Page 155 - Australian Defence Magazine October 2019
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DEFENCE BUSINESS
highly reliant on Middle East oil, but have stayed out for fear of being dragged into the US row with Iran. The EU may get on board, maybe with their own taskforce.
With the return of HMAS Ballarat in July at the end of a nine-month deploy- ment, there’s no ship over there until HMAS Toowoomba begin the six-month IMSC mission in January.
That’s of course the same HMAS Toowoomba (FFH 156) on which your correspondent spent a week, though now much enhanced with the Anti-Ship Mis- sile Defence (ASMD) upgrade and em- barked Seahawk Romeo helicopter.
The government hasn’t said much about what our ship will contribute to IMSC. It seems to be escorting duties, monitoring the Iranians and keeping IMSC HQ in Bahrain updated. Nothing at all has been said about rules of engagement and likely won’t be until long after.
Contributing to this mission will be a RAAF P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, flying from AMAB. That’s a very short transit to the likely patrol area.
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Again the RAAF has extensive experi- ence in this part of the world, with AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft flying over- land ISR missions above Afghanistan and similar overwater missions to the Gulf and North Arabian Sea between 2003 and 2012.
The Orions are on their way out, replaced by the much more capable Poseidons.
Australian naval activities in the Middle East occasionally hit the news through high seas busts of very large quantities of drugs, often originating in Afghanistan and bound for Africa and then Europe.
Other busts have included consign- ments of small arms and munitions appar- ently bound from Iran to Yemen.
Australia operates as one of the 33 mem- bers of the US-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), established in the wake of 9/11 to promote security and conduct coun- ter-piracy and counter-terrorism patrols in the Persian Gulf and adjacent waters.
So plenty of other nations have deployed ships to this part of the world, but most haven’t signed onto IMSC. One of them is Denmark, which US diplomats, quoted by Foreign Policy magazine, say would be a natural fit.
That may happen but you’d have to think the Danes’ reluctance might have something to do with Trump’s umbrage at their refusal to sell Greenland.
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www.australiandefence.com.au | October 2019 | 155 7/08/18 2:27 PM
VIEW FROM CANBERRA
“We’re a close ally, we’ve championed freedom of navigation and we’ve had ships and aircraft operating in the Middle East for much of the last 30 years.”
