Aiding allies to keep Red Sea open is where duty lies

In his dithering over whether to send a warship to the Red Sea, Anthony Albanese has once again shown his weakness. This is compounded by his government’s morally slippery decision to support the recent UN General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire without condemning the depravity of October 7.

All of this is set against a background of taking no action against the hate speech of those unhinged preachers at the Bankstown Islamic centre and some of the pro-Palestine protesters. Is the Prime Minister afraid to be decisive or just unskilled at his job? We need strong leadership to keep our air free from incitements to hatred and violence, to uphold our values of treating all our citizens with respect and keeping them safe, and to demonstrate our fortitude in standing up for Western civilisation at this time of trial.

Tony Grey, Point Piper, NSW

As we now see through our Prime Minister, so will others. AUKUS is a co-operative agreement between allies intended to work together on international security problems; what doesn’t the Albanese government get about this? We cannot have our cake and eat it. We cannot expect the US and Britain to make sacrifices for us when we ignore requests for support in what is a live hotspot across major shipping lanes.

Right now the Middle East is where the real work is to be had – not in our own region at present. The subs deal is not writ in stone, it is hardly a promise, especially if the US feels it can make better use of the subs it develops itself, and given our inability to crew all our ships and boats, Britain and the US will be very aware of our weaknesses in that regard. Surely we must act in strength and co-operate with our security partners by sending over the best we have to where the action is.

Graham Thomas, Kadina, SA

Australia’s inability or unpreparedness to send a single warship to support our major ally in the Red Sea should tell us a great deal about the state of our ADF (“Troop boost but no ship to Red Sea”, 19/12). At the very least this is an acute embarrassment; at worst it’s a clear and undeniable admission we cannot be relied on to pull our weight alongside our allies. If this is the state of our ADF then both government and our top brass have much to answer for.

Since coming to government Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles have been beating their chests about their focus on improving the fighting capability of our ADF. They have used the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine agreement, an initiative of the Morrison government, to demonstrate how serious we are about protecting our sovereignty.

In the meantime, the government has forced a downgrading of the army’s capability by stripping it of one infantry battalion, removing tanks from the order of battle and halving the number of new infantry fighting vehicles. The navy, meanwhile, is having another review of its capability while the admirals must be amusing themselves playing with the bathtub flotilla. On top of this shameful downgrading, the ADF has been unable to recruit sufficient young men and women even to operate what it already has. Critical units and ships are struggling to operate effectively as a result.

Why are we not attracting recruits? Let me suggest two reasons: poor leadership and the manner in which we see our ADF personnel dragged through the mud with the post Afghanistan treatment of veterans. The ADF is no longer an attractive place to work. Peter Dutton must make defence policy a top priority at the next election.

John George, Terrigal, NSW

Jonathan Spyer argued that Israel soon will defeat its enemy (“ ‘Slowly, slowly’, the IDF is winning its Gaza war on Hamas”, 19/12). In time, yes, but I wish I could share his confidence, directly correlated to exponential civilian casualties.

The IDF is a conventional army, well trained, with superior weaponry, a logistics chain, fine leadership and high morale. Soldiers embrace “tank fetishism”, as armoured columns are an infantry soldier’s second best friend, after artillery (shells, rockets and missiles – by land, air and sea).

Israel might ask of itself: Why did Australia not deploy an RAN warship to the Red Sea, in a new front?

Unlike Tel Aviv, Canberra accepts it had no exit strategy.

Mike Fogarty, Weston, ACT