Aussie Rail in a Defence Roll.

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    Read This only if you are Interested in Defence of Australia's 
           Northern Areas " Alice Springs to Darwin Railway".

    Extract from an article by Desmond Ball,JO Langtry and JD Stevenson
       for " The Strategic and Defence Studies Centre "
          the Australian National University Canberra 1984


Page 1.        THE ALICE SPRINGS to DARWIN RAILWAY
                 DEFENCE of our NORTHERN SHORES

      " Infrastructure development and the defence of Australia "

The aim of Australian national security policy is the defence of
Australia and its offshore territories and the defence and
promotion of its vital national interests - strategic, military,
and economic. This is to be achieved, in the first instance, by
the deterrence of developments inimical to these interests; in
the event of deterrence failing, however, the Australian
Defence Force would be mobilised and deployed in combat
against the adversary. An important aspect of deterrence is
that of being able to demonstrate a credible capacity for
pre-emptive defensive deployments at short notice- 'Getting
there first with the Most' - and this has particular application
in northern Australia where the population is scant and the
infrastructure is sparse.
        Mobilisation - the  marshalling of a nation's resources
for war - is obviously central to both deterrence and combat
capability. It is a very complicated process of expansion and
coordination. To be effective, it must be planned well ahead.
The plan must include provision for essential long-lead-time
preparations, including those aspects related to infrastructure,
in peace time. It is in this general context that the strategic
merit of an Alice Springs to Darwin rail connection should be
assessed. The rate at which resources can be mobilised and
transported to threatened areas is often as significant as the
level of resources available for mobilisation.
        Logistic support of armed forces depends upon production
and supply, their control and direction, and an adequate
transportation infrastructure lending itself to centralised control
in response to priorities. In Australia the defence-related
industrial infrastructure is in a distressing condition and the
bulk of it is located in the southeast corner and, to a much
lesser extent, in the southwest. Indeed, there are very few
significant defence-related industrial facilities of any con-
sequence between Perth, Darwin and Brisbane.
        The land transport infrastructure serving northern
Australia from the south is restricted to three strategic cor-
ridors - the eastern, central and western corridors. Although
these corridors are improving, they are still inadequate for the
concentration of large-scale ground forces where they may be
needed in northern Australia in time to pre-empt or defeat an
enemy before he could consolidate. The infrastructure within
northern Australia is still too sparse to support the scale of
defence development likely to be needed to contain and then
evict an enemy lodgement at even the medium level of threat.
        The Bi-Centennial Road Development Programme will go
a long way towards providing a much needed and strategically
important double-laned, sealed all-weather main road system
around and across Australia by 1999. Never the less vulnera-
bilities will remain. For example, the only highway connection
between Port Hedland in the Pilbara and Broome in the Kimber-
ley regions in Western Australia is along the very exposed and
vulnerable coastline. In fact the Kimberley is better served
from Katherine in the Northern Territory. There is only one
road into Darwin and the Top End and that is via Katherine.
There is only a fair weather track north of Cairns serving Cape
York Peninsula.
        The main south to north railway in Queensland parallels
the coastline and crosses many rivers and is, therefore,
vulnerable. There are bottlenecks in high traffic periods on the
main south to north trunk line from Sydney to Brisbane.
Despite current improvements, the constraints of terrain on
train speed and difficulties associated with the inability
between north and southbound traffic will continue.
        Australia's rail network is bedevilled by the breaks of
gauge. The linking of all capital cities into the national
standard gauge network routed to serve national development as
well as national security should be seen as an important national
objective. Furthermore, a case could be made for the extension
of the Australian standard gauge railway network from Leonora
to Meekatharra and Mount Newman; and sooner or later the
standard gauge network should extend into and through
Queensland to connect with the central corridor and Darwin.
However, the fact that the Australian standard gauge railway
net already extends up the central corridor as far north as
Alice Springs should be an important factor in determining
priorities for once the connection with Darwin is made, all
capital cities will be linked into the standard gauge railway
grid.
        Railways have a number of significant advantages over
roads, in wartime in particular. They are unsurpassed in their
capacity to sustain the delivery of large volumes and tonnages
rapidly, over long distances. Road movement agencies,
however, have the capacity to range more extensively and
flexibly. Road movement is ideally suited to forward distribution
from railheads into battle zones. Road and rail in wartime
should not be seen as strategic alternatives; they are comple-
mentary. Indeed, the existence of road and rail in parallel
would provide invaluable flexibility in the event of one or other
being knocked out as well as enhancing the loading capacity
within the corridor as a whole.
       Contrary to some views, railways are difficult to damage
and easy to repair, but they are vulnerable over large rivers
and in tunnels; but so are roads.
       Of considerable significance is the fact that railways are
more readily responsive than the road infrastructure to cent-
ralised control in response to priorities. The civil road trans-
port industry is fragmented and dominated by owner-drivers.
As Brigadier Greville has noted,
...There is a fine line between flexible, fluid and
regulated movements and congestion, confusion, and
frustration... 
In this sense railways are much more manageable than road
movement and provide better opportunities for control and
re-routing in transit.
       Of course civil infrastructure development and defence
planning should proceed in close harmony. Australia's limited
resources for the development of dedicated military resources
mean that much more emphasis must be placed on use of
resources in the civil infrastructure. Furthermore, any dup-
lication in the military of resources in, or likely to become
available in, the civil sector should be resisted. On the one
hand, the civil infrastructure has much to offer the military; on
the other hand, the military can often do much to promote the
civil sector and advance national, state and regional develop-
ment plans. Planning for national development and national
security should be indivisible.
       In the case under consideration - the Alice Springs to
Darwin railway connection - the initiative stems from the civil
sector but the defence implications are very significant indeed
and obvious. The official defence judgements should not be
influenced by the 'defence dollar'. National security as well as
national development is at stake and questions of liability for
funding should be seen as a national responsibility.

Infrastructure development and deterrence

Infrastructure development contributes to deterrence in two
principal ways.
       First, investment in infrastructure in northern Australia -
whether it be social, industrial, or transportation - reinforces
Australia's claim and demonstrates its commitment to the region
as an integral part of Australia. The vulnerability of northern
Australia would be reduced markedly if Australia were to be
seen to be demonstrably capable of rapidly deploying and
sustaining sizeable forces in defence of northern Australia.
        Second, investment in a good and secure transcontinental
transport infrastructure serving northern Australia would act as
a powerful force multiplier, especially in terms of enhancing the
Australian Defence Force's capacity for timely pre-emptive
defensive deployments and rapid and flexible response. Hence,
such investment in infrastructure would contribute directly to
Australia's deterrent posture. Perhaps the most significant
lesson for Australia to come out of the Falklands Islands conflict
is the disproportionality of the cost to the British in failing to
pre-empt the Argentinians. Even if the warning signals were
less than conclusive, it would have cost the British very little
to have deployed pre-emptively a modest deterrent force to the
Falklands with the very likely result that the Argentinians
would have called off the invasion.
        AustraIia has a number of strategically important commu-
nities and facilities - on-shore and off-shore - in northern
Australia which, unless a credible capacity for pre-emptive
deployments at short notice can be demonstrated, are vulnerable
to 'hijacking' and being held to ransom for limited economic or
political gains. Places like Weipa and Nhulunbuy and the nearby
NABALCO bauxite mine on Gove Peninsula could be singled out
for limited lodgement. It would be infinitely preferable to deter
than to have to eject such lodgements.
           
      So let us Stop the Bickering and get on With the Thing







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