The tiger and the terrier making the most of the US alliance.(Defence)

AUSTRALIA'S COMMITMENT to the War on Terrorism exposes a conundrum that lies at the heart of Australian defence preparedness. In a world dominated by the United States as the global hyperpower, how can Australia use its defence forces to pursue national interests while gaining the strategic benefits that accrue from being a close partner of the United States?

Events since September 11 have demonstrated that it is no longer possible to restrict Australia's strategic horizon to its immediate region. Indeed, during the past century, conflicts of global magnitude have always included Australia. Moreover, Australian citizens have been the victims of terrorist violence in New York, Washington and Bali, not only because they were Australians, but because they were perceived as American allies. In Bali, the bombers deliberately targeted Australians because of Australia's role in the peace enforcement operation in East Timor and because Australia was believed to be part of a Western conspiracy against Islam. The zealot who made the Bali bombs, All Imrom, dismissed all his victims as "sinners". In an interview with the British media he stated flatly that: "Australians, Americans, whatever--they are all white people".

In their worldview Islamist terrorists do not distinguish between the citizens of one affluent, Western, pluralist democracy and another. Not all the wishful thinking in the world will change the fact that fundamentalist fanatics who do not seek to make an accommodation with us have declared war on the West. Those very attributes of tolerance and cultural inclusiveness that make Western civilisation so attractive are its achilles heel when faced with zealots who simply want us dead. In the conditions of global protean insecurity created by apocalyptic terrorists, the countries being targeted need to co-operate closely if they are to defeat the common threat. Unless we wish to continue to experience the indiscriminate horrors of the present we must develop a clear understanding of the contribution that Australia can make to collective global and regional security.

Although at the time Australian territory and its immediate interests did not appear to be threatened, in the aftermath of September 11 Australia took its place with other liberal-democratic states in opposing the terrorist threat. In October 2001, Australian troops (predominantly a Special Forces capability) were made available to the United States for deployment to the failed state of Afghanistan, which had been harbouring the al Qaeda organisation. It is ironic that the first time the fifty-year-old ANZUS Treaty was invoked was not in a conflict between states, but against the more protean threat of a rabidly fundamentalist non-state actor. Nonetheless, Australia's response underlined the fact that its security is intrinsically linked not only to that of its liberal-democratic partners, but also to that of its regional neighbours. Consequently, Australia's willingness to contribute to international coalitions and its ability to make potent force contributions that outstrip those of many similarly sized countries make multinational co-operation the cornerstone of Australia's security preparations.

Australia is constrained by limited resources in the assistance that it can provide to promoting international security. Correctly it has been pointed out that the War on Terrorism is largely fought in the shadows. It is a war of intelligence and more often involves police forces, immigration authorities and customs officials than it does combat troops. Nonetheless, as operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated, it is impossible to ignore the role that many states play in sponsoring terrorist activity. Even the terrorist hydra needs its lairs, and the prosecution of the War on Terrorism is going to continue to require the deployment of combat forces to destroy terrorists and the regimes that shelter them. From an operational viewpoint, the Australian involvement in the war against the Ba'ath regime in Iraq has served to highlight the political, operational and tactical problems that Australia faces in contributing forces to contemporary international coalitions.

This article briefly draws out some of the little-considered aspects of military co-operation that Australia has derived from its role as a junior partner in its military relationship with the United States. In the future, Australia's armed forces will have to think beyond merely establishing tactical interoperability with its major partners. They will have to position themselves to take advantage of the combat multiplier effect of multinational forces in an ever-expanding range of contingencies. This means that Australia will need to be prepared to deploy balanced, joint task forces that can either operate autonomously or as a modular component of a larger force.

In a globalised world, where we expect to gain the full advantage of our alliance with the United States, Australia cannot make force structure decisions in isolation. Well in advance of operations taking place Australia needs to consult and co-operate with its likely coalition partners to work out what capabilities it can contribute. Given the short notice at which operations arise, it is extremely shortsighted to design force contributions at the last moment. To fail to develop a flexible, modular package of expeditionary options together with our most likely operational partner is to accept that Australia's role in future coalitions will be largely symbolic. Australian strategic influence has been magnified many times by the position it has taken in the War ...