PRIME MINISTER
The Right Hon ourable Malcolm Fraser,, Mi. P.
AFGHANISTAN: THE CHALLENGE
AND THE LESSONS
AFGHANISTAN : THE CHALLENGE AND THE LESSONS
The following is the edited text of an address
by the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser,
to the Queensland State Council of the Liberal Party of Australia
in Brisbane on 15 June 1980.
We meet at a vital time for Australia. The hazards
confronting the freedom of people and nations have
increased since the year began. The historically
invaluable influence of countries in the West to the
cause of human liberty is yet again under challenge. It
is a challenge which, if not faced now and successfully
surmounted, has the potential to deny us at some time
in the future, the victories in values and freedom that
we seek for all future generations of Australians. It is
about the nature and extent of that challenge and the
dimension of our response that I want to speak to you
today. As the world knows, on Christmas Eve last year,
Soviet troop carrier aircraft started landing at Kabul
airport. Two days later, 5000 Soviet troops had taken
over Kabul. President Amin of Afghanistan was
killed the next day. By New Year's Eve, 40 000
troops were fanning out across Afghanistan to seize
control of major towns. The new Soviet-installed
president of Afghanistan, Mr Babrak Karmal, made
his first appearance on Kabul television screens on
New Year's Day.
Today, five and a half months later, 85 000 Soviet
troops are locked in conflict against a valiant national
resistance campaign that seems to have united significant
elements of Afghan society. To say that the
Soviet Union has acted, and is acting, brutally is not
to engage in rhetoric. It is merely to describe the facts.
When, in the Second World War, the Nazis wiped out
the whole male population of a Czechoslovakian
village-some 400 to 500 men-the whole civilised
world recoiled in horror. Yet now, it is reported on
evidence provided by the womcn and children who
survived, that well over twice that number were murdered
in cold-blood, and under Russian supervision,
in the Afghan village of Kerala.
There are already over half a million refugees in
Pakistan, people who have found conditions intolerable
in their own country. It is feared that the number
could quickly rise to one million.
Reassessment These dramatic events demand a fundamental
reassessment of widely accepted Western and Third
World perceptions and assumptions concerning security
and detente; perceptions and assessments which have been comforting and lulling in their effect,
but to some extent have reflected wishful thinking
rather than hard analysis.
In a recent address to the American Society of
Newspaper Editors in Washington, the former
American Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger,
when warning that a danger ignored is a debacle
invited, argued that: ' I happen to agree with President
Carter, that the danger to America is the gravest
of the modern period'.
Events in Afghanistan have given us a new
example of the Soviet Union's commitment to achieving
great military power in pursuit of its ambitions.
History since 1945 confirms that, where the Soviet
Union perceives the opportunity for an advance, the
concern for peace is instantly put aside. Remember
the invasion of Hungary in 1956; the Berlin wall in
196 1; the Cuban missile crisis in 1962; the invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968.
It was the invasion of Czechoslovakia that
President Brezhnev sought to justify through what is
now accepted as the Brezhnev doctrine. What is pernicious
about the Brezhnev doctrine is the imposition
of Soviet dominance, in the guise of rendering assistance.
The fact is that it is the Soviet itself which decides
when ' assistance ' is to be given.
Indeed, the Brezhnev doctrine virtually asserts that,
once a country has become socialist, assistance will be
given to make sure that it remains so. But the invitations
to intervene, allegedly to ptovide assistance,
are issued by puppet leaders. Notwithstanding the instability
and tension created by Soviet behaviour,
attempts at detente were made throughout the 1970s.
But it soon became apparent that the view of detente
by the West was not shared by the Soviet Union.
It is important to unpack the parcel of items
labelled ' detente' in the last decade, and to distinguish
what was beneficial and sound from what
was illusory. What many people failed to realise was
that the Soviet Union did not accept that detente
precluded them from any action that would advantage
them in the Third World, or in the world at large.
It was, to them, little more than a relationship with
Europe and the United States, in which the threat of
direct confrontation between superpowers was
reduced. As a result, since detente, we have seen the
Soviet Union pursue a policy of unbridled competition
and opportunism; actively and openly seeking
to further international influence by subversion, by
the provision of arms, and by the use of surrogates in
Angola, Ethiopia, South Yemen and Vietnam.
Of course, the most recent and most brazen
example has been in Afghanistan, where the Soviet
army-the largest and most powerful land army in the
world-has been used to invade a defenceless Third
World country. This indicates most clearly how longheld
Soviet ambitions can be suddenly realised when
an opportunity presents itself.
For, in 1940, when Hitler made overtures to Stalin,
one of the prices set by Stalin for Russian friendship,
was a recognition by the Germans that Soviet
national aspirations centre south of the national territory
of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian
Ocean'. In the light of such a statement, the Singapore
Foreign Minister was perhaps very much on target
when he argued recently that there was nothing
surprising about the Soviet foray into Afghanistan.
Rather, he said, what was surprising was the ' gullibility
of non-com munists'.
The recognition of the true nature ot the strategic
situation brought about by the invasion of Afghanistan
does not, any longer, permit gullibility. As a result
of this invasion, the Soviet Union has succeeded in
achieving: the creation of a client state
a closer proximity to the Indian Ocean and Persian
Gulf access to alternative bases for strategic aircraft
should the U. S. S. R. desire it
an ability to deploy troops across the Pakistani
border an inherent ability, depending upon the type of aircraft
that may be deployed, to provide tactical air
support over the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea,
and the Eastern half of Saudi Arabia
the inherent ability to provide a limited air support
to the Soviet Indian Ocean squadron.
Stability undermined
Stability, not only in South-West Asia, but also in the
world generally, has been undermined. It is now up to
all nations, and all people dedicated to freedom, to do
what they can, singly or collectively, to deny the
Soviet Union any further opportunity, whether in the
Third World or in the world at large.
Regrettably, the world is no longer as many
thought it to be; or, as many wanted to see it. The
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has shocked the West
and moved it to reassess its assumptions about security
and detente. As a result of this, in the court of
world opinion, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
stands decisively condemned by Western countries
and by the Third World countries. The fact that the invasion of Afghanistan is of crucial
significance is evidenced by a British White Paper
on Defence on 2 April this year. It warned that the
Soviet Union will continue to watch for opportunities
to build up its influence in further countries and will
be ready again to use its force.
It argued that the object of this drive for Soviet
influence is to limit and reduce first the influence and
then the security of the West. The likelihood of this is
greater as a result of the fact that, while attempts were
being made at detente with the Soviet Union, the balance
of strategic military capability shifted steadily to
their ultimate advantage.
Through the 1970s, Soviet military spending
averaged between I I and 13 per cent of GNP, while
the comparable figure in the U. S. A. has been 5 per
cent. As a result, trained military manpower, available
to the Soviet Union, exceeds that available to the
United States by over 6 million. Soviet ground forces
outnumber those of the U. S. A. by nine to one; these
divisions are supported by tanks, missiles and artillery
which collectively outnumber the U. S. A. by a factor
of two to one.
Taking this comparison on to the NATO-Warsaw
Pact military balance, we find that the Warsaw Pact
has a marked superiority over the NATO allies. It has
over 200 divisions that could be promptly deployed,
NATO has about 100. The Warsaw Pact armament
includes 30 000 tanks compared with NATO with a
little over 12 000. The Warsaw Pact forces have 5000
combat planes at their disposal, NATO just over
3000. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has over
the years repeatedly warned of the dangers of the unceasing
expansion and improvement of Soviet military
capabilities and urged the West to enhance its
own defence efforts in response. In 1976 the NATO
Ministerial Council expressed concern at the high
level of military expenditure by the Soviet Union and
the continued disquieting expansion of the military
power of the Warsaw Pact on land, air and sea, which
the Council noted, were difficult to reconcile with the
avowed desire of the Soviet Union to improve East-
West relations. These sentiments were expressed
again at the London NATO summit in 1977 and at
the 1978, 1979 and 1980 Council meetings.
NATO ministers have clearly foreseen the prospect
of Soviet military might threatening the stability of
the military balance at all levels-conventional, nuclear,
land, sea and air. Of course, gross comparisons
of this kind do not take into consideration military
factors and qualitative differences between forces on
both sides.
For example, because of deep antipathy between
the U. S. S. R. and China, Soviet planning must take
into consideration two sets of contingencies; one in
Europe and the other on the Chinese border. Nevertheless,
these large disparities in military capability
are disturbing. In the coming decade, the Soviet
Union will be seen by others, and will perceive itself,
as having for the first time, a politically significant
margin of nuclear superiority over the United States
and its allies; together with its undoubted conventional
weapon superiority.
Weapon superiority
This conventional weapon superiority was not as significant
when the United States possessed greater nuclear
strength than the U. S. S. R. But now that the
Soviet Union has achieved its new strength, it will
perceive, as will other states, that its margin of strategic
advantage accords it greater freedom to pursue
challenging and aggressive policies in the Third
World and elsewhere.
This superiority will open up a window of opportunity
for the Soviet Union in the I1980s. The window
will be all the wider unless we understand clearly how
the Soviet Union views concepts such as detente. It is
no use us persisting with one view of detente and
ignoring the quite different views of it held by the
Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, taking detente in a different
light, may be tempted to use their increased capability.
In fact, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
could be the first exercise of a new-found Soviet confidence
in the decade of the 1980s-' the dangerous
1980s'-as Henry Kissinger has described them.
Our task is to make sure that, while it is the first
such exercise, it will also be the last. Undeniably,
Afghanistan is important to Australia, not only as a
test case for Soviet behaviour in the 1 980s; but also
because of its geographical location in a region of
major strategic significance to the Western Worldthe
oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf and
Arabian Peninsula.
At the other end of Asia, in Indochina, the Soviet
Union continues to support actively Vietnam's military
domination. As the price for its support, the
Soviet Union has secured its access to air and naval
facilities in Vietnam, which potentially threaten
China, United States deployment capability based in
the Philippines, and the independent countries of the
region. Because of the extent of the Soviet arms build-up;
because of the strength of Soviet military superiority;
because of Soviet moves in defiance of detente,
Afghanistan has underlined most emphatically the reality
of the world in which we live. In this world,
Australia cannot afford to be complacent. How freedom
loving nations together respond to the challenge
of the Afghanistan crisis will be a crucial determinant
of our security for decades to come. Six lessons
Afghanistan is of crucial significance, and it is vital
that its lessons be learnt and applied. I suggest there
are six basic lessons:
first, greater unity and cohesion among the allies of
the United States is essential; and a much greater
degree of consensus needs to be developed among
all those who value national independence
second, we must maintain absolute clarity and certainty
in our signals to the Soviet Union, in order
that our interests and the limits of our tolerance are
not misread by Moscow
third, new levels of defence preparedness must be
achieved and maintained in order to demonstrate
that major Western countries do not see their
interests as being confined to Europe and its immediate
environment
fourth, channels of communication must be kept
open to Moscow
fifth, Western countries must continue to stnive for
arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, but
they must do so recognising that they can only succeed
if the necessary political preconditions are
met. They cannot succeed as long as the Soviet
Union persists with a concept of detente which
allows for the relentless accumulation of weapons
and their uninhibited deployment in Third World
disputes sixth, Western countries must attend to strengthening
their links with like-minded countries in their
parts of the world, while recognising the particular
problems and needs of such countries.
Such an approach must be pursued with resolution
and steadfastness, over what may be quite a long
period of time. But this approach offers the best
prospect of a realistic accommodation with Moscow.
It offers the best opportunity of continuing peace. The
Australian Government holds firmly to the view that,
at this time, it is vital to stand with our friends and
allies. The Government faced in January a challenge that
involved difficult decisions for Australia:
in our bilateral relations with the Soviet Union
in the area of our relations with our major friends
and allies
in the area of our own defence spending and defence
priorities.
With respect to our bilateral relations, on 9 January
the Government announced a number of decisions
intended to bring home to the Soviet Union and its
people an expression of the strongest possible opposition
to the Soviet action in Afghanistan.
In the area of trade, Australia has acted in concert
with other grain exporting nations in support of the
U. S. action to limit grain sales to the Soviet Union.
We are also supporting the list of high technology
items which North America, Japan and Western
Europe agree should be subject to export control. We
have curtailed scientific, cultural and high level
official exchanges with the Soviet Union. We have
curtailed the operation of Soviet fishing projects, and
cruise ships in Australian waters.
Inr seeking to act in concert with our major allies,
the Government had hoped to secure Australia's support
for an Olympic Games boycott. It is a matter of
great regret that the Executive of the Australan Olympic
Federation saw differently. With over sixty
nations staying away from the Games, representing
more than half the world's population, the world's rejection
of Soviet behaviour has been formally registered
with the Soviet leadership.
This brings me to a very serious point. Australia is
now isolated in our region. China, Japan, South
Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea,
Fiji and de facto New Zealand will not be attending.
In deciding to attend the Moscow Games, Australia
is virtually alone in the region in company with only
communist Laos, communist Vietnam and communist
North Korea. I have to say that I find that a
shameful and repugnant position to be in.
Defence of liberty
Australia, as an independent nation, with an unqualified
record in defence of liberty and the right to
be free, has a need and bounden duty to support other
free and independent nations. To fail to do so is to
deny our history. Moreover, as an ally of the U. S. A.,
Australia has a specific and urgent need to support the
world's greatest free power. Each of these grounds
standing alone is sufficient for a boycott. Both
together represent an overwhelming argument to
which it is not too late for the AOF to respond.
It is hard to understand, then, how the Executive of
the AOF, exercising their independent right to make a
decision, have decided to place their perceived duty
to the international Olympic movement above their
duty to Australia, and to all Australians.
The Government has always accepted the high priority
that must be given in our national life to young
people and their pursuit of excellence in all things, including
sport. We will continue to act upon this priority.
Our advocacy of a boycott represents our support
of a higher priority. For, as the Soviet human
rights activist and Nobel Prizewinner, Andrei
Sakharov, has said:
The broadest possible boycott of the Moscow
Olympics is necessary. Every spectator or athlete
who comes to the Olympics will be giving indirect
support to Soviet military policies.
Such a prospect is untenable. Whatever hold the
world now has on peace will be made measurably
more secure by Australian support of an Olympic
boycott. I do not want to exaggerate the importance
of what a country like Australia can do. But I do not minimise it either. I reject those who want to write
Australia down as having no influence in the world.
The fact is that we have a voice and we can make a
contribution towards the evolution of a common
strategy. Over the past five months, my Ministers and I have
sought to do what we could to contribute towards a
stronger Western alliance, under the leadership of the
United States; and we have discussed with countries
in our region, and in Europe, the consequences of
Afghanistan. We have argued the, need for closer cooperation
and consultation. Our common objectives
require that countries which -value their national
independence speak with strenigth supported by adequate
defence capabilities.
In this respect, NATO's determination-already
evidenced before the invasion of Afghanistan-to
modernise and strengthen its theatre nuclear weapon
system and conventional forces, is important. For its
part, the United States is proposing real increases in
defence spending over the next five years, taking it
cumulatively to more than 20 per cent above the current
level.
Defence decisions
The third aspect of our own response concerns the defence
decisions announced in detail by Mr Killen on
c25 March. These involve the raising of our own level
of national defence preparedness; increased efforts in
defence co-operation with friendly nations in our region;
and practical measures in support of the United
States, particularly in the Indian Ocean area.
Under the five year defence program announced
by the Government, there will be an average increase
in defence expenditure of 7 per cent per annum in real
terms. Total defence expenditure in 1984-85 is
expected to reach about 3 per cent of gross domestic
product; and defence expenditure in 1980-8 1 is
expected to show a real increase of 5 per cent above
the 1979-80 level.
The program calls for an increase in expenditure on
capital items. Since we came to government, expenditure
on capital items has risen from 8.3 per cent of
total defence expenditure in 1975-76 to almost 16 per
cent in 1979-80; and it will rise to over 25 per cent by
1984-85.
For an island continent such as Australia, looking
at two oceans, maritime surveillance is of great
importance. In order to strengthen our capabilities in
the air:
we will double the Orion surveillance hours flown,
and increase the number of crews available for this
purpose we will modernise the ten older PB3 Orion surveillance
aircraft so that, like the newer PC3s, these
aircraft will be equipped with harpoon antishipping
missiles. When launched from beyond the
horizon range of ships, the harpoon missile has
devastating accuracy against surface vessels within
a range of 100 kmn
we will acquire seventy-five new tactical fighters
we will upgrade our F Ill aircraft to enable them to
carry precision guided weapons.
For the Navy:
we have decided to acquire a fourth FFG guided
missile frigate from the and negotiations
have already been completed for this, and orders
placed we have already ordered one underway replenishment
ship to be built at Vickers Dockyard in Sydney,
and plan to order-a second, also to be built in
an Australian shipyard. Both these will provide
fuel, oil, stores and weapons for ships at sea
we plan to order a further ten Fremantle class patrol
boats, in addition to fifteen already on order
which are being built in Cairns.
In order to strengthen our capabilities on land:
we have constituted the Third Army Task Force in
Townsville as a ready reaction force, capable of
offering support on short notice
we are going to upgrade the Army's firepower by
acquiring medium 155 mmn calibre long range
weapons and more mobile and lighter 105 mmn
weapons. In performance, range and rate of fire,
these are the very latest in technology
we plan to acquire some 2000 4 and 8 tonne trucks;
with this order, we are seeking a high proportion of
local production.
In my statement to the Parliament in February, one of
the measures foreshadowed during the period of the
five year defence program, was an expansion from
22 000 to 30 000 in the strength of the Army Reserve.
We are now looking to bring this forward more
rapidly, by bringing the reserve units up to full
strength by the middle of 198 1. Our judgment is that
we must enlarge the number of Australians trained
for military service so that there is a bigger nucleus,
and a younger nucleus ( and I wish to stress younger),
around which further expansion could take place
more quickly in the event of strategic prospects
worsening in the future. Expansion of the target figure
of 30 000 would restore the reserve to the levels at
which they stood at the early 1970s, before they were
wound down by our political opponents.
Face implications
The reasons for embarking on this expansion can be
distilled into one simple fact; which is that, at a time
when international uncertainties are greater than for
many years, the proportion of young Australians
trained for military service is at its smallest for thirty
years. The nation must face the implications of this
situation squarely.
It reflects a trend, which if allowed to continue,
would weaken our security. Indeed, if we did not halt such a trend, we would rightly stand condemned by
generations in the future.
Part of this program is already underway, in planning
to organise reception, training, equipment, stores
and support, capable of accommodating an increase
in the reserve strength. The Government has stressed
that reserve training requires not only dedicated
officers and men and women who must give of their
own time; but also, it requires an appropriate commitment
by the permanent forces themselves along with
adequate equipment and support.
The Government is determined that these provisions
shall be made. In order to gain the young recruits,
a major advertising campaign will be undertaken.
Recent indications suggest that many young
people are willing to come forward to serve the
country by undertaking training in the Army Reserve.
A heartening example of this is the revival of interest
in university regiments which reflects growing credit
on, and an increased sense of responsibility in,
Australia's young people. It represents an encouraging
perception and a welcome sense of awareness of
the dangers in the present international order. The
Government is determined to support its new defence
preparedness with proper infrastructure facilities:
Cockburn Sound naval base facilities will be
improved in order to support deployments and
base porting, and later home porting, of ships
operating in the Indian Ocean
the Learmonth Air Base will undergo improvement
to ground facilities, fuel storage and weapon
replenishment a modern air field will be built at Derby to fill the
gap between Learmonth and Darwin
patrol boat facilities at Darwin and Cairns are
being upgraded
the Garden Island dockyard in Sydney is being
modernised, in order to support our fleet and allow
re-fit work to be carried out on major vessels
the Williamstown dockyard, where new destroyers
will be built later in the decade, will be upgraded
and modernised
a new, widened and more secure defence
communications system is being installed.
Of course, all of this is but part of the Government's
program of initiatives for upgrading Australian defence
capabilities. As the program unfolds, additional
decisions will obviously be made.
Ours is a total package. It is supported by the
Government's determination to develop a stronger
industrial and economic capacity in the decade
ahead; and our economic achievements of the last
four and a half years have moved us significantly in
that direction. At a time of increasing international
economic pressures, Australia compares more than
favourably with many of her major trading partners.
This augurs well for Australia's future.
Understanding the challenge
Inevitably, it is a future of great significance for our
young people, the quality of whose lives in the years
ahead depends so much on the response that we
make, as a nation, to the challenge confronting us.
Part of our successful response involves understanding
the challenge; identifying the dangers and the
threats. We need a clear eye for our own objectives; a
firm hand in reaching our goals. Let us proclaim the
principles that guide the values we defend.
When decisions appear hard and complex, let us
look to our principles and our objectives in order to
clear the course that we must pursue. But in pursuing
our principles and values, we must remember that the
Soviet Union is also of this world; that, ultimately,
they and we must find a means of living together if
peace is to endure.
It must be understood that our determination is not
directed against the Russian people but against the policies of expansion and domination pursued by the
Soviet leadership. These policies have come together
in Afghanistan. That is why world leaders and individuals,
concerned for human values; concerned for
the cause of mankind, have determined to send a
clear signal to Moscow. A signal, whose strength
demonstrates to the Soviet Union that the judgments
of the world cann6t be ignored.
Each of us has a role to play in sending that signal.
Each of us has a commitment to our own future.
Without that commitment, our freedom and, perhaps,
in the end, its existence will not be sustained.
That is why each generation must be prepared to defend
for itself the right to liberty, if liberty and the
pursuit of happiness are to be guaranteed and
secured. What we defend is an inheritance which
extends beyond the span of a lifetime. Today's responsibility
is ours; let us fulfil it well.
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