Australian military involvement in peacekeeping

Australian military involvement in peacekeeping operations has been diverse, and included participation in both United Nations sponsored missions, as well as those as part of ad hoc coalitions. Indeed, Australians have been involved in more conflicts as peacekeepers than as belligerents; however, according to Peter Londey "in comparative international terms, Australia has only been a moderately energetic peacekeeper." Although Australia has had peacekeepers in the field continuously for 60 years – the first occasion being in Indonesia in 1947, when Australians were among the first group of UN military observers – its commitments have generally been limited, consisting of small numbers of high-level and technical support troops (e.g. signals, engineers or medical units) or observers and police. David Horner has noted that the pattern changed with the deployment of 600 engineers to Namibia in 1989–90 as the Australian contribution to UNTAG. From the mid-1990s, Australia has been involved in a series of high-profile operations, deploying significantly large units of combat troops in support of a number of missions including those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Somalia and later in East Timor. Australia has been involved in close to 100 separate missions, involving more than 30,000 personnel and 11 Australians have died during these operations.

Overview

Australian involvement in international peacekeeping began in 1947 when a small contingent, consisting of just four officers—two Army, one Navy and one Air Force—were deployed to the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) in September of that year, being deployed as military observers under the auspices of the United Nations Good Offices Commission, during the Indonesian National Revolution. A total of 45 Australians were eventually deployed as part of this commitment, which ended in 1951. After that first operation, Australia's involvement in peacekeeping expanded slowly. Between 1950 and 1989, these commitments, while numerous remained small-scale, consisting of the deployment of small numbers of troops in support roles. In 1989, however, this changed when Australia committed a sizeable engineer force to Namibia; after this, throughout the 1990s Australia made further contributions to peacekeeping operations in various places around the world including the Middle East, Cambodia, Somalia and Rwanda, and in many cases—for example in Somalia where an infantry battalion group was deployed—these deployments have consisted of sizeable numbers of combat troops.