Implications
Under DOA the focus of Australian defence planning was to protect Australia's northern maritime approaches (the 'air-sea gap') against enemy attack. In line with this goal, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) was restructured to increase its ability to strike at enemy forces from Australian bases. This was achieved by increasing the size and capabilities of the Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy at the expense of the Army and the forces which had been used to project Australian power overseas (such as Australia's aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, which was retired without replacement).
Specific force structure changes introduced under the DOA policy included:
- Increasing the number of units based in northern Australia
- Raising three Regional Force Surveillance Units
- Developing RAAF Base Tindal as an operational fighter base
- Developing three 'bare bases' for the RAAF in northern Queensland and Western Australia
- Development of the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar network
- Development of the Collins class submarines
It is important to note, however, that the adoption of the DOA policy did not involve Australia adopting a policy of neutrality or completely disbanding its ability to deploy forces overseas. During the DOA era Australia maintained its alliances with the United States and New Zealand and sought to develop stronger defence relationships with South East Asian countries. In addition, the ADF maintained a sizable force of transport aircraft and amphibious ships and an infantry brigade capable of rapidly deploying overseas (the 3rd Brigade). Furthermore, Australian forces continued to be deployed overseas for exercises and peace keeping operations and a small Australian military base was permanently maintained at Butterworth in Malaysia.
Read more about this topic: Defence Of Australia Policy
Famous quotes containing the word implications:
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)
“The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it—this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“When it had long since outgrown his purely medical implications and become a world movement which penetrated into every field of science and every domain of the intellect: literature, the history of art, religion and prehistory; mythology, folklore, pedagogy, and what not.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)