A principal interest for me was whether the Coalition intended to resurrect ‘forward defence’ as the strategic basis for developing changes in the force structure and, if so, in what direction we would be expected to look for future potential deployments.

I had chanced my arm in an address to a Summer School at my old University of Western Australia in January 1976. I had then argued that we should distinguish between outbreaks of violence abroad that could not be called a ‘threat’ (that activating word) to the physical security of Australia, and any events that did; and, as to the latter, countries with the maritime capability to attack Australia were very few, and that we would have adequate warning time.

Ideas similar to this were included in a White Paper which we drafted, with Pritchett making a major contribution, and which Killen issued in his first year in November 1976. Killen recognised publicly that Britain would no longer count as a military power East of Suez, while at the same time paying a tribute to the protection which historically Britain had offered Australia.

The Paper pointed to our limited ability to operate in distant places, and to the requirement for successful defence in areas closer to home. For this we needed a force capable of expansion, with a substantial capability of operating independently of allies. I believed we were making progress in two respects: realism about the limits of our capabilities, and abandonment of the earlier public position that a policy of greater self-reliance would throw in doubt the faith, necessary to preserve publicly in the conservative view, that the Americans would bring combat support under ANZUS if Australia needed it.

At much the same time, both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock were speaking of the dangers in the Indian Ocean from the developing Soviet presence and the disappearance of the old power balance. Peacock also pointed to the Soviet Union’s achievement of nuclear parity with the United States. When the Prime Minister began publicly defining the threats against which Australia should prepare, I doubt that he was much influenced by the Defence Department’s focus on where we believed our essential interests lay (along with its realistic view of our capability of serving them). I did not know whether Fraser consulted Killen, but the content of Fraser’s statements confirmed that the Prime Minister was little influenced by the argument in the White Paper that Australia’s concern should be restricted to any threats developing in Australia’s geographic neighbourhood.

In 1976 Fraser made a number of visits overseas, presumably wanting to convey a policy outlook different from that of his much travelled predecessor. In July he visited Japan and China. His report spoke optimistically of the prospect of a better understanding with China, while expressing apprehension about the build-up of Soviet military strength. He declared it was a concern of Australia that no power would dominate either the Indian Ocean or Southeast Asia.

This focus was different from the Defence Department’s concern with our immediate archipelagic North and with the constraints on our capability to deploy beyond our shores. Our difficulty in supporting physically our modest deployment in Vietnam made the point. Stores and maintenance facilities were concentrated in the South of the continent. Means of transport were limited. The constraint was also political: electoral resistance to providing manpower by conscription until a crisis situation was recognised, by which time adequate training might not be feasible.

Yet, in the face of these predictable handicaps, our political leaders have sometimes had a yearning to create an Australia somewhat larger than life and to make political commitments that would be difficult to live up to militarily—whether in Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings or in communiqués with leaders of countries visited. Political and moral exhortation is one thing; being prepared to take military action is quite another. There was a welcome note of self-reliance in Fraser’s omission of ritualistic statements of our dependency on the content of the ANZUS Treaty. But he was consistent in his convictions about Australian activism. When Defence Minister six years earlier, in the first declaration of his outlook towards Southeast Asia and the surrounding Pacific and Indian Oceans, he had said: ‘If that environment is going to change we want to be able to play a meaningful part in the change.’

In 1976 and 1977 he was reiterating a long-held distrust of Soviet intentions. When later the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and enlarged its Indian Ocean naval presence, his reaction was to acquire an aircraft carrier with blue-water capabilities, accepting the claim that such vessels make on financial resources for the escort protection they provide.^[1]

Offering defence commitments beyond the military capacity to meet them is not new in the world. British diplomacy has long practised it. For Australia a similar diplomacy or yearning for an international role carries the risk of being left exposed, because an imprudent deployment is not easy to reverse without a price. Deployment abroad engenders national pride. But withdrawal, if made necessary in the face of danger because of being left without allied support, would have the opposite effect and becomes difficult for any government.

I had earlier seen a risk of this kind in the continued retention of the Air Force squadrons at Butterworth after the British had withdrawn from the area and our aircraft on the ground were only protected from close-range guerrilla attack by a not yet effective Malayan Army. In 1969 Prime Minister Gorton had said that their retention made it easier to deploy other units if the need arose, which begged the question whether this vulnerable deployment had strategic value for Australia. My view did not prevail. The withdrawal was made years later.

Fraser was using new people to advise him, particularly on the global threats from the Soviets. In respect of the Indian Ocean as a source of threats, statements by Peacock provided perspective, reminding us of the vast oceanic distance separating the Soviet base in Berbera from Western Australia. It seemed to me, however, that Australia had a more credible interest in the choke points in our archipelagic North than in more distant Soviet locations.