Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2019/Op-ed
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East Timor |
- By Hawkeye7
On 17 September, I attended a symposium on the Australian-led intervention in East Timor, which occurred twenty years ago.
A little background history. Portugal established a settlement on
After the April 1974
The
Since events are so recent, nearly all of the key participants are still living. Speakers at the symposium included the Prime Minister of Australia at the time, John Howard, the commander of INTERFET, General Sir Peter Cosgrove, and the Australian representative at the UN at the time, Penelope Wensley. Speakers had to give their presentations with Howard and Cosgrove sitting a few feet away in the front row of the small lecture theatre on Russell Hill, which was not always comfortable for them. They weren't afraid to challenge the speakers either. There were interesting perspectives from David Kilcullen, who fought in East Timor, and Craig Stockings, who is working on the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Australian Peacekeeping Operations in East Timor. There was a lot of emphasis on lessons learned.
The operation was carried out in the shadow of the
This placed Australia in a wholly unfamiliar situation, for which it lacked doctrine and experience. (The US was also in doctrinally unfamiliar territory.) Put simply, a lead nation is the underwriter of a military coalition, providing all the capabilities that the others do not. Invariably, these are in combat support and combat service support areas. Most countries have little or no capability to conduct operations outside their own borders, and contingents from less developed countries are apt to arrive with little more than small arms and the shirts on their backs. The diplomats did draw up a declaration that each country's contribution to INTERFET was to be self-supporting, but this had little effect. The New Zealanders, the first to arrive, had expected that the Australians would assist them with their logistics. They found that, on the contrary, the Australians were looking for help. The assistance they gave was crucial.
The first INTERFET troops to arrive in East Timor were the INTERFET Response Force, consisting of members of the
In the end, the whole operation was very successful, but it was a near-run thing. The run-down logistics capability of the Australian Defence Force was stretched to breaking point, and for a time both Australia and Indonesia teetered on the precipice of national disaster. Stocking's upcoming official history is therefore eagerly anticipated.
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