Almost unnoticed, Australia has reverted to a forward defense doctrine abandoned during the Cold War in the 1960s.

The change is all the more remarkable because the earlier policy did not threaten the profitability of the country's biggest businesses, while the resurrected policy appears to be aimed at its biggest trading partner, China.

Although the specifics are classified, there is now backing across the political spectrum for preparations for the forward deployment of ground troops, ships and planes equipped for high-intensity warfare. Key components include large destroyers equipped to contribute to an anti-ballistic missile shield against China and North Korea; frigates that could help enforce a trade blockade; and big new submarines capable of firing cruise missiles into China. This may suit countries near China, but it represents a huge change for a more distant Australia.

The switch began five years ago with the insistence by then-Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that the defense White Paper should ditch the established doctrine defining the Australian military's area of operational interest as rarely extending beyond the archipelagic chain of Indonesian and Melanesian islands to its near north. Prime Minister Tony Abbott now enthusiastically promotes the new approach adopted in 2009.

For the previous 40 years, there was bipartisan support for a "Defense of Australia" doctrine whose primary focus was on preventing hostile forces intruding past the island chain. Disillusioned by Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, coalition governments in the late 1960s replaced forward defense with the more immediate defense of Australia. The doctrine did not mean that Australian military units would not be capable of operating further afield, as occurred during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But it did mean that Australia should not plan for large-scale involvement in another land war in Asia, or major naval or air battles in north Asia.

Intertwined fates

Since the 2009 White Paper, Australia has become more deeply enmeshed in forward defense following subsequent U.S. initiatives, such as its air-sea battle doctrine for fighting China. Leaked details show that this involves deep airstrikes into mainland China and a naval blockade on trade. Under Abbott, Australia is willing to supply navy ships to the South China Sea for a trade blockade that would stop vessels carrying Australian iron ore and natural gas to China.

Despite the diversion created by jihadists in Iraq, Abbott is keen to reinforce President Barack Obama's military "pivot" to Asia. He recently agreed to integrate the operational control of Australia's new anti-ballistic missile destroyers with similar U.S. and Japanese ships in North Asian waters.

Australia-U.S. ministerial talks in Sydney on Aug. 12 discussed anti-ballistic missile cooperation and related support from new space-surveillance equipment in Western Australia. Ministers also signed a Status of Forces Agreement the same day to facilitate the rotation of a full Marine Air-Ground Task Force through a base in Darwin, and greater use of other Australian bases by U.S. ships and planes.

In his recent book "Dangerous Allies," Malcolm Fraser, the coalition prime minister from 1975 to 1983, warns that growing military integration with the U.S. could see Australia sucked into an unwanted war with China. He says last year's decision to "embed" the frigate HMAS Sydney in a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group operating out of the Japanese port of Yokosuka could have denied Australia discretion about joining a war over disputed islands such as the nearby Senkakus.

Fraser noted that the ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. does not require the U.S. to help Australia militarily. But the contrary assumption underpins Abbott's eagerness to back the U.S. in disputes that would otherwise have no strategic importance to Australia. Fraser recalled that during Indonesia's policy of "confrontation" in 1963, the U.S. flatly rejected then-Foreign Minister Garfield Barwick's insistence that the treaty meant it must help Australia.

Despite Barwick's candid recognition that ANZUS provides no guarantees, his government tried to please the U.S. with a forward defense strategy that ended in the Vietnam quagmire. Abbott's reinvigorated version of that policy could involve Australia in a clash with China over uninhabited islands that escalates into a major war. For Fraser and several former military leaders, returning to a more manageable focus on defending Australia is the safer option.

Brian Toohey is a Sydney-based commentator on defense, economic and political issues, and was editor of the former National Times. He is co-author of "Oyster: the Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service."