Australia is discussing buying US missiles, including some capable of shooting down hostile missiles in space as part of a high-tech defense shield which the government yesterday acknowledged could fuel a regional arms race.
As part of its 15.8 billion Australian dollars (US$10.3 billion) defense budget, the federal government intends to buy three air warfare destroyers for the navy. Defense Minister Robert Hill said they may be armed with the missiles.
US defense officials were in Australia yesterday negotiating a memorandum of understanding on Australia's involvement in the US missile defense shield dubbed "Son of Star Wars."
"It's got the capability to basically meet and intercept missiles outside of the atmosphere, long-range three stage missiles that can do what the Americans did, destroy an incoming missile 137km above the earth traveling at 3.7km a second," Hill told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio yesterday.
He was referring to a successful missile interception test the US military conducted last month in the Pacific from an AEGIS cruiser.
The current US missile defense plans are less ambitious than US President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative of 1983. He envisioned an impenetrable shield against the Soviet Union's arsenal of thousands of missiles. That effort, derided as "Star Wars" by its critics, was later dropped.
Washington hopes that developing a shield against ballistic missiles will protect it against potential threats from countries like North Korea. It wants allies such as Britain, Canada and Australia involved in the project, particularly for the use of satellite tracking stations in their countries.
Asked if Australia's moves could escalate an Asian arms race, Hill said: "There is an argument that that would encourage others to develop their attack missiles further or to proliferate them. But the proliferation is already there."
Hill's comments came just days before General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was due to visit Australia.
Myers spent Monday in Japan, another nation that has approved spending billions buying US missiles to bolster its defenses.
Australia has in the past angered some Asian neighbors with its close strategic links to the US and Washington's defense policies.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard sent shock waves through the region last year when he suggested he might launch pre-emptive strikes at terror camps in the region if they were perceived to be a threat to Australia.
Not long after, US President George W. Bush's called Australia its sheriff in the region, a suggestion that riled then-Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad who frequently clashed with Howard during his tenure.
"I can assure Australia that if it acts as a sheriff in this country he will be treated as a terrorist and dealt with as a terrorist," Mahathir said last October.
In Jakarta, an opposition lawmaker in the Indonesian parliament insisted yesterday that Indonesia was a clear target of any proposed missile defense system Australia would adopt.
"We are really concerned with this military build-up, it's not defensive anymore, it's offensive already," lawmaker Djoko Susilo said.
Canberra had already decided it would also buy air-to-surface attack cruise missiles which would be launched from fighter jets and surveillance planes.
"We're planning to equip our FA-18s and the P3 Orions with what you would call a cruise missile," Hill said.
Ron Huisken, an expert in US defense policy, said the government needed to justify such systems were necessary.
"It's a complicated business. It makes a big difference whether you aspire to defend Australia itself or whether you aspire to defend Australian expeditionary forces going overseas, there's a lot of holes in the story so far before we spend lots of money," said Huisken, who is based a the Australian National University.
Hill announced last year plans by the government to spend A$15.8 billion (US$10.3 billion) on defense, or 1.9 percent of the nation's economic output, for the fiscal year.
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