Doing what we can. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: Leo Hogan (October 2002) suggests that I would probably disagree that the Australian army should have a capability "to engage in higher-tempo, larger-scale operations" than it current enjoys. I assume that Leo, who was, as I recall, an adviser to that inquiry, based his assessment on our submission to the inquiry; but his conclusion ignores the substantial strategic analysis that preceded our conclusion that in the decade of the nineties "the Army has conducted one battalion-level operation (in Somalia) in which the battalion performed extraordinarily well but the Army itself did not. Other minuscule operations, mainly in the field of peacekeeping, were sound responses to government requirements but could not by any stretch of the imagination have been indicators of an Army capable of war-fighting."

Elsewhere he argues that our policies "would lead Australians to believe that Australia's and the USA's interests, on significant ...