Vive Le Canada - Australia, America's "Deputy Sheriff," Punches Above Its Weight And Cr

Embassy, August 17th, 2005

COLUMN
By Martin Regg Cohn

Australia, America's "Deputy Sheriff," Punches Above Its Weight And Criticizes Canada For Not Doing The Same

HONIARA, Solomon Islands -- Federal agent Simone Kleehammer dons a helmet and flak jacket before linking up with an army escort for her nightly police patrols. This is where her police colleagues were shot late last year -- one killed, one injured -- after local gunmen targeted Australian police on this anarchic South Pacific island nation 3,000 kilometres northeast of Sydney.

The shootings "felt like all of us getting kicked in the stomach," admits Kleehammer, 31, as she drives past the shooting scene. "But we were all here to do a job and we knew this could happen."

The deadly ambushes sent a chill through this dusty tropical town, demoralizing Australian police deployed here on a precedent-setting mission: to rebuild a failed state by reviving its faltering police force.

Australia reacted to the shootings by airlifting combat troops and arming its cops on the beat. Now, nighttime patrols are still tense, but by daybreak Kleehammer dumps her body armour, ditches her military escort and leaves the safety of a police outpost blanketed in barbed wire.

Relying on a smile and a nine-millimetre Glock handgun, she patrols with her local partners -- fresh recruits from the discredited Royal Solomon Islands Police. Hunched in a rickety cruiser, they begin a bone-jarring sweep through "Borderland," the deadliest district in this ramshackle capital.

Despite the threats, most residents of this dirt-poor island chain look upon the strapping Australian men and women in blue as saviours.

Two years ago, these outsiders rescued the islanders from themselves -- from the chaos of a failed state riven by ethnic cleansing and gang violence culminating in the government's collapse. In fact, Kleehammer is one of 300 foot soldiers in an Australian experiment that has redefined her government's approach to global trouble spots. The police deployment is the centrepiece of a massive, decade-long intervention launched in mid-2003 with an amphibious landing by 1,700 combat troops.

As they restored order, the $1 billion operation was bolstered by squads of elite civil servants reviving the moribund machinery of government, ranging from treasury economists to customs agents patrolling the airport. It is a virtual takeover of a sovereign country -- albeit by invitation. The Solomon Islands rescue mission has served as the inspiration for an equally ambitious police deployment in Papua, New Guinea -- another crime-infested, corruption-ridden troublespot off Australia's northern coast.

Saving the day is becoming a habit for Australians. The federal police have set up an "international deployment division" as part of its "core business," says Will Jamieson, who ran the division before relocating here to run the Solomon Islands police mission. Australia's biggest and boldest intervention came in late 1999, when its military deployed decisively into nearby East Timor as it was struggling for independence from adjacent Indonesia in mid-1999. While Western countries stood by paralyzed, the global spotlight was shining on 5,700 Australian troops as they stared down Indonesian-backed militiamen.

Today, Australia projects its power from Iraq and Afghanistan in the West, to the Solomon Islands and other South Pacific nations in the East. Beyond the sheer sweep of territory, Australia's increasingly muscular and activist strategy suggests a country that is punching far above its weight. Bruised by the 2002 Bali bombing that claimed 88 Australian lives and left the country reeling, it emerged more determined to ally itself with Washington's war on terror.

An early clue to Australia's inclinations came when Prime Minister John Howard famously agreed with an interviewer that he was America's "deputy sheriff" in the region; he created an even bigger stir by threatening pre-emptive strikes against terrorists plotting against Australians from neighbouring countries. But Australia's influence is about more than muscle and sabre-rattling. Australians beat the rest of the world to the punch by donating a remarkable $1 billion within hours of last December's tsunami, and sending in the first waves of military rescue teams.

Compared to Canada -- with a similarly modest population and compact military -- Australia is emerging as a global player and diplomatic powerhouse. It is often said that there no two countries more similar than Canada and Australia in terms of size and British parliamentary traditions, but on defence and foreign policy the two countries are following distinctly different paths.

While Canada concentrates on peacekeeping and emphasizes multilateralism, Australia opts for rapid responses to shore up failing states -- even without United Nations approval. Canada proudly wears its multilateral memberships on its sleeve and heralds the United Nations as the foundation of its foreign policy, while Australia's government is openly dismissive of Security Council consultations that go nowhere.

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[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 22, 2005]

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