Australia: catch all

[Jim Rodgers]

A white paper is little to get excited about, but it is Anzac day.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...10-601,00.html

[Badmash]

Of current interest is the US force restructure and how it would see Australia as a "place to base" and what involvement in terms of basing and training within Australia our American readers would see as likely outcomes?

The view in Australia is that the most likely basing options are Darwin and Perth for the navy, with some ground based training at Bradshaw field, Cultana and the Shoalwater Bay Training Area.

Is any Pacific Rim engagement likely to be naval and USMC centric or is it likely to be tri-service as all three compete for the same pot of money?

Finally, does the Okinawa/Guam restructure mean that US forces are looking for training real estate?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Best

Badmash

[davidbfpo]

Badmash,

From this faraway vantage point I do recall that Australia has been for a long time the home to a range of ostensibly shared intelligence facilities - although my source is Desmond Ball's now dated book published in 1980 'A Valuable Piece of Real Estate'.

Secondly I understood the USA had made limited, temporary use of Australian bases in the last twenty years, mainly by the USN and USAF.

I noted today The Daily Telegraph ran a short story, which opens with:

President Barack Obama is expected to reveal plans to station about 500 to 1000 Marines at a barracks in Darwin and to expand the US navy's use of bases at the Northern Territory capital and in Perth in Western Australia.

It cites a former Australian official, now a professor:

In Washington and in Beijing, this will be seen as Australia aligning itself with an American strategy to contain China...In the view from Beijing, everything the US is doing in the western Pacific is designed to bolster resistance to the Chinese challenge to US primacy.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ence-grow.html

Personally I don't think the potential new facilities, not bases, have a role in the strategic equation

to bolster resistance to the Chinese challenge

[davidbfpo]

Two alternative Australian responses to the newly announced policy:

Yet, I wonder if future historians will see this as the moment where Australia fundamentally cast its lot in with the US.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...-the-ride.aspx

We have been on the ride that Andrew refers to for some time; it just got a little faster.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...-alliance.aspx

A third article 'Why Washington wants a base here' is a succinct guide and points at the potential impact in the Indian Ocean:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...lian-base.aspx

[davidbfpo]

A background article on the Australian-US alliance, which opens with the 1943 DoD advice for US troops going to Australia:

You're going to meet a people who like Americans and whom you will like. The Australians have much in common with us – they're a pioneer people: they believe in personal freedom: they love sports...But there are a lot of differences too – like tea, central heating, the best way to send Sunday morning, or saluting officers and such. You'll find out about all those, but the main point is they like us, and we like them.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...Australia.aspx

One trusts that the USMC facilities in Darwin have central heating!

[Ray]

Analysts say China stung by defence pact

CHINESE defence analysts have condemned what they see as Australia's contribution to the growing security rivalry between the US and China, noting that Darwin is comfortably within range of Chinese ballistic missiles.

But unofficial analysts and the media yesterday described the new Darwin base as a major step in American efforts to ''contain China'' by creating a ''net'' of defence ties stretching from Japan to Australia and India and including most of south-east Asia.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/an...117-1nl8p.html

Asia Pushes Back Against China

Beijing is caught in a diplomatic bear trap of its own making. After trying to bully the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) into not discussing disputes over the South China Sea at a summit this weekend in Bali, the territorial dispute is becoming the meeting's focus. ......

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

[Mark O'Neill]

A background article on the Australian-US alliance, which opens with the 1943 DoD advice for US troops going to Australia:

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...Australia.aspx

One trusts that the USMC facilities in Darwin have central heating!

Darwin has 'central heating' built into the climate... it is in the Tropics. The weather there makes Miami look like Green Bay...

[Backwards Observer]

Stone the flamin' crows China, shut yer flippin' yap!

Australia tells China not to interfere

[...]

"Number one position from us, and it's based in absolute reality, is that this enhanced set of arrangements with the United States are not directed at any one country," he said.

At the same time, Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking China expert and former prime minister, warned Beijing not to get involved in Australian policy decisions.
"Let's just be very blunt about it, we are not going to have our national security policy dictated by any other external power. That's a sovereign matter for Australia," he said.

"We don't seek to dictate to the Chinese what their national security policy should be. Therefore this must be advanced on the basis of mutual respect."

Australia Tells China Not To Interfere - AFP - Nov 18, 2011.

...

In previous non-interference news:

Al-Qaeda 'praying for Obama win'

[...]

The man who wants to be the first black US president has pledged to withdraw US troops from Iraq by March 2008, a timetable Mr Howard believes is dangerous.

"I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for (an) Obama victory," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.

"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."

Al-Qaeda 'Praying For Obama Win' - news.com.au - Feb 11, 2007.

...

If China is sincere about Confucian values and not just engaging in rhetorical legerdemain, she should probably take this opportunity to radically recalibrate what is realistically achievable in an international scene largely characterised by vacuous egotism, shameless hypocrisy, crippling greed and a wilfully debilitating ignorance.

A measured policy of defensive disengagement coupled with an attention to the well-being of the Chinese people may be prudent for the foreseeable future, meanwhile salvaging what is left of her virtues after decades of brutal authoritarianism.

If China's rise is indeed peaceful, this should be self-evident from her political behaviour, just as it would be for any other nation. "He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few more impossible things to consider before breakfast.

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.

[Ray]

US troops have landed in Darwin.

Await Chinese reactions!

[davidbfpo]

Abu M's commentary is not an April Fool's comment, but it takes a rather unusual method to deliver a critique of the USMC arriving in Darwin. A taster:

...inevitably, well-meaning U.S. Marines will offend Australians by asking awkward questions, like, "Why are all your rugby players from Fiji?"

Link:http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawam...australia.html

[Ken White]

Abu M's commentary is not an April Fool's comment...

It's just a little too cute...

Fortunately, most Strynes will ignore him. They tend to ignore all Pommy condescension. As they should.

[Mark O'Neill]

There is one current Wallaby who was born in Fiji, Radike Samo..

It is a bit like asking 'Why are all the kickers in the NFL Australian...' (well, the good ones, anyway...)


He was pretty much right about the rest of it......

But he forgot to mention that after FM3-XX / MCWFP 3-33.XX Counterdingo operations is published (after a celeb launch hosted by Eliot Cohen and featuring the re-formation of the CNAS COIN expert band with Ricks on backing vocals) we will studiously ignore it... until we next send a bright up-and -coming grad student to SAMS / Quantico who will come back with a 'new' idea that will look something like it and subsequently inform our conceptual force development for the next decade. After some 'unique' grammar laundering to make it look Australian.

Move along... no cultural cringe to see here...

[KingJaja]

I'm not an expert on Australia - US relationships, but apart from needlessly provoking China, what exactly is the point of this deployment?

I know China is the only justification for massive expenditures by the US Navy and Airforce, but China isn't exactly the Soviet Union. Australia's economy is heavily dependent on the Chinese and will continue to be in the foreseeable future. Thousands of Chinese students study in Australia etc.

What message are the Australians and Americans trying to send to the Chinese and is it a pointless message?

[Ken White]

Move along... no cultural cringe to see here...

I'm also not an expert or even mildly knowledgeable about Australia - US relationships but my limited experience with Australians leads me to suggest to an Australian, no less, that cultural cringe with reference to Australians is perhaps an oxymoron...

P.S.
I cannot believe you guys are wasting time and money on SAMS...

[Bill Moore]

http://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/white-paper

Within only a few years, Asia will not only be the world’s largest producer of goods and services, it will also be the world’s largest consumer of them. It is already the most populous region in the world. In the future, it will also be home to the majority of the world’s middle class.

The Asian century is an Australian opportunity. As the global centre of gravity shifts to our region, the tyranny of distance is being replaced by the prospects of proximity. Australia is located in the right place at the right time—in the Asian region in the Asian century.

Recommend reading the Executive Summary and Chapter 8 at a minimum if you are interested in strategic and defense views in the Asia-Pacific.

[davidbfpo]

Good catch Bill M., as this White paper was only unveiled on Friday afternoon by Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister.

I rely on the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, for awareness on Australian and Pacific matters. From their pre-release comment:

This White Paper will be a signature foreign policy document for Prime Minister Gillard. If it hits the mark, it could come to be seen as a milestone for Australia's relations with Asia. Or it could be just another quickly forgotten government report.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...er-launch.aspx

So a few selected sentences from their commentary:

The language of the speech and the White Paper is lofty and inspirational. The PM's speech is titled 'History asks great nations great questions', and the White Paper itself calls the Asian century 'a truly transformative period in our history' and 'a transformation as profound as any that have defined Australia throughout our history'.

...there is very little sense of the risks of the Asian century.

The PM's description of Asia's explosive growth and the opportunities it offers was never accompanied by any warnings about the potential downsides, particularly the fact that Australia's relative influence in the region will decline as the region's developing economies continue their explosive growth

The commentary:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...pressions.aspx

[Ray]

New initiative to allow all Australian children to learn Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese or Bahasa

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/wor...#ixzz2AgHXDSAp