Despite his diplomatic background,
Barry Desker did not mince his words in his criticism of PM Kevin Rudd's proposal for Asia Pacific community.
Desker, a former Singaporean ambassador to Indonesia, reportedly delivered a stinging rebuke to Mr Rudd at a conference in Canberra attended by defence officials and foreign policy experts from Australia and abroad. He said the idea is "dead in the water" mainly because it was announced without
consultation with Asian leaders. It amounts to what is normally termed as a diplomatic gaffe. No attempts were made to
test the waters behind the scenes at corridors, backrooms, luncheons, dinners, etc, to sound out the officials and leaders of various Asian countries before announcing it to the press.
Desker said :
Quote:
"Can I be direct?" he asked the Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference. "The problem that South-East Asians have is that this came out of the blue. In a regional culture where you attempt to build support and create a broader base of opinion for a new idea, coming out of the blue results in very little support for the new idea. I would say it is dead in the water - right from the very beginning."
Mr Desker, dean of international studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said Mr Rudd had failed to conform to standard Asian diplomatic practice.
"It would have been much more useful if it had been … conceptualised with regional leaders before it was presented as a bright new idea from Australia."
A spokesman for Mr Rudd said Mr Desker was "of course entitled to express his personal views on the … development of an Asia-Pacific community".
Another development at the same seminar :
A defence analyst,
Andrew Davies, warned the conference that Australia would have to ramp up its submarine program and radically restructure its army in response to Asia's changing military environment.
Mr Davies, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said "the period in which our Western allies are unquestionably the dominant powers right across the region is coming to an end", and he called for " the first real shake-up in 40 years" of Australia's defence structure.
He wants the army to
abandon its traditional focus on combined infantry, armour and artillery training and move towards a two-tier structure.
Strangely, Australian defence forces rank and file has been demoralised lately for the lack of action since the country has opted for safer zones of operation and non-combatant roles compared the other western allied forces. A more peaceful world does not require the deployment of Australian forces overseas to fight others' wars. Too much professional pride and patriotism has gone into the heads of these young soldiers who don't know how fortunate they are to be alive.
The first tier would comprise an
expanded special forces, to be deployed to war zones in coalition operations - essentially giving them a monopoly of "war-fighting capability".
The second tier would comprise
soldiers trained for peacekeeping and other non-combat operations.
The two-tier proposal is likely to inflame sentiment in army ranks, where there is already
discontent that few ordinary soldiers see front-line combat action. The lion's share of offensive operations has increasingly been given to elite groups like the Special Air Service and the commandos.
But Mr Davies, a former Defence Department official and intelligence analyst, said his proposal would
formalise de facto practice in recent years.
"Such a structure would mean that
Australian land forces would be less able to make conventional contributions to a general land war."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rud ... 51551.html
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