Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
I'm learning a bunch here too. But, I do still have one lingering question. If Australia's government is so reluctant to employ its military in, what amounts essentially to its own backyard (i.e. PNG or, slightly further afield, Korea or SE Asia), why does Australia contribute troops to the coalition effort in Afghanistan? That's a fair bit further from Australia than any of the afore-mentioned theaters and, surely, it isn't treaty-bound to do so. Help me understand the reasoning behind this seeming foreign policy/military intervention paradox.
|
And to go further with the information Kato posted, the USA is Australia's primary ally, if they ask for contributions/assistance, the government views it in our best long-term interest to do so and the ANZUS treaty gives impetus to that plus it allows the government to do so without having to justify itself to the opposition or public.
NOTE: I have the "misfortune" of having several family members involved in state and federal politics and I've found that many Australian politicians simply see politics as a lucrative career with an excellent retirement package. I despise modern politicians because of this "in it for themselves and not for the public" mentality - they're snakeoil salesmen who happen to be holding the reins of power - and my thinking is directly coloured by this.
The government has been reluctant to engage in military actions in the last several decades for a number of reasons, some already mentioned here but also include public sentiment and financial cost - we don't have a large population so the revenue base is limited (and like many governments they prefer to spend it on things that will aggrandize them).
But very important to government thinking, we rely almost exclusively on shipping for foreign trade (both import and export). I can't stress this enough,
the government believes we cannot afford to alienate neighbouring nations through which that shipping must pass (e.g. Indonesia and Malaysia).
In regards to public sentiment, vocal special interest groups get a disproportionate voice on many occasions despite their definite minority in numbers. Examples include the anti-gun lobby's pressure on the government to restrict private ownership of firearms in response to the Port Arthur killings - they didn't have a majority voice then and they still don't but it was seen as a potential vote winner by the government.
Also the opposition to the Franklin River dam - a dam that would have removed some of Tasmania's dependency on coal-fired power stations in favour of the much cleaner hydro-electric (the dams original purpose). Although the dam was already in the process of being built, environmentalist groups protested it would destroy a portion of the forest around the river and they succeeded in permanently halting the building. The greenies were right but it was a proportionally small area and would have less long-term environmental impact than the continuing use of coal-fired stations does. The federal government went as far as having the air force fly reconnaissance missions over the dam area and in the end, told the Tasmanian state government to halt the dam.
EDIT: Something I meant to mention and forgot at the time. Australia's military during Vietnam.
The Army had large numbers of conscript forces but despite popular portrayal they were not actually under any obligation to serve in Vietnam. At the time, conscripts had an option presented to them:-
1. serve one year full-time service with the possibility their unit could be deployed to Vietnam
2. serve three-years part time service with no deployments outside Australian territory
Many of the conscripts wanted to serve in Vietnam because of the expected mix of "adventurism", patriotism and anti-communist beliefs but also because the combat pay for a year would be enough to buy a house or expensive car.
There were so many conscripts putting pressure on the government to let them serve in Vietnam that some regular Army combat units were held back to allow those units with large conscript numbers to be deployed. My father was subject to this, his regiment was tasked as a training unit and was kept from deploying to Vietnam for a few years so that the regiment would instead train the large volumes of conscripts coming from New South Wales.