APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, September 6, 2007

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APSNet for 20070906

Austral Peace and Security Network (APSNet)

Twice weekly report from the Nautilus Institute at RMIT, Australia.

Thursday 6 September 2007

  1. Treaty Signals Move to Top-Tier Military Ally Status
  2. Australia, China Announced Plans for Annual Security Talks
  3. Russia Arms Old and New Friends in Asia
  4. Australia Stakes its Claim to Uranium Enrichment
  5. PM Warned: Russia May Divert Uranium to Iran
  6. Indonesia: Forbidden Nuclear Plant
  7. Iraqi Army Unable To Take Over Within A Year, Report Says
  8. Sino-Japan Military Ties Face Challenges

Austral Policy Forum 07-16A: The Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation and Asia-Pacific Strategic Geometries – William T Tow

  1. Treaty Signals Move to Top-Tier Military Ally Status, Tom Allard, SMH, 2007-09-06

    Humanitarian supplies from the US could be permanently stored in Australia, joint military training enhanced, and classified technology and intelligence shared more readily under a new defence pact unveiled by the US President, George Bush, and the Prime Minister, John Howard. However, US Congressional approval is required for the top-secret technology sharing and much detail needs to be hammered out.

  2. Australia, China Announced Plans for Annual Security Talks, Jakarta Post, 2007-09-06

    Leaders of China and Australia announced their countries will hold annual security talks, signaling a significant upgrade of relations. Prime Minister John Howard and Chinese President Hu Jintao announced plans for the yearly “security dialogue” after holding a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Pacific Rim leaders’ forum in Sydney.

  3. Russia Arms Old and New Friends in Asia, Donald Greenlees, IHT, 2007-09-05

    President Vladimir Putin will sign a $1 billion arms deal that includes supplying Indonesia with two Kilo-class submarines, the first of a small fleet of the vessels. This comes on the heels of other deals to sell advanced Su-27 and Su-30 combat fighters to Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries in the region, helping to entrench Russia’s place as the leading arms supplier to Asia.

  4. Australia Stakes its Claim to Uranium Enrichment, Katharine Murphy, Age, 2007-09-06

    Australia is reserving its right to enrich uranium in the future despite signing up to a controversial global partnership of nuclear players (GNEP) that aims to limit the number of nations producing enriched fuel. Government has made it clear it will sign up only on the basis that Australia does not take the world’s nuclear waste and that it reserves its right to enrich yellowcake in the future.

  5. PM Warned: Russia May Divert Uranium to Iran, Marian Wilkinson and Craig Skehan, SMH, 2007-09-04

    A leading Russian environmentalist is calling on the PM to delay signing a new uranium deal with Russia saying Australia cannot be sure Russia will not divert the material for military purposes or send it to Iran. The call, from Grigory Pasko, who spent 4 years in prison for reporting that the Russian military had dumped radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan, coincided with a warning from an expert on international law, Dr Don Rothwell.

  6. Forbidden Nuclear Plant, Editorial, Jakarta Post, 2007-09-05

    The government’s plan to build the country’s first nuclear plant at Mt. Muria, Jepara, Central Java, has met with unexpected opposition from ulema. The ulema, from the country’s largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), understood that the plant, to be up and running by 2016, would help meet the demand for electricity, but were concerned about safety issues and the handling of radioactive waste.

  7. Iraqi Army Unable To Take Over Within A Year, Report Says, Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, 2007-09-06

    Iraq’s army, despite measurable progress, will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and “cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven,” according to a the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq . Also, a report by the Government Accountability Office said that Iraq had met only three of 18 congressional benchmarks for progress.

  8. Sino-Japan Military Ties Face Challenges, Jing-dong Yuan, AsiaTimes, 2007-09-05

    The recent visit to Japan by China’s defense minister shows that bilateral relations are slowly recovering from the damage done during prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s tenure. But they can improve only marginally so long as the US-Japan Security Treaty remains intact. At the same time, warships from the two countries increasingly encounter each other in disputed waters.

Austral Policy Forum 07-16A: The Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation and Asia-Pacific Strategic Geometries – William T Tow

William Tow, of the Australian National University argues that the March 2007 Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation was symbolic of one of two possibilities that Australia foreign policy must chose between: “a strategy of regional engagement designed to pursue community-building and avoid security dilemmas, or one that designates China as a rising strategic challenge that ultimately cannot be accommodated and thus must be contained with like-minded allies.” Despite the fears that the Joint Declaration represents a step in the militarization of the foreign policies of both countries, Tow concludes that the Joint Declaration “will not constitute an enduring or even very important component of the Asia-Pacific region’s future security architecture. I am not convinced that this agreement or the concurrent strategic geometries borne from hedging, balancing and bandwagoning now under way in the region will result in complete instability or lead to inevitable conflict.”

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