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Eastern Economic Review August 26, 2004 CANBERRA and Singapore further strengthened their close defence ties with the launch in mid-August of a joint naval exercise off the north Australian port of Darwin. The August 14-24 war games are aimed at testing the capabilities of the two navies to deal with anti-submarine, surface and air warfare, say Australian navy personnel. More than 1200 personnel are taking part and Singapore has sent two missile-equipped corvettes to the war games, which involve warships and combat aircraft from both countries. The exercise will also provide a good opportunity to test the stealth capabilities of Australia's trouble-prone Collins class submarines. It will also be particularly beneficial for Singapore, which lacks the open space for military manoeuvres and has relied largely on Taiwan since the 1970s for major combined-arms exercises. This has put an increasing strain on relations with China, but Singapore's war games with Australia pose no such political problems. Several foreign military observers, including the Indonesian naval attaché and the Chinese attaché, were invited to witness the exercise. Australia and Indonesia have not taken part in joint military exercises since Jakarta ended its rule over East Timor after failing to prevent an outbreak of violence directed against pro-independence supporters in 1999. |
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