Melbourne – Australia's defence forces have been placed on their highest level of military preparedness since the Vietnam War, in what analysts see as a clear sign of Canberra's growing unease with regional instability across Asia.

With an eye on instability unleashed by events in Indonesia and the Asian economic crisis, Defence Minister John Moore told Parliament on Mar. 11 that the government plans to double the number of combat-ready troops by June.

The announcement follows a decision by the government's National Security Committee earlier in March, to depart from past military strategy and embrace a new doctrine espousing the use of Australian troops in potential conflicts well beyond Australia's shores.

Analysts say the primary impetus behind these moves is the breakdown of law and order in Indonesia, which has raised the specter of mass evacuations of Australian expatriates throughout the troubled archipelago, and Australian participation in a future peacekeeping force in East Timor.

"These policy changes are totally driven by the situation in Indonesia and East Timor, there is no doubt about it," said Alan Dupont of the Strategic Defence Studies Center, at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"But it's also bigger than that. What we have now is the government saying 'we are an island of stability in a turbulent region and what steps can we take to protect this'," he added.

Australia previously had only one ready deployment brigade based at Townsville in northern Queensland, ready to move at 28-days notice. Moore's statement will see a second brigade, about 3,000 troops, based in Darwin in the Northern Territory. It will have armor and engineers, supported by air and navy units.

"This is the first occasion in over two decades that Australia's had the equivalent of two brigades at this level of readiness," Moore told Parliament.

"The government believes it is important to have maximum flexibility and options necessary to respond to contingencies at short notice. Such measures are both prudent and appropriate," he explained.

Moore said that Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand and the United States had all been given advance notice of the announced increase in military preparedness, none of who had expressed any concerns about the move.

The decision was applauded by East Timorese resistance leaders, who have called for a UN peacekeeping force to be sent to East Timor immediately.

"I am taking it as a sign of two things – one, that the Australian Government now believes Indonesia's time as overlord of East Timor has ended, and two, that Australia is ready to put people on the ground in ET," Joao Carrascalao, president of the pro-independence Union of Democratic Timorese, said in a statement from New York.

But speaking on national radio, Prime Minister John Howard, stressed the troops were not being prepared for deployment in East Timor for peacekeeping duties. Instead, he said they were being put in place to face security contingencies.

Howard's conservative Liberal/National Party coalition government has said that while it wants to help with East Timor's transition to autonomy, it will deploy troops only after the conclusion of an independence deal being worked out in the United Nations between Indonesia and Portugal.

Another meeting between Jakarta and Lisbon is scheduled in mid-April, coming after a recent agreement on a direct ballot among East Timorese on autonomy or independence.

But while the rapidly changing situation in East Timor is a key factor behind the increase in Australia's military preparedness, there are other factors behind the policy change.

In early March, the Australian government announced the country's army would embrace a new doctrine that could see the use of "expeditionary forces" in intense conflicts well beyond Australia's shores.

The doctrine, contained in the study "The Fundamentals of Land Warfare", commits Australian troops not only to previous goal of defending Australia and its immediate territorial interests, but says the military has to create to capability of projecting "expeditionary forces" to "operations further afield".

The study, the first of three being conducted by the army, navy and air force, also says the military's need to make use of new technology and military techniques.

The term "expeditionary forces" has been out of vogue since Australia's last involvement in a high-level conflict ended when troops were pulled out of Vietnam in 1972.

The new doctrine follows calls last year by defence planners for a wide-ranging review of potential military threats facing Australia in the aftermath of Asia's economic crisis, which has created instability and exacerbated anti-Western sentiments.

According to Dupont, the new strategy is also part of efforts by Australia's conservative government to answer regional criticism that it was not engaged enough in the region during its first term in office. The scenarios in which Australian troops would be deployed under the new scenario remain uncertain.

Defense officials have been quoted in the media as saying the most likely need for such a contribution would be in support of US forces on the Korean peninsula or Taiwan Strait, or in the event of an outbreak of hostilities in the disputed South China Sea.

There are also fears that growing economic and political uncertainty may mean Australians may need to be evacuated from Indonesia, East Timor or Papua New Guinea.

While some analysts have rendered the doctrine change far sighted, others have questioned as to whether resource restrictions may render the army unable to implement the policy change in practice.

The Australian Defence Force numbers around 50,000 personnel, of which ground forces make up approximately half, the lowest level it has been in 50 years. "They don't have the resources to both defend Australia and engage in regional conflicts," said Dupont.