This plan was sumitted in 1985 and drew attention to The Northern Defence Applications of a Darwin Line (Note most of this is still of concern today though the costs involved back then have blown out in 2000) If the line had been built back then, The Australian Armed Forces would have made heavy use of the line during The East Timor conflict...................... Extract from an article by Desmond Ball,JO Langtry and JD Stevenson for " The Strategic and Defence Studies Centre " the Australian National University Canbera 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 deterfence 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 rsilway 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 irabalance 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 deterfence 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