December 4, 2003 :: CNN :: News
Following months of talks, Australia has now announced it will participate in the U.S. missile defense system. “We believe that taking part in the U.S. program will serve our strategic interest, help us defend Australia and allow us to make an important contribution to global and regional security,” said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Meanwhile, Japan also continues to move closer to such a commitment. Both countries are strategically important to the United States’ own missile defenses for the satellite tracking stations based in those countries, quite valuable in the case of a North Korean or Chinese attack or provocation over Taiwan. In a larger sense, Australia’s announcement is only the most recent demonstration of the abandonment of policies which rely upon purely offensive notions of deterrence, and which herald a global defensive transition.
Australia already jointly operates a ballistic missile early warning station with the United States, located at Pine Gap in the Outback. The United States had also begun the joint Project DUNDEE (Down Under Early Warning Experiment) in 1997, which involved the tracking and interception of short range or so-called “theatre” ballistic missiles.
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