Australia, not mature enough to develop its own autonomy, is now cosying up to America. Intimately involved in many aspects of the American military system--espionage activities, early warning systems, planning and testing Star Wars, forward-based military operations, and foreign military excursions--these

The Office of National Assessments, in advising the prime minister, strongly opposed the US National Missile Defense system, saying that NMD would stimulate a regional arms race and provoke escalations of Russian and Chinese nuclear forces, and that countries such as India and Pakistan would follow suit. Warning that this would not be in Australia's diplomatic or security interests, these leaked documents correctly predicted the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty (in December 2001). Australia will play a role in missile defence through the `joint facilities' at Pine Gap.

The Howard Government ignored the advice of its own department. Exhibiting a poverty of understanding, Foreign Minister Downer said, `A missile defence system is not going to kill anyone, missiles will.'

US bases

The United States has thirty-four stations and bases arrayed around Australia. Some, including Pine Gap, which is the largest CIA base in the world, are intimately associated with the development of Star Wars. Located nineteen kilometres south-west of Alice Springs, it is equipped with sixteen radomes (perspex domes protecting sensitive antennae) that communicate with US satellites. This espionage facility is massive--Pine Gap houses one of the largest computer rooms in the world.

Pine Gap has several basic functions.

* Spying on telemetry--radio waves emitted from missile tests conducted by Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and other countries

Intercepted telemetry provides vital information on fuel consumption, rocket thrust, guidance systems, throw weight, number, size, and accuracy of warheads: material essential for the United States to verify that other countries are adhering to their obligations within arms-control treaties. The estimates of the total percentage of resources and activities devoted to telemetry at Pine Gap varies from 0.3 to 40 per cent.

* Spying on one half of the world's population

Geostationary satellites developed by TRW Space Systems at Redondo Beach California intercept `signals intelligence'. These satellites are operated by the Office of SIGNIT Operations of the CIA under the direction of a super secret intelligence satellite-coordinating agency--the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Established in 1960, the NRO is a coordinating office for the US air force, CIA, and NSA spy-satellite program.

According to Victor Marchetti, a former CIA official, these satellites act like vacuum cleaners, sucking up a wide spectrum of telephone and radio communications, telemetry signals, diplomatic and other communications, radar emissions, military communications, and other satellite and data links. The signals beamed back to Pine Gap are forwarded, depending upon their importance and sensitivity, to TRW at Redondo Beach--a major nodal point in the Pine Gap communications system. Approximately half are then forwarded to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Pine Gap also transfers communications to the Commander-in-Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) in Honolulu.

Occasionally, very important information is also transmitted to the NRO in the Pentagon or to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. The NSA is the most secretive unit in the US security and intelligence community. It developed files on 75,000 Americans from 1952 to 1974, many of whom had dared to lawfully question government policies. The NSA presides over equipment that can investigate databases or electronic windows into the most intimate aspects of peoples' lives, such as credit cards, banking, and employment records.

* Spying on radar signals of other countries

This allows the United States to target early-warning systems, air-defence systems, antiballistic missile systems, air-fields and bases, satellite tracking-and-control stations, and ships at sea. The United States can then jam transmitters during war, and US bombers can evade detection by air-defence systems.

* Detecting missile launches and nuclear explosions

Pine Gap hosts new relay ground stations for two Defence-Support Program Space Bases Infra-Red Satellites (SBIRS dishes), the sophisticated infrared detector satellites for TMD and NMD. In this capacity, Pine Gap is integral to missile defence and the US early-warning system, and is deeply involved in nuclear-war planning, including first-strike winnable nuclear war. The information gathered at this base, according to ANU academic Des Ball, `undeniably enhances US strategic nuclear war fighting capabilities'.

Pine Gap, euphemistically labelled a `Joint Australian-US facility', is designed and operated only by Americans. Equal numbers of Australians and Americans are employed. However, Australians are the menial workers--housemaids, cooks, gardeners, labourers, bus drivers, and clerical staff. Australia has virtually no responsibilities, nor access to most of the crucial and secret information. Much of the material and information collected and analysed at the Signals Analysis Section is never conveyed to the Australian officers. In the late-1990s, our involvement increased slightly when two or three of the newly installed satellites were specifically designated for direct transmission of important signal intelligence to the Australian Department of Defence complex at Russell Hill in Canberra and their headquarters in Sydney. There is virtually no Australian-made equipment at Pine Gap; it is all imported from the United States.

What specific dangers does Pine Gap pose to Australia and the world?

Along with Australian elements at Geraldton in Western Australia, and Shoal Bay near Darwin, Pine Gap is part of Echelon, an international spy network run by America, Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, consisting of 120 US satellites and bases in five countries directly linked to the NSA in Fort Meade, Maryland. Echelon intercepts transmissions from telecommunication satellites, including civilian communications and all incoming and outgoing foreign and state communications from embassies and the military. However, all telephone, email, or fax messages sent by individuals via satellite or cable are also tapped and filtered by computers which use key words.

Operating in a largely legislative-free environment, Echelon enables the United States to intercept private and commercial communications between its allies and trading partners in Europe and the Pacific. At the UK-USA station at Morwenstow centre in Cornwall, British intelligence has absolutely no control over the screening process because all information is forwarded directly to the United States. All five countries suffer the same indignity, while allowing America to spy on commercial-in-confidence activities and private communications.

Second, Pine Gap plays a vital role in US wartime operations. Involved in the Indo-Pakistani war and the Vietnam war, it eavesdropped on the 1979 fall of the Shah of Iran, an event which forced the closure of crucial US spy bases in Iran. It spies on China.

During the US-Iraqi war in 1991, Pine Gap intercepted electronic and radio signals from Iraqi forces, including air and ground defences, troop deployments, military infrastructure, and Scud missiles. This information orchestrated massive bombing raids and the final murderous assault on retreating Iraqi forces. General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, later admitted ordering detailed planning for a nuclear strike against Iraq which involved Pine Gap.

The base was also involved in the high-tech US assault on Afghanistan, providing instantaneous targetting information from ground personnel via satellite, while monitoring communications from the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately, this high-tech war did not prevent over 5000 civilians from being killed, or enable the capture of Bin Laden. Despite an outlay of 2 billion dollars per month, only one-third of the core leadership of the al-Qaeda hierarchy--between twenty and twenty-five key people--has been found.

Third, Pine Gap has been used by the CIA for political intervention in Australia, including funding the National Country Party, infiltrating the trade unions, and being intimately involved in Whitlam's dismissal.

The CIA became deeply concerned in October 1975 when Whitlam discovered that Pine Gap was a CIA operation--a fact unknown to previous prime ministers. The CIA co-ordinated with a special US naval intelligence unit to pass damaging information about Whitlam onto Australian media. They also exerted pressure on ASIO, warning that the US-Australian alliance was in jeopardy. Sir John Kerr, the governor general who dismissed Whitlam, had CIA associations during the fifties and sixties, and with British and US intelligence agencies during the Second World War.

Victor Marchetti, a former executive assistant to the deputy director of the CIA and co-author of the secret Pine Gap agreement, called the dismissal `a mild Chile'. Richard Holbrooke, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, was more diplomatic in 1978 when he said, `I cannot vouch for the fact that nothing improper was done by the CIA during the Whitlam government. I can't be sure'.

What future Australian government will be jeopardised when the CIA decides it poses a risk to the United States?

Because of Pine Gap, Australia is on the front line of Star Wars. Referring to the new SBIRS early-warning system to be installed by 2004, US Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters said, `We see this as absolutely critical to the functioning of theater missile defense--and ultimately to national missile defense as well'. Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea have already been sold US-made Patriot anti-missile missiles. Pine Gap will track hot plumes from short-range missiles launched from China or North Korea to ensure accurate targeting by the Patriots.

China, while expressing deep concern about this turn of events, announced an increase in its production of missiles. Missile proliferation in and around China will almost certainly prompt India, Pakistan, and possibly North and South Korea, Japan, and other nations to increase their missile systems, thereby destabilising the whole region.

Former Australian prime minister Malcom Fraser wrote on 18 July 2000:

An antiballistic missile defence shield would upset the delicate nuclear balance, it would halt the impetus to nuclear disarmament and create the possibility of a new nuclear arms race. In a desire to achieve security for themselves, the United States is now putting world stability and world security at risk. It is a policy of selfishness, of short-sightedness and of ignorance of the motivating forces behind national decisions.

By contrast, Foreign Minister Downer said the development of missile defence `will make a substantial contribution to the strengthening of non-proliferation regimes in the Asia-Pacific region'.

And Pine Gap is a prime target in the event of nuclear war. Because Russia and America target the other's prime operations and bases with 2500 hydrogen bombs on hair-trigger alert, Pine Gap will be one of the first to go, along with Alice Springs. The population seems unaware of this mortal danger: the federal government is neither alerting them nor implementing protective measures in the event of a nuclear exchange.

In summary, Pine Gap enables the United States to fight nuclear or conventional wars with impunity; it makes Australia a prime nuclear target; and it allows the US to spy on half the world's population. An integral component of the Star Wars system, Pine Gap participates in a new regional as well as a global nuclear arms race while risking the alienation some of our most important trading partners and allies, within our own region and globally.

Australia's national interest is not close alliance with America.

Australian-owned spy bases

The Defence Signals Directorate is the largest and most important of Australia's intelligence agencies. Closely allied with America through the UKUSA signal intelligence agreement--an umbrella coalition of Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand--the United States is provided with ready access to Australian signals intelligence.

Located at five bases around Australia--in Pearce and Geraldton in Western Australia, Shoal Bay near Darwin, a processing unit near Wagga, and headquarters in Building M in Canberra--DSD is a highly secret operation, spying on foreigners overseas. It does, however, intercept emails, telephone calls, and faxes and military communications throughout the area, including Australia. Until recently, DSD's operational rules have limited it to only distributing information about Australians to other agencies in the event of a serious crime, if the life of an Australian is at risk, or if an Australian is involved as an agent of a foreign power.

However, the Howard Government abused these rules during the 2001 federal election campaign, using DSD to intercept domestic communications with the Norwegian boat Tampa as it was sheltering refugees. It also surreptitiously changed the rules before the 2001 election. It has recently acknowledged publicly that it now allows DSD to spy on all Australians if their activities are thought to affect national security, foreign relations, or the country's economic well being. The Howard Government is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

American expansionism and the Asia--Pacific region

Following the Cold War, the Pentagon has decided to transfer its focus from Europe to the Asia--Pacific region. Its strategy is to `contain China' as she develops more accurate missiles. China has only twenty missiles capable of hitting the United States. This belligerent policy, published in a CIA report on 10 January 2002, entitled `Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat through 2015', justified the Star Wars program. The CIA claims that China is ramping up its nuclear-weapons program to counter the US's missile-defence plans: they expect China to have 100 long-range nuclear missiles by 2015 and several hundred short-range missiles commissioned by 2005.

This report will almost certainly become a self-fulfilling prophecy if America proceeds with Star Wars.

This new Asia-Pacific formula, published in the Defence Strategy Review in May 2001, calls for the development of long-range conventional arms to counter the so-called military power of China. It was masterminded by 78-year-old Andrew Marshall, who also supervised the Pentagon's plans for militarising space.

Admiral Dennis Blair, head of the US Pacific Command in Honolulu, strongly disagreed with Marshall--the deployment of long-range weapons launched at great distances from their targets would necessarily diminish the importance of US bases in the Pacific, including those surrounding China.

The US Pacific Command is a massive operation overseeing military deployments and exercises spanning 105 million square miles, including 43 nations. In 2000 it conducted three thousand military exercises with 37 countries, including Australia. It maintains 100,000 troops in South Korea, Japan, and at sea. For the first time in 2000, America conducted more military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region than in the European theatre. (In June 2001, the United States conducted an exercise called Cobra in Thailand to strengthen its border against China, although Thailand has no dispute with China.)

But after September 11 America had an excuse to threaten China from the west. Using the war in Afghanistan, it established thirteen military strong holds and 60,000 US troops in ten countries from the Persian Gulf to the doorstep of China, and it is currently constructing an air base in Kyrguzstan staffed with 3000 military personnel, 200 miles from the Chinese border.

These military installations have two purposes: first, to surround and threaten China; and second to provide access to huge untapped oil and gas deposits in the former Soviet republics and in areas near the Caspian Sea. The interim president of Afghanistan, Hamid Kazai, and the US special envoy, Zalmay Khalizad, are former employees of Unocal, the US oil company, which tried unsuccessfully to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The presence of US troops in these countries is a startling departure from the days of the Cold War. The leader of Russia's Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov, said that the US presence in Central Asia `undermines the security not only of Russia, but of China and several Arab nations'.

Back in the Pacific, America believes that a strong, regionally engaged Japan is crucial to its three strategic plans for East Asia--to balance China's rising power, to provide greater logistical and intelligence support for US military activities, and to facilitate deployment to trouble spots. By encouraging Japan to alter its war-renouncing constitution and to shoulder more of the regional security load, Japan will increase its military presence and expenditure. Although it spends less than 1 per cent of its huge GNP on weapons, Japan currently has the third-largest military in the world. China has rightly accused the United States of recruiting Japan to a US-led anti-China condominium. This news of a remilitarised Japan is terrifying to those of us who experienced World War II.

Apart from increasing its presence in central Asia, America is also moving combat weapons (conventional and probably nuclear) from Europe to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. September 11 also gave the United States an excuse to further infiltrate the Pacific.

Its global battle against terrorism is the most extensive war plan since the World War II. Including most of the Middle East and southern Asia, the United States has announced that it will pursue terrorist cells in sixty countries, including Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Colombia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Lebanon.

Wasting no time in the Asia-Pacific region, America is quickly establishing military toeholds. It has persuaded Indonesia to rescind a congressional law prohibiting US military assistance, and will send troops to fight a handful of foreigners possibly linked to al-Qaeda--an operation that could be easily handled by the Indonesian military.

It is also sending 660 soldiers to the Philippines to fight Muslim extremists. But the Philippines desperately needs help in alleviating poverty, creating stability, training in their own military skills and intelligence sharing--not foreign troops.

Malaysia and Singapore both claim they harbour extremists. The list is endless because all countries have a few extremists who can be handled by indigenous means.

In January 2002, the minister for defence, Robert Hill, announced that Australia had a crucial role to play in helping the US fight terrorism in the Asia-Pacific region, while US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that the United States expected allies such as Australia to offer military help in future operations.

Australia's role

There is little difference now between Australian and American policy; we take our marching orders from Washington. As Thomas Mann from the Brookings Institute said recently, `The Howard Government has cast its lot with the Bush Administration, it has jumped aboard and there's no sign of light appearing between the US and Australia'.

* Outstanding examples of Prime Minister Howard's subservient relationship with America include the following:

* He immediately offered military support to the United States when the war in Afghanistan was announced in October 2001.

* He `understood' the White House's decision to withdraw from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

* He voiced no concern about America's violation of the Geneva accords by their horrendous treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

* He `fully understood' Bush's labelling of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the `axis of evil', a statement that was otherwise described as inflammatory and ill-considered by many European allies.

* Australia, India, and Poland are the only countries in the world which have unhesitatingly endorsed America's Star Wars plans.

Our support for Star Wars has ostracised China, which has accused Australia of being the `cat's paw' for the United States. It said that missile defence would probably `send global arms control out of control'. China has asked pointedly, `If the American national missile-defence system or its insistence on providing military support for Taiwan leads to a regional arms race, how safe will Australia be?' China and Russia signed a joint agreement in July 2000 condemning the missile-defence system. Bush's policies had forced a liaison between the two former adversaries.

Australia has been involved in talks with Japan and the United States about a proposed trilateral security dialogue, but America is currently pushing for an Asian NATO involving South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the United States. Robert Blackwill, Bush's ambassador to India, said that this alliance would encourage a greater defence role for Japan, engage North Korea, and signal a `harsh unilateralist stance' towards China.

This state of affairs has produced deep misgivings in Australia's defence establishment. Paul Dibb, a former deputy head of the defence department, said this alliance would distort Australia's defence structure towards high-level warfare in the Pacific.

The Bush administration was so keen to enlist Australia in its Asian-Pacific putsch that, six months after the presidential election, top brass including Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, and Admiral Dennis Blair rushed to Canberra. Their agenda items included continuing US-Australian intelligence cooperation; maintaining the `inter-operability' of United States and Australian forces for peace and security operations; cooperating in maintaining the readiness and positioning of military supplies--ammunition, fuel, and spares; and developing submarine technologies together, including Australia's Collins Class submarines.

Australia is experiencing pressure from all sides. The notorious Heritage Foundation, adviser to the Bush administration, recently recommended that Australia play a direct role in the development of missile defence, strongly suggesting that Australia spend more on defence forces to better enable it to work with the US military.

Admiral Blair stated that the United States expected more from Australia after the East Timor campaign, such as the purchase of seven airborne early-warning and control aircraft, because Australia `needed' to operate alongside American forces. He disingenuously said, `This is not a sales pitch for buying American equipment, it's about having compatible concepts of operation and doctrine'.

The US Chief of Mobility Command, General Charles Robertson, commented that US forces had only a `very, very small toehold in Australia, as well as New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and the Indian Ocean. If our emphasis shifts south and we can't take advantage of the old infrastructure that we used in the Vietnam years, then the answer to that is, yeah, probably we'll need to at least expand those toeholds'. The United States would like to use northern Australia for storage and other logistics purposes, including transit of heavy transport aircraft.

As well as its thirty-four depots and bases, America already is given unlimited access to every Australian Defence Force training facility, including the bombing range at Delemere near Katherine, and the jungle-training area at Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton.

Responding to US pressure, the Howard Government is ever compliant. In July 2001, former defence minister Peter Reith announced that Australia would consider increasing US access to Australian bases, and would provide support facilities to its Seventh Fleet and the US air force.

Australia has also been deeply involved in America's missile defence research for some years.

* The United States persuaded Australia to install a new missile range north of Broome in Western Australia specifically to test TMD systems. Simulated ballistic missiles launched from the WA coast are to be intercepted and destroyed by anti-missile missiles launched from nearby US ships.

* The Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation has been working with the United States on Project Dundee (Down Under Early Warning Experiment) in NMD research, specifically to intercept missiles in the boost phase.

* In 1995, Australia allowed the American Ballistic Missile Defense Organisation to use Woomera to track U.S. rockets with sensors, and tracking and communications technologies.

* In 1997, four US ballistic missiles fired from the base north of Broome were tracked by terrestrial and space-based sensors, including the Australian Jindalee over-the-horizon radar, before they fell into the Indian Ocean.

* TMD systems are being tested at Jervis Bay in NSW.

If the Howard-US coalition prevails, we will quietly morph into the fifty-first state of the United States of America as US forces increase their presence at Australian military bases and new US-controlled bases.

For instance, the Australian navy is moving its ammunition depot from Sydney Harbour to Twofold Bay in Eden on the south coast of NSW. A few years from now, the US navy could sail nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered vessels into Eden, injecting hundreds of US personnel and their culture into this pristine and beautiful area.

The Americans are increasingly in control of our navy, as a few key examples demonstrate. When the 400-million-dollar combat system on Australia's Collins Class submarines was found to be deficient and needed replacement, the United States flexed its muscles. A bid made by German company STN Atlas was technically superior to that presented by Raytheon, whose system was still under development and unsuitable for Australia's small, conventional boats, according to the Australian government tender committee. However, the cabinet ditched the better German bid because cooperation with the United States became the principal focus of the Australian navy. This cataclysmic shift in government policy resulted from high-level American diplomatic and military pressure. Apparently, US officials threatened future technological transfers to Australia if the STN Atlas contract prevailed.

STN Atlas was extremely annoyed, and threatened to sue the Australian government for 80 to 100 million dollars for scrapping the tender. This episode not only changed a 25-year-old policy of Australian naval defence-self reliance. It also burdened the taxpayers for major payouts.

Even worse, the Australian navy will become a virtual arm of the US nuclear submarine fleet as the result of an agreement recently signed by the chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice-Admiral Shackleton and the chief of US Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark, which provides each side access to operational orders, doctrine, instruction, and guidance. As Malcolm Fraser said, this `could be the lever that the Americans could use to drag us into their conflict, against Australia's national interests'.

An essential ingredient of this US manipulation was the proposed sale of 40 per cent of the publicly owned Australian Submarine Corporation, the manufacturer of Collins submarines, to General Dynamics Electric Boat Division--the US nuclear-submarine manufacturer. The new US-Australian consortium, the heart of Australia's shipbuilding industry, is expected to receive large contracts for air-defence destroyers in the future. However, the deal remains in limbo because the government cannot find a buyer for the other 60 per cent.

Australian Collins Class submarines are eminently more suitable to operate in the straits of Taiwan than are American nuclear-powered vessels. They are quieter and operate more efficiently in shallow waters. The United States has no conventional submarines.

If the Collins deal proceeds, Australia loses another major industry to an American multinational because of `long-term national interest from a strategic perspective', according to a senior government official. This sea change in policy ensures that Australia and the United States will work much more closely in joint operations as well as in naval shipbuilding and procurement decisions worth billions of dollars.

Another element of US-Australian symbiosis is the joint military exercise, which is now a regular event.

Operation Tandem Thrust is a biennial affair. The first exercise was held in 1995 in the Marianas. The second 1997 operation moved to Shoalwater Bay Training Area in Central Queensland. Involving 5,700 Australians, 21,500 US personnel, 252 aircraft, and 43 ships, this `inter-operability' exercise demonstrated `the closeness of the military-to-military relationship between the US and Australian defence forces, combining efforts to strengthen the alliance between the two countries to pursue common regional and international security objectives and contribute to the preservation of security and strategic stability in the region'.

The third 1999 Tandem Thrust involved over 12,000 personnel, 18 ships, 110 planes from the US military, the Australian Defence Forces, and the Canadian navy. The commander of the US Seventh fleet was in charge. The Canadian navy served as the `opposition' for the exercise.

The fourth 2001 Tandem Thrust, conducted in the Coral Sea and at Shoalwater Bay, was to `improve US-Australian joint operations in sea-borne invasions'. The number of troops increased to 12,290 Australian and 15,300 Americans. US nuclear-powered ships, almost certainly nuclear-armed, were involved.

As well as Operation Tandem Thrust, America also routinely conducted three company-sized exercises in Australia every year until 1997 when the number was increased to seven. The Northern Territory was conveniently found to be suitable because U.S. amphibious and expeditionary manoeuvres require wide-open spaces.

Australia's indigenous defence policy

The Australian 2000 Defence White Paper specifically states that full-scale invasion, or major or minor attacks on Australia, are most unlikely. However, Australian forces are equipped for `forward defence'--to fight American wars in distant parts of the world unrelated to our own national security. The defence budget for 2001 was 12.5 billion dollars, on a par with India, the same as all of South-East Asia combined, and more than half the 20 billion dollars that China spends.

The Collins Class submarine is equipped with torpedoes that can carry both heavy conventional and nuclear weapons. Our ANZAC frigates, cruisers, and destroyers are designed to be part of an armada, a naval battle group used to protect US aircraft carriers. Such battle formations, while doing nothing for Australian security, serve American military plans. Furthermore, we are tied into the American intelligence system when, in fact, we could obtain our own military intelligence quite cheaply. The money spent to entice America to share its secrets is enormous.

Similarly, the 2000 Australian Defence White Paper states that we need to be totally self-reliant to protect our sea and air approaches to the island continent. Our forces should be armed with appropriate short-range weapons and delivery systems to protect our shores. Australia requires small, fast vessels equipped only with basic armaments and planes with ranges less than 2000 kilometres for operation in remote areas, using basic airfields and maintenance. We do not need F-111s and FA-18s for `force projection' to assist the United States to maintain and increase its dominance in the Pacific. F-111s carry tactical nuclear weapons or precision-guided conventional weapons. F-18s are carrier-based planes.

Some of these ships and planes are delivery platforms for nuclear weapons, which would become useful if the new Lucas Heights reactor were to become part of the Australian nuclear-weapons program.

In summary, Australia is being dragged willingly and unwittingly into the web of American `spheres of influence' in the Pacific arena, a situation designed to antagonise our neighbours. As former prime minister Malcolm Fraser said, `There are many of us who believe that a long-term relationship with East and South-East Asia is not only important but critical for Australia's well-being'. He then asked:

At the end of the Cold War is it not time that Australia should be more independent from great and dominating powers? We are not an American deputy, we are not an American substitute, and we should not be seen to be so and the United States should be more sensitive of an ally's position and ultimate objectives.

There is absolutely no guarantee that America would come to our aid should we need it, despite our `interoperability and co-operation.' Australia was left to fend for itself when East Timor exploded in 2000--the ANZUS Treaty notwithstanding. ANZUS calls only for consultation if one of its members is threatened, and the United States will act only to defend her own interests.

Australia needs to take a leaf out of New Zealand's book. This country sensibly cut back on hugely expensive sophisticated military equipment, it has virtually no relationship with US forces after symbolically withdrawing from ANZUS, and it maintains good relationships with its Asian neighbours, perceiving no threat from them.

Reassuringly, the Defence 2000 paper says that Australia currently maintains good military relationships with our near neighbours--Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, New Guinea, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands.

However, British and American weapons-manufacturers are pushing high-tech weapons onto these countries, some of which could eventually acquire long-range cruise missiles, short-range stand-off weapons, submarines, high-capability anti-ship missiles, and stealth aircraft. The lure of arms sales makes our geographical region more dangerous.

In his February tour of Japan, South Korea, and China, President Bush declared before the Japanese parliament that the next 100 years were to be the `Pacific Century.... America like Japan, is a Pacific nation, drawn by trade and values and history to be a part of Asia's future ... We stand more committed than ever to a forward presence in this region.'

Australia is hooked into America's grand plan to protect its vital interests in the Pacific.

Helen Caldicott has been campaigning to educate the public about the social, medical and environmental hazards associated with the nuclear age for the past thirty years. She is the author of `The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex' (Scribe Publishing, 2002) from which this article was extracted.