Canberra, 10 May 1968

NAA: A1838, TS677/3 PART '12'

Top Secret

Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy

1. The Defence Committee this morning considered Agendum No. 12/1968, 'Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy, 1968' .¹ This had been considered by the Chiefs of Staff Committee on 15th March.

2. Lt. General Sir John Wilton said at the outset of the Defence Committee that the Chiefs of Staff wished, in the light of later developments, to see some amendments, and he mentioned Papua-New Guinea, the Indian Ocean, and nuclear capacity.

3. Sir Henry Bland invited me to open the discussion. I made the following points:

(a) The paper had been overtaken by events. Though it had gone through the Chiefs of Staff Committee in March, it was based on work which had been done earlier. Several important things had happened subsequently, for example in relation to Viet Nam and also to the British run-down in South-East Asia.

(b) There should be an examination of the alternatives facing the Government in the world situation today. At one extreme there was the concept of Fortress Australia and at the other the forward defence policy. Each was capable of being interpreted in a number of ways, and also there were many gradations between them. The main alternatives should be defined, and their effectiveness, practicability, and costs should be assessed.

(c) There should be a fresh and hard-headed assessment of the attitudes and capabilities of various countries in the region, and of the threat that they might present to Australia. As an example of what might be enquired into, I mentioned the likely future posture of the United States in the Far East–not simply its willingness to undertake commitments, but the implications of various forms of defence posture, such as reliance on the island chain.

(d) In the light of what I had said, I considered there should be a rewriting of the paper and not simply an attempt to make amendments to the present text.

4. Mr Hewitt² briefly expressed agreement with what I had said, particularly point (d).

5. Sir John Bunting expressed general agreement with my remarks. We should first identify the threat.

6. Sir Richard Randall³ expressed agreement also, and developed the point that there should be further examination of the degree and nature of the threat from various countries. He mentioned two matters he thought should be subjected to rigorous examination: Is China a big menace? What is the future of Japan?

7. Air Marshal Murdoch⁴ also expressed agreement. He said the paper was based on earlier versions, which had been kept up to date each year. There was 'some danger of being editors rather than original thinkers'. As a subject requiring attention in a new paper, he mentioned the population explosion in Asia. He thought the Fortress Australia idea was worth looking at, and mentioned its impact on the composition of forces and its effect on what would be available for use overseas.

8. Lt.-General Daly⁵ said many of the points that had been made were valid and of great interest. But he stressed the need of having now a paper setting out the accepted strategic basis, even if it was to be revised soon. The Services had to have it as a basis for current decisions.

9. Rear-Admiral Stevenson⁶ (representing the Chief of Naval Staff) supported what the C.G.S. had just said.

10. Sir Henry Bland made the following points:

(a) We had all got into the way of thinking of the United States as a guardian angel. While not dismissing SEATO and ANZUS, we could not proceed on the basis that ANZUS was the answer to everything. We might find ourselves in situations where, if a threat materialized, there might be a long time before U.S. aid arrived.

(b) We had tended to assume that the defence of Australia was an affair of standing army, air force, and navy. But we should pay more attention to broader things such as the civilian environment. We should review the citizen army, navy, and air force. When we looked at the various shapes our defence posture might take, we must look at the degree of civilian involvement and capacity.

(c) The paper should look at every point of the compass. For example, the Indian Ocean showed signs of becoming not a vacuum, but a vacuum filled by the Russians.

(d) The paper should consider the implications of an independent⁷ New Guinea. This raised questions, for example, in relation to Manus.

(e) The paper should consider forms of warfare other than conventional forces, such as some forms of guerrilla and subversive activity, and also psychological warfare, in which we are doing almost nothing.

11. General Wilton said he disagreed with Sir Henry Bland on a number of points, such as his references to the Indian Ocean. He asked what specific parts of the report members of the Defence Committee disagreed with.

12. In reply to General Wilton's question, Mr Hewitt gave the last sentence of paragraph 43 and the whole of paragraph 48 as examples of sections of the paper that seemed to have been taken over from earlier papers without adequate consideration as to whether they were still applicable or needed to be brought up to date.

13. Sir Richard Randall said there was a danger of the Committee going around in circles and floundering. He agreed with Sir John Bunting that we should first identify the threat. More examination should be given to the extent to which the United States was identified with the policy of containing communism. How effective would the United States make such a policy in the future? The external economic strength of the United States had been weakening for years and would continue to do so. The negro problem had political problems for the United States foreign policy. All these things had to be examined.

14. Sir Henry Bland said that first the threat should be assessed and secondly the means by which Australia could put itself in a position to meet those threats. The second involved consideration of such questions as the following. How should our forces be used? What are the relative advantages of the permanent or semi-permanent disposition of forces overseas as against mobile forces in Australia going overseas on training or for special tasks? What is the place of civilians as against servicemen? What are the implications of any particular policy in terms of industrial dispositions in Australia? If Australia were to try to make itself independent and capable of dealing with a threat for several months, it would have enormous implications for Australia's industrial structure.

15. Sir Richard Randall said that the study should include a projection of Australia's own capabilities. What was the future age structure of the population? What were the likely export earnings in future? We should take account of the fact that Australian people would insist on other aims being pursued as well as defence.

16. Sir John Wilton asked what the objectives of our foreign policy were. He felt that some of the comments that had been made seemed to indicate disagreement with a lot of what had been attempted up to now through our forward defence policy.

17. I intervened to say that:

(a) I thought that the new assessment should be prepared to examine all the possibilities. This was one of the times when it was not enough simply to keep existing assessments up to date. In some ways the situation was parallel to 1953 when the fundamental decision had been taken to change the area where Australia would make its defence contribution from the Middle East to the Far East. The present draft paper did not throw any light on some of the main ideas that were being tossed around in public discussion today, for example Fortress Australia. If the Prime Minister were asked what Australia's policy was in regard to Fortress Australia, he would have to say that he had so far received no advice from the Defence Committee on its practicability or its implications in terms of resources, or even on its definition. I was inclined to think myself that if the Australian Government was to try to pursue a policy of Fortress Australia in the full sense of that phrase, it would require so much finance and resources as to leave room for nothing else. This was the sort of thing that needed examination.

(b) Sir John Wilton had asked for examples of where the paper fell short. I instanced the beginning of paragraph 36, taken together with paragraph 1. This was a simple assertion of the desirability of the forward defence strategy, and there was no argument to indicate that it was the best policy.

(c) Inevitably there would be a logical contradiction. Theoretically the strategic basis should be adopted, and subsequently decisions should be made on what action should be taken in pursuance of the strategic concept. But in fact some thought had to be given to the next stage before adopting the strategic basis itself. We had to know the capacity of Australia to give effect to a particular policy, since otherwise the policy itself was impracticable.

(d) Some of the Chiefs of Staff had tended to argue that the present paper should be adopted now, even if it was to be revised later on. The reason given for this was that the Services always had to have the strategic basis for current decisions. But there were decisions with long term implications which the Services should not take until there was a revised paper. One example was long term procurements for the Navy. If the Navy were to place orders for a particular type of ship, with delivery dates several years ahead, part of the strategic policy of the country would have thereby been determined. For example, the present primary role of the Australian Navy was anti-submarine work. Was this still valid?

18. Mr Hewitt referred to three matters which in his mind needed some consideration:

1. the implications of nuclear weapons,
2. the future role of Indonesia, and
3. the future role of SEATO and its relations to the United Kingdom plans and commitments.

19. Sir Henry Bland made some comments on details of the draft paper. The section on the United States called for careful re-analysis. He had difficulty with paragraph 30, where it spoke about the effectiveness of ANZUS being conditioned by Australian support for United States policy. In the first sentence of paragraph 37, he thought it was begging the question to use the word 'appropriate' about Australian forces to be deployed in South East Asia. Similarly in paragraph 44 he thought it was too vague to say that Australia should be 'prepared' to provide forces. In the last sentence of paragraph 46, it was vague to talk about 'the initial stages' of the situation. In paragraph 52 the reference to an Australian contribution being 'commensurate' with Australian interests and obligations was vague. All these comments were intended to indicate that he felt that there was a lack of precision in the draft. Sir Henry Bland concluded that a lot more work had to be done and the Cabinet could not have a paper from the Defence Committee in a matter of weeks. It would take longer.

20. Sir John Wilton made the following points:

(a) Several members of the Defence Committee had made reference to the nature of the threat. Sir John Wilton wanted members to bear in mind that the Joint Intelligence Committee had made an assessment of the threat, in a substantial paper, and he urged members of the Defence Committee to have a good look at it.

(b) A new paper on the strategic basis should contain some discussion of the nature of war in the future. There should be discussion of conventional war and undeclared limited war and guerrilla war and subversion. What type of aggression were we most likely to face in future? In Sir John Wilton's view, a direct attack against Australia by conventional means would require a very strong power.

21. Sir John Bunting referred to Sir Henry Bland's reference to the size of the job, with which Sir John agreed. But we did not have unlimited time. Sir John Bunting suggested the possibility of progressive meetings to consider the report as it was being prepared. Otherwise the Defence Committee would not have much scope except to edit the draft.

22. Rear Admiral Dovers⁸ (Chairman of the Joint Planning Committee) said it would take two months to complete a draft.

23. Mr Hewitt said that the timetable seemed to him to be far too slow. The Prime Minister was going to visit Washington and then there would be budget discussions, and Mr Hewitt was inclined to think that Ministers would expect a Defence Committee report on the strategic basis more quickly than Sir Henry Bland seemed to envisage.

24. Sir Henry Bland said he was not worried about the budget in this timetable. Already there was enough in the pipeline for any responsible Treasurer or Prime Minister to approve without the addition of more in the next financial year. If the report on the strategic basis was ready by resumption of Parliament in August, it would be time enough. It would be unrealistic to think of a report before July.

1 Sec Document 94.

2 C.L.S. Hewitt, Secretary, Prime Minister's Department, 1968–71.

3 Secretary, Commonwealth Treasury, 1966–71.

4 Air Marshal Sir Alister Murdoch, Chief of Air Staff, 1965–70.

5 Lt General Sir Thomas Daly, Chief of General Staff, 1966–71.

6 Rear Admiral Hugh David Stevenson, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, 1968–69.

7 Emphasis in original.

8 Rear Admiral William John Dovers, Director, Joint Staff Department, Defence, 1968–71.