Canberra, 19 January 1966
Top Secret
I accept the major premise of this paper1 that Britain should retain a base in South East Asia for as long as is practical to do so. It must be accepted that if confrontation declines, Britain will want to reduce her forces in South East Asia. This happened after the Malaya emergency.
2. There has in my view been no development which suggests that an effective British military presence can be sustained in South East Asia from outside the area. The problem for us is that the British may wish to secure some negotiation which enables them to base a position on Australia and enable them to discount the requirement in 1970 to maintain a base in Singapore. The argumentation in the paper is appropriate to an Australian defence of the basic position that a Commonwealth base in South East Asia is needed to sustain the stability of the area and ensure effective Commonwealth support for SEATO plans.
3. If Britain is taxed financially at the moment, it is because of confrontation and not because of the commitment which is of so many years’ standing to a British base within South East Asia. If confrontation ends, financial commitment should be greatly reduced. Would the British still see the need to economise by closing down bases in the area even though they are vital to the Allied position in South East Asia?
4. I think the emphasis is right in steering the British to a position where they will be required to disclose their strategic concept which will need to be secured in quadripartite discussions of some sort, before Australia could conceivably agree that the concept was valid and its consequences acceptable.
5. I think the appendices at the back on the planned build-up of Australian services could be summarised in some form so that the Ministers could, with considerable point, establish in the broadest terms the scope of the Australian build–up. [ … ]
6. For my part I don’t oppose too strongly the British desire to base a nuclear capability in Australia. I think that this raises far less political problem for us than the basing of an American capability in Australia. However, it all needs to be thoroughly processed. The British certainly feel difficulty in placing V bombers in Singapore where they would be extremely vulnerable. We would also need to assess the value to us of the British strategic deterrent in Polaris firing submarines.
7. The danger is however that the British could use any assent by us at this stage for association with their nuclear deterrent against our basic position. It would enable them to create a fiction that the defence of Australia was being sustained just as adequately say from some Indian Ocean island base as from Singapore. This they may be tempted to do if Australia did not concede more formally that a British withdrawal from Singapore was a valid strategic concept for British power acting in the defence of South East Asia.
8. The paper relies on the thesis that the British should be compelled to retain the bases in Singapore. The tactic of seeking an agreed strategic concept on a quadripartite basis offered a very good basic position for Australia from a domestic political point of view to refuse to be drawn by Britain into making hasty concessions to British defence. It will also be a very valid position if in fact America has not made concessions to Mr. Wilson to a concept which would enable Wilson to move from Singapore to some other position, be it in the Indian Ocean or in Australia.
9. We need to keep in mind some of the disadvantages politically that Mr. Healey will be working under. Firstly, he has to show public opinion in Britain in some way that Australia and America have blessed the new concepts. This would seem to be necessary as Britain has committed herself to inducing the appropriate Australian and American response. The movement of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Healey must surely build public expectation that the British Government considers it desirable to move in concert with us and the Americans. If he cannot show this in a sufficiently established public form, then he is at a grave disadvantage to pressurize us, the more so if in fact the Americans offer to be forthcoming to Britain in assisting her in certain economic respects and if Australia were prepared to do so likewise. It seems to me that we cannot eat all the cake here. If we, for tactical and strategic reasons, find it undesirable to make at this stage military concessions to British ideas, then we may have to make economic ones. We may in effect have to look at some cost sharing arrangement in Singapore or something like this. There are of course a number of ideas which could be valid. Basically we must improve our image with Britain and show a determined hand in our preparedness to sustain the Commonwealth presence in South East Asia. There is no cheap solution to our policy objectives.
10. We should also consider the thesis that Mr. Wilson is just as keen on getting a position with Europe as the Conservative Party, but is using more concealed methods. This means for us that we should not be too keen to recognise the primary importance of British role in Europe. We should be prepared to say that we think that the real challenge is China and not Russia. If this is so, any world position that Britain has on defence must be biased to sustaining a maximum position on the Chinese periphery and particularly in South East Asia where at present Western military might is engaged. This is in effect what McNamara has said and I think we should come out solidly behind this as it is the major position taken by the Americans. It is the key presentational position of the Australian case both publicly and officially. The paper would do well to improve its presentation on this point. I regard it as primary. We have to achieve a real confrontation in the defence sector with British Eurocentric thinking.
1 See Document 4 7.
[NAA: A1209, 1965/6595 PART3]