Pacific Perspective:Eyeing Beijing's Growing Might,Pentagon to Invest At Least 1 Billion in Northern Australia Upgrades

It was recently brought to light by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the Pentagon is bulking up its infrastructure in Australia's Northern Territory (NT) to improve the US-Australia force posture in the event of a China-generated security crisis,such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.In the course of preparing a recent documentary called "War Games" for its Four Corners programme,the ABC viewed US Government documents setting out the defence plans.The unannounced project is centered on two areas,one of them being Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal,which is just south of the NT capital Darwin.The US Air Force admitted to the project,saying: The ability to deploy U.S. Air Force bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about our ability to project lethal airpower.* At RAAF Tindal,the Pentagon is building an aircraft parking apron that can accommodate six B-52H Stratofortress nuclear-capable bombers.There are also detailed designs for constructing a US Air Force Squadrons Operations Facility and a maintenance center.These assets will facilitate training missions during the NT dry season.The Pentagon is furthermore building a fuel farm of 11 giant fuel storage tanks in Darwin to sustain military flight operations and an ordnance storage bunker.* A second area,the military intelligence base Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap in the Australian outback near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory,is also being enhanced.Over the past seven years,the base's antenna farm has grown from 33 up to its current 45 antennae.Pine Gap is considered the most critical intel base outside of the United States.Its monthly Australian-US tasking meetings respond to the needs of combatant commanders and civilian policy makers.The base can provide exact locations of Russian and Chinese missiles and silos,and can eavesdrop on the satellites of authoritarian regimes.So it was deemed prudent to give it a midlife upgrade,as the ongoing project has been described.* These projects should come as no surprise.Since at least the Obama presidency,US-Australia defence ties have been steadily increasing.At that time,President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard established the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin on 16 November 2011.On 16 September 2021,US and Australian Foreign and Defence Ministers gathered in Washington,D.C. to sign the Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation and Alliance Integration.It includes greater air cooperation through rotational deployments of all types of US military aircraft to Australia;establishment of combined logistics sustainment and capability for our submarines and surface combatants in Australia;and supports a robust US presence in the Indo-Pacific Region,plus the provision of US extended deterrence and increasing Australia's defence budget to 73.7 billion dollars by 2029-2030.The combined logistics,sustainment and maintenance enterprise will support high-end warfighting and combined military operations in the region.Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton expressed the aspiration to increase the number of US troops through the rotations and to enhance air and maritime capability.If that includes basing and storage of different ordnance,that is in Australia's best interest at this point in time.*