvZGVmZW5kLWF1c3RyYWxpYS1maXJzdC13aHktam9obi1jdXJ0aW4tbWlnaHQtc2FsdXRlLXBldGVyLWR1dHRvbi0yMDIxMDQyNi1wNTdtamcuaHRtbA?oc=5
2021-04-26 19:30:00Z
52781542778114
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Defend Australia first: why John Curtin might salute Peter Dutton - Sydney Morning Herald"
Post a Comment