Australia's military alliance with US has never been more critical: ambassador

Australia's strategic and military alliance with the United States was more important now than any other time in the nation's history, according to Australian ambassador to the United States, Kim Beazley.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph published on Wednesday, Beazley said the rise of new Asian superpowers was the reason for a close U.S. alliance.

"(Asia) is now the power center of the globe and will be for our lifetime, your children's lifetimes and our grandchildren," he said.

He said Australia is anchored in the area, critical to this zone and will be a substantial, clever, militarily capable and diplomatic player.

"But the card we bring to the table is an American card," he said.

"The alliance has never been more important."

Beazley said Australia's closer ties with emerging Asian superpowers made the U.S. alliance more important, with the potential for conflict between neighbors in the region growing.

According to him, Australia is geographically much more important to the U.S. now than before.

"The American rebalance to Asia is not an exercise in a vacuum of where would you prefer to be, it is a sensible understanding of the global distribution of power .. and they are responding to this.

"At the same time we are now in a totally different political and military alignment and the alliance is critical."

He said Australia had an ever increasing role to play in providing stability to a region.

Beazley's concern was that accidental conflict could break out in either the south or east China seas. In order to carry diplomatic weight, Australia needed a strong military presence.

"We now have the most comprehensive air defense in the making that we have ever had in Australia," Beazley said, adding "you could not get an air defense like that out of an association with anyone else (but the U.S.).

Beazley, a former Australian defense minister, said Australia's strategic position in Asia makes the U.S. alliance more important now than it was during the cold war period of the 1980s.

"We are now in an environment where the traditional indices of power are moving against us," he stated.

"The effect of that it is to make it absolutely critical that we have comprehensive intelligence and that we have a comprehensive technological edge in military equipment," he believed, adding "only the U.S. can deliver that."

"It is more than just basing (a reference to the basing of U.S. marines in Darwin), but that is part of it," he said.