Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As is so often the case in the war in Afghanistan, we are again at another point of decision, one of immense importance to the country’s future. As many analysts have noted, the political and military situation in Afghanistan is far from encouraging. Internally, among the many entrenched problems that plague the country, we can count a system of governance that is discredited, dysfunctional and lacking in legitimacy. We can count stepped up insurgency activity leading to high levels of insecurity and the steady decline, and in some places the complete collapse, of economic activity.

Externally, doubts about the costs in blood and treasure are growing in the capitals of members of the International Security Afghanistan Force trying to end the Taliban insurgency. Prompted by General McChrystal’s force review, the Obama administration in the United States is undertaking yet another assessment of its Afghanistan strategy. In doing so, only months after having settled on a new strategic course as a result of the Riedel review, it is raising questions about the future of the war.

There are strong reasons for optimism in Afghanistan, but the point that requires emphasis is that the outcome of the war in Afghanistan is in the balance. More importantly, it will almost certainly have a profound impact on the future stability of the whole south-west Asian region. The stakes are high and prevailing will not be easy. The military, political and economic challenges to be overcome are formidable. They demand a long-term commitment from all of those who have a strategic interest in the outcome, and this certainly includes Australia. That is the reason the opposition strongly supports the Rudd government’s commitment in Afghanistan.

But it is with some alarm that I sense a degree of reluctance in relation to that commitment. Compared to some other countries with forces in Afghanistan, the conflict has not been a particularly salient issue in Australian politics. The inattention has no doubt suited the Rudd government. It is, after all, a commitment inherited from its predecessor and it is not one over which this government is keen to claim ownership. The low visibility of the war has allowed the Prime Minister to concentrate on some of his other, rather more cherished, international objectives and leave much of the day-to-day management of Australia’s role to his defence minister, whoever that may be from time to time. But, understandably, as casualties have begun to mount the conflict has been attracting greater attention and public opinion has begun to shift more decisively against Australia’s continuing participation. As a consequence, the Rudd government seems to be hedging its commitment to the conflict. There is now a serious question as to whether this government is actually as strongly committed to the engagement in Afghanistan as some of its rhetoric suggests.

The government is a reluctant advocate of our Afghanistan commitment. Its arguments in support of our effort are formal and made without conviction, and the government seems to take every opportunity to emphasise the limits of Australian policy rather than the importance of prevailing in the conflict. The strategic rationale for Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan needs to be spelt out more clearly, the case made with greater conviction. The Australian people need to know what is at stake and the government needs to go on the offensive in seeking to arrest the steady decline in public support for the war.

As last week’s comments by the defence minister about Australia’s long-term engagement illustrated, the government has become accustomed to being in two places at once with regard to Afghanistan. On the one hand, it professes a belief in the importance of the conflict to Australia’s interests; on the other, its commitment to a deeper presence in Afghanistan seems to vacillate in tune with public opinion. While last week the defence minister expressed some caution about increasing Australia’s troop commitments in Afghanistan, for example, this week he conveys considerable enthusiasm for General McChrystal’s assessment of the conflict.

Of course, any decision to commit our soldiers to an overseas venture is politically charged, but it is important to take this opportunity to remind the government precisely why we are involved in Afghanistan. Australia’s presence is important and it should transcend the 24-hour news cycle mentality that has seemingly preoccupied our political arena since November 2007. I am encouraged by the comments the defence minister made yesterday, but I want to stress how important it is that Australia remains engaged and fully committed. Australia has long-term strategic interests in the future stability of this region. Perhaps those strategic imperatives are not as compelling as those of the United States or of the immediate regional neighbours, but they are sufficiently compelling to justify a substantial investment in the region’s future.

The foundation of Australia’s continuing interest in Afghanistan goes back to its membership of the international coalition that intervened in 2001. Australia has a moral commitment to ensuring that the Taliban does not return to its repressive, medieval rule there. But this perhaps is not the strongest argument for Australia’s role. There are several more compelling strategic interests that underpin our interest. The first is to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorism. Certainly al-Qaeda’s base of operations appears to have shifted to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, but the significant, dangerous and continuing linkages between the Taliban and al-Qaeda are a persistent threat to Western interests. We would be taking a massive strategic risk if ISAF were to leave Afghanistan without a high degree of confidence that this alliance had not been crushed.

Closely related is the consideration of the impact of the chaos in Afghanistan on Pakistan’s stability. Democratic governance in Pakistan is already at grave risk from an internal, strong and increasingly ambitious al-Qaeda backed terrorist movement. Its recent intensified attacks testify to a growing sense of confidence and a bloody determination to destroy an already unstable political order. For reasons that are well understood, the collapse of Pakistan into the hands of al-Qaeda would be a strategic disaster. The fall of a democracy, however imperfect, to terrorism would embolden extremism in Asia and elsewhere, to say nothing of the threat that would be generated by Pakistan’s nuclear warheads falling into the hands of the terrorists. The chaos and instability in Afghanistan only serves to fuel this risk. As analyst Stephen Biddle has written, we all have an interest in preventing Afghanistan from ‘aggravating Pakistan’s internal problems and magnifying the danger of an al-Qaeda nuclear armed sanctuary there’.

Australia also has a national interest in Afghanistan born of its close alliance with the United States. For us, being part of the ISAF coalition in Afghanistan is an exercise in alliance maintenance. It is an elemental part of the continuing security burden Australia assumed in the war against Islamic extremism after 9-11. It is not an open-ended commitment to support a US policy but it is an obligation of alliance that Australia must take seriously. For this reason, the Rudd government’s heightened rhetoric, placing apparent constraints on Australia’s military contribution to what President Obama has called the ‘war of necessity’ in Afghanistan, is an alarming thread in defence policy thinking.

Third and finally, Australia seeks a peaceful and stable Afghanistan free of Taliban rule because the conflict there has been one of the main reasons so many Afghanis have sought escape and risked all for asylum in other countries. As long as the conflict continues, it will serve as one of the factors undermining the integrity of Australia’s border security regime and ultimately the credibility of a successful immigration policy. Remaining committed to the creation of a stable Afghanistan state is an important way of addressing this policy challenge at source.

Australia is facing hard choices in Afghanistan. The results of the McChrystal review and the pending departure of the Dutch forces from Oruzgan province, where our forces are deployed, should already be forcing some hard-headed thinking about the nature of Australia’s continued commitment to Afghanistan. The policy choices available to the government are as wide as they are complex and no-one should think there can be any easy decisions. But there are some obvious issues the government should be considering. First, once the McChrystal review is completed, Australia should conduct its own comprehensive review of its Afghanistan policy. It should be a whole-of-government exercise, drawing in all the agencies with interests in Afghanistan, and should identify policy initiatives that strongly support and reinforce the strategic objectives of the United States and its NATO allies there. If further troop contributions are called for, the Australian government should give serious consideration to the matter. It should not pre-emptively rule it out as it now seems to be doing. Once the review is completed and our commitments have been decided, the government needs to step up its efforts to sell the policy at home. As it stands, the Rudd government’s hesitation to take ownership of this conflict necessarily means that it cannot expect to sustain the public’s support for a war which has already killed and wounded so many very brave Australian Defence Force personnel.

If creative middle-power diplomacy actually means anything, as the Prime Minister has argued, the government should use its diplomatic energies to explore the diplomatic route to assisting a settlement in Afghanistan. Regionally, an urgent task exists in trying to bring about some kind of accommodation of the differences between Pakistan and India. These differences are helping to frustrate efforts to confront effectively the insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Arguing, as this government is often inclined to do, that Afghanistan is NATO’s problem and that we should do only a limited amount in relation to the conflict may serve the Prime Minister’s domestic political agenda but it is highly dubious strategic policy. As President Obama has remarked in relation to America’s commitment to Afghanistan, you do not muddle through the central front on terror, and nor should Australia do so.