(CNSNews.com) - Australia this week marked the 40th anniversary of a
joint Australia-U.S. surveillance station in the Central Australian
outback by indicating that the base could play a role in American
ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans.
In rare public comments on the Pine Gap base, Defense Minister
Brendan Nelson told lawmakers in Canberra that intelligence obtained
there is critical for both countries, providing information relating
to terrorism, proliferation and military and weapons developments.
"Ballistic missile launch early-warning information could be used in
any U.S. missile defense system and, as such, this would be a
continuation of a ballistic missile early warning partnership that
we have shared with the United States for over 30 years," he said.
The multi-layered BMD systems are now being developed to defend
the U.S. and its military bases and allies in Europe and Asia
against a potential limited missile attack from hostile states such
as Iran and North Korea.
Although Pine Gap's existence is controversial among leftists in
Australia, the center-left official opposition Labor Party is
supportive of the facility.
Labor defense spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon, also speaking in
parliament, said the work being done by Australians and Americans at
the base "has never been more important."
"Big shifts in the distribution of global power, conflicts in
Afghanistan and in the Middle East, tensions on the Korean peninsula
and in the Taiwan Straits, and the rise of radical Islamism are
combining to make the work of the joint facility more critical than
ever before," he added.
Veteran Laborite Kim Beazley, a former party leader and defense
minister, also used the occasion of his final speech in parliament
after a 27-year political career, to praise Pine Gap and the work
done there.
Prime Minister John Howard's ruling center-right coalition and the
Labor Party differ significantly over current U.S. foreign policy,
and with an election due soon, Labor leader Kevin Rudd has pledged
to withdraw Australian forces from Iraq.
But Ron Huisken of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the
Australian National University said Friday that the joint
facilities, a key part of Australia's military alliance with the
U.S., enjoy strong bipartisan support.
It was "very hard to see this changing," he said. "The joint
facilities in a sense operate above the level of specific
situations. So one can have policy differences on specific issues
without it infecting these facilities."
Huisken, a former top Australian defense official, said Nelson's
comments in parliament constituted "the first significant statement
on Pine Gap in a number of years."
He explained that data from infrared satellites in geostationary
orbits covering the Eurasian landmass is transmitted to Pine Gap,
and from there re-transmitted to the U.S. for processing.
BMD involves the detection of ballistic missile launches, and then
the firing of an interceptor missile from a land or sea platform to
destroy the enemy weapon as it re-enters the atmosphere en route to
its intended target.
The Missile Defense Agency oversees long-range missile interceptors
based in California and Alaska.
The U.S. also wants to deploy a system in Central Europe, with a
radar base in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland,
designed to protect against a missile attack from Iran or elsewhere
in West Asia. Russia objects to the plan, which it suspects could
weaken its own nuclear deterrent.
In East Asia, Japan is also cooperating with U.S. missile defense
efforts. Tokyo is leery since North Korea in 1998 test-fired a
ballistic missile that flew over Japan before landing in the Pacific
Ocean.
Like Russia, China is opposed to the plan, which could also have
implications for any future military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Critics argue that instead of making the world safer, BMD systems
could unleash a new nuclear arms race, if nuclear powers like China
or Russia respond by increasing the size of their arsenals so they
will be capable of penetrating the shields.
"Missile defense is a thorny issue," Huisken said. "Defenses against
shorter range missiles like Saddam's SCUDs are seen as legitimate
while defenses against long-range strategic nuclear missiles are
seen as potentially de-stabilizing relations between the major
powers."
Expanding missile defense cooperation comes against a background of
deepening U.S.-Japanese-Australian security ties. The leaders of the
three democracies earlier this month held trilateral talks for the
first time on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney.
Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has suggesting widening
the strategic partnership to include India.
This month, for the first time, a large annual U.S.-Indian joint
naval exercise was expanded to include Japanese, Australian and
Singaporean warships. Twenty-eight ships, including two U.S. Navy
carrier strike groups, 150 aircraft and more than 20,000 personnel
were involved in the week-long Malabar Exercise off India's east
coast.
|
