The Necessity of ADF in South East Asia and South Pacific Security

This essay investigates the critical role of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in establishing and strengthening security and international relations within South East Asia and the South Pacific. The essay begins with an introduction that highlights Australia's strategic interests in the region and its need to improve international relations. It then discusses the ADF's military capabilities, focusing on its relationship with South Pacific nations and the importance of regional cooperation through organizations like the Pacific Islands Forum. The analysis further explores Australia's strategic alliances, particularly with the United States, examining the benefits of this relationship for defense, intelligence, and economic cooperation. Additionally, the essay assesses the growing importance of Australia's relationship with Indonesia, emphasizing the potential for joint maritime challenges and the enhancement of defense capabilities. The conclusion reinforces the necessity of the ADF in safeguarding Australia's interests and promoting stability in the region, considering the threats and opportunities presented by the evolving geopolitical landscape.

Running head: THE NECESSITY OF THE ADF ESTABLISHING AND STRENGTHEING
THE SECURITY OF OUR NEIGHBOURS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA AND THE SOUTH
PACIFIC
THE NECESSITY OF THE ADF ESTABLISHING AND STRENGTHEING THE SECURITY
OF OUR NEIGHBOURS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC
By Staff Cadet First Name Surname
“ On one hand Australia has sought to define itself economically and quasi-politically as
an Asian state. On the other hand it has explicitly identified the United States as its vital security
partner.
By Donald E. Weatherbee (2014)
Introduction
Australia in spite of being a quasi-political state, needs to secure its relations with the
world powers like the Unites States, Indonesia and the other South Pacific nations as well..
Australia is a leading trading nation and it’s foreign and international relations are influenced by
its position in the world. However according to Beeson and Richard (2014), Australia as a nation
it lacks strength. Therefor in order to increase the nation’s production in the export of goods and
services, Australia needs to improve its international relations. Australia pursues its interest in
the South Pacific on a regional and bilateral basis. The structure of the essay deals with the
necessity of the Australian Defence Force to increase its security and relations with the South
Asian nations. Firstly the military strength that the nation possesses has been discussed about

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THE NECESSITY OF THE ADF ESTABLISHING AND STRENGTHEING THE SECURITY OF
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along with its relation with the South Pacific Nations. The need of Australia to strengthen its
relation with USA has been discussed in the next stage followed by how and why it needs to
improve the same with Indonesia.
Australian Military Strengths and its relation with South Pacific
The Australian Defense Force which is responsible for the security and the defense of
Australia comprises of three units which provides service to the nation. They are the Royal
Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army, and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). The
South Pacific is considered as the “Near Abroad” of Australia and thus it is a part of the
country’s natural sphere of intelligence. The security in the South Pacific region has proved to be
one of the prime concerns of the Australian security force (Dibb and Brabin-Smith, 2017).
Australia in the recent years have supported the South Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore,
Malaysia and Thailand. These nations shared limited cooperation on the regional resources
incluying water. Greater levels of cooperation were required to manage its resources to ensure
their long term sustainability and maintain their regional stability. Australia has thus looked into
their sustainable development since the nation pursues its interests in both the regional as well as
the bilateral exercises. These exercises have helped to resolve all the issues between the island
nations. The Australian Defense Cooperation Program has helped in the complementation of this
assistance. According to Schultz (2014), the bilateral cooperation of the Defense Cooperation
program involves the ADF advisors, the capacity building initiatives and the infrastructure
projects which has enhanced the defense related capabilities of the regional partner nations. The
multilateral cooperation performs through the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). The PIF has a
responsibility for the security of the nations and has four declarations working under it. They are
the 1992 Honiara Declaration on Law Enforcement Cooperation, the 1997 Aitutaki Declaration

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on Regional Security Cooperation, the 2000 Biketawa Declaration and the 2002 Nasonini
Declaration on Regional Security. These declarations are required for the need for assistance at
the regional level to support the national institutions in the law sector, the security sector, as well
as in the accountability mechanisms. (Baldino and Carr (2016),
However there is a contradictory discussion. The Australian security could be
undermined by the anarchical powers of the South Pacific countries and this had always been a
concern (Scott, 2013). Australia has always therefore emphasized on the security in the South
Pacidic and the South Asian regions. However, the global partners like United States, Ireland,
United Kingdom, China, Japan consider Australia to have significant responsibilities as a
regional power to ensure security and stability in the South Pacific. According to Thakur (2013),
Australia has enduring strategic interests in the South Pacific, and thus has a great influence over
the Pacific Islands. It has contributed to these island countries the maritime resources and has
also enhanced their security concerns. Also the Australian nation has made extensive efforts
along with the South Pacific Islands, to further develop their law and order, their border security
as well as their economic management capacity (Brown, 2012).
Australia strengthening relations with USA
The here has been two treaties that Australia has signed with the United States.
They include The Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treat (ANZUS) in 1951
and recently in 2014, the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement in 2014. These have paved the
way for greater defense and security cooperation for Australia.

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The United States Department of Defense as an executive branch of the federal
government is responsible for the national security. It is the largest employer in the world with
millions of active duty service members including soldiers, marines, and airmen (Savage, G, and
O’Connor, 2015).. Starting from the World War II, the United States defense and its foreign aid
had been of a great benefit for the other nations worldwide (Harold, 2013). United States made
sure that they gain enough political and economic benefits by extending its military aid to the
other developing nations (Hubbard, 2017). This would help the country to improve its diplomatic
relations with the other nations (Jennings , 2013). The foreign policies and the defense aid in the
part of United Stated towards all nations have benefitted them to a great extent and this is a
reason why Australian Government should think of improving their relations with United States.
It would help them in improving their diplomatic relation with the global power United States.
(Hubbard, 2017).
There are close relations of Australia and the United States at all levels of government.
Today, Australia and United States maintain and share a unique bilateral relationship. In 2018,
the Australian government decided to double its relationship with the United States. This
energetic engagement on the part of Australian Government is an effective strategy to maintain
diplomatic relations with the United States (Jennings, 2013). The US- Australian Treaty alliance
had been the base upon which Canberra’s defense strategy rests for decades. The balance
between the Australia’s relationship with both the United States and the China is the most
important strategic thought and an effective foreign policy (Kelton , 2016). Also the deterioration
of the United States and China relations would help Australian foreign policies to strengthen
with the US.

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The US-Australia relations goes beyond its immense cooperation in the defense,
intelligence and law and order (Thayer, 2016). The United States is predominantly the largest
source of foreign investment into Australia. It has invested almost $859 in Australia in the year
2018, making it the highest foreign investor. The Australian nation thus needs to build the
technical, industrial as well as the financial capacity to accumulate the trade surpluses with its
South Asian neighboring countries (www.dfat.gov.au , 2019). Also on the other hand, the United
States is the largest destination for the Australian Government to carry on its overseas
investment. According to a study, the foreign direct and the portfolio investments of Australia
have accounted for more than $ 1.4tn which is more than the country’s entire GDP magnitude in
the year 2018. The economic interests of Australia have also forced itself to tie up relations with
the United States (usa.embassy.gov.au ,2019).
Establishment of Australia’s relation with Indonesia
Indonesia is growing as an emerging power. In spite of being in a financial crisis,
Indonesia is striving hard for rise as a global economic power and to improve its international
relations (Weatherbee, 2014). In the year 2013, the country’s export volume has been vulnerable.
So this is the correct time and the perfect opportunity for Australia to intervene in this situation
and make pacts with the country in order to strengthen their ties with the world. Strengthening
ties with Indonesia would also be effective in Australian’s maritime interests in the South-Asia
region (Weatherbee, 2014)
The Australia-Indonesian defense relations have the capability of improving the Indo-
Pacific security. This could be made possible only if Australia concentrates and focuses on join

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maritime challenges. The marine improvement of the Australian defense engagement activities
with the Indonesia, would help to stabilize its defense relations. Both the Nations share a
maritime border and have interests in the maritime shipping lines in South East Asia (McDowell,
2017).
In 2016, Australia and Indonesia engaged in a comprehensive strategic partnership. This
partnership provides a framework for the increasing security relations in the marine region.
Recently there is the exercise of Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, in the
year 2018. The relations between Indonesia’s Armed Forces (Tenara National Indonesia, TNI)
and the Australian Defence Forces had faced several disruptions and controversies before the
year 2016. There is a great need for some strategic partnership between the two nations (Burns
and Eltham (2014). One such strategic necessity is the focus on the marine defence. This would
help resolve the marine disputes of the South China Sea. It could also help to recast one of the
wrong established notions in the Australian strategic community that Indonesia is a possible
threat to Australia.
According to Roberts and Habir (2015), Australia and Indonesia must reconsider their
decision of formulating a combined strategy which would involve all the branches of armed
forces. This would increase the multilateral exercise thus inviting more number of regional
nations. With almost twelve countries, Australia had practiced almost 300 multilateral military
practices between the year 1997 and 2015.However Indonesia only accounted for less than 7
percent of these exercises. Thus joint pacts and joint TNI-ADF strategies could lead to building
up of more scenarios concerning to the maritime challenges. These could be informed by the
regional naval force involving elements of both Indonesia and Australian defense force.

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For instance, between the year 2008 and 2011, the Australian government had taken strict
actions and had detained and imprisoned a large number of Indonesian students who had joined
hands together and smuggled the asylum seekers to Australia. These children were treated under
the Australian law and were sent to adult detention centers (Nethery and Gordyn, 2014)
Rebuilding Indonesian naval force and capabilities would increase the possibility of the
development of the defense industrial base in both the countries, Australia and Indonesia
(Griggs, 2013). Since the 1990s, both countries depend on the third world countries for the
strategic materials, their defense equipments and their logistic supply and not on one another.
But in the recent years, the countries have experienced growth in their naval shipyards. At
present, the growing needs of the marine security, the long term cooperation among each other
and the joint development in the naval ship building have been considered as a practical solution
(Cordner, 2016).
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that Australia’s Defence Force needs
to strengthen its military as well as security relations with the neighboring regional states of the
South Pacific region. There has been enough threat to Australia’s security since its geographical
location is vulnerable to all kind of maritime risks from China. Thus in order to increase and
strengthen its naval security, it needs to build strategic relations with both India as well as
Indonesia. It would also help to safeguard and increase the Australian trade relations since the
Pacific Ocean involves all the overseas trade routes, connecting Australia. The United States
being the global military power benefits all of the enveloping nations with its military bases.
Thus Australia too needs to tie up and maintain relations with the world power in order to

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maintain the diplomatic relations with the nation. Moreover the foreign investments with the
States have increased the economic productivity of Australia and thus strengthening the foreign
aid with the States needs to be focused on.

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