Australia risks Asian ire with long-range missiles

4.00pm

CANBERRA - Australia plans to create what it believes will be the most lethal force of fighter jets in Southeast Asia by equipping its aircraft with long-range missiles in a move critics said could antagonise neighbours.

Defence Minister Robert Hill said up to A$450 million ($494.66 million) would be spent fitting out the country's F/A-18 Hornet fighters and AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft with air-to-surface missiles capable of hitting targets up to 400 km away.

The Hornets, which have a combat flight radius of 740 km and can be refuelled in flight, are also being equipped with Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missiles.

"Combined with the new air-to-air missiles and upgraded precision-guided bombs, Australia's fighter jets will have the region's most lethal capacity for air combat and strike operations," Hill said in a statement on Thursday.

Hill said Australia would choose from three long-range missiles produced by Lockheed Martin Corp., Taurus Systems GmbH -- partly owned by Saab -- and Boeing Co. and they would be introduced between 2007 and 2009.

The three missiles are: the Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile (JASSM), which has the longest range; a variant of the precision-attack cruise missile KEPD 350; and the Stand-off Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), based on the Harpoon anti-ship missile.

"The new weapon will significantly enhance the ADF's air strike capability, providing a long-range, accurate and lethal attack against a range of targets including fixed and re-locatable targets on land and sea," Hill said.

Opposition Labour defence spokesman Kim Beazley said the government risked upsetting Australia's Southeast Asian neighbours - already wary about the country's close alliance with the United States - with its planned missile purchase.

"The problem with this government is it never bothers to go round the region and explain what it's doing," Beazley told Australian radio.

"The unfortunate thing is that it brings this in to play at a time when there is regional disagreement with our endorsing of national missile defence," Beazley said.

Australia last month pledged to work with the United States on a controversial "Son of Star Wars" programme, which will research a costly system to shoot down ballistic missiles, and to establish joint defence training centres in northern Australia.

The United States is Australia's most important military partner and the 53-year-old alliance has tightened since the September 11, 2001, attacks on US cities and the Bali bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

This relationship has resulted in Canberra being viewed by some Asian nations as Washington's "deputy sheriff" in the region and they are wary about Australia's increasingly strident stance on regional security.

Defence analysts played down the chances that Australia's purchase of the long-range missiles would create tensions in Southeast Asia.

Analyst Aldo Borgu said the government was upgrading the F/A-18 Hornets so that the aircraft could fill a gap between the defence force retiring the country's ageing F-111 strike bombers from 2010 and bringing a replacement on line.

"The Hornets with this missile and aerial refuelling will still only be able to reach, at best, three quarters of the range of an F-111, so we're not talking about new capability overall," Borgu told Reuters. "From a regional perspective it should be fairly easy to explain."

The F-111s themselves have always been controversial weapons, with a long reach and large weapons load. Australia's purchase of an extra batch of them in the 1990s led Indonesia to question the country's commitment to security cooperation.

Australia is part of the US-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project to develop a new generation combat jet, which is likely to replace the F-111s, although the government will not make a decision on whether to purchase the new fighter until 2006.

The development phase of the F-35 is not due to be completed until 2013.

- REUTERS