The fatal friend

Henry Kissinger is reported to have said “it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” Australia should take note, enmeshed as it is with US bases. The fallout may affect us too.

A recent report in The Guardian highlights how the US military controls 17 facilities on mainland Australia and has access to 75 more Australia-run military installations. The report was prepared by Richard Tanter, a senior research associate at the independent public policy thinktank the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability and an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne. Tanter says the US military’s expanding presence is not in service of its junior alliance partner but rather US interests alone.

“Over more than a decade, the United States has been preparing the capacity for high-tempo warfighting operations springboarding from Australia,” he says. “And that means we are aligning ourselves completely with American strategic planning.

“From a Chinese perspective, Australia is not so much hosting US bases on its territory, it’s a US base in its own right … Australia is a serious piece of real estate in the US warfighting machine.”

The issue of whether the US facilities are a base or simply a “rotational” exercise has become topical and controversial as the US bases in the Middle East have become the targets in Iran’s response to the US’ attack on it, to the extent that US forces have now withdrawn to safer locations further away.

This has led to a classic fudge: all these US facilities are not really US bases, just Australian territory through which US forces are “rotated.” Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute and Professor Hugh White discuss the issue here.

I know the reality, as I was a temporary assistant chaplain to the USAF at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk in the 1960s. The RAF badge was on the gate, but the USAF controlled what went on inside. There were squadrons of C-130s there on 90-day temporary duty rotation, but also RC-135 aircraft on 8-hour seven day roster carrying the back-up nuclear trigger.

Dr Emma Shortis, the director of international and security affairs at the Australia Institute, argues that the Trump administration has repeatedly demonstrated that the US is willing to jettison security commitments made to allies. US bases across the Middle East have been repeatedly attacked by Iran.

Shortis says:

Australia’s increasing integration with the US military has resulted in “an accelerating erosion of Australia’s independent, sovereign, decision-making power”.

“Instead of having the option of saying ‘no’ to involvement in United States wars, involvement becomes the default position.”

She cites the March attack by a US nuclear-powered submarine on an Iranian frigate, sinking it and killing more than 100 people. Three Australian naval personnel were onboard, part of the submarine’s crew: the US did not forewarn Australia of the attack.

“Australia might maintain the pretence of sovereign decision-making power, but that’s not the reality.”

The first signs that war is imminent in the minds of the military planners come with the logistic pre-positioning of fuel, arms and equipment. In June this year, Marles announced the establishment of a $30m US logistics base in Wodonga, Victoria. He says:

“We are seeing a growing US footprint in Australia that is important in terms of building our own military capability but also it’s very important for Australia’s national security.”

Marles said the “hugely significant American presence” in the region was a balance to China’s “very significant military buildup”

And we should not think that all of this has nothing to do with us. Just this week, we have seen Australian F-35 aircraft practising attacks at Waiouru with Ohakea-based RNZAF P-8 patrol aircraft, and also setting up a preliminary base for arming and refuelling these aircraft.

The problem this creates is any notion that we run an independent foreign policy as things stsand at the moment is just wishful thinking. Assistant Secretary for War Elbridge Colby spelled it out in Manila last month:

Consistent with the NSS, our priority is to field a fully operational, resilient architecture of denial defense stretching along the First Island Chain. This includes robust, distributed theater logistics and prepositioned assets in the Western Pacific. We are committed to building this shared logistics infrastructure alongside our allies and partners, ensuring we can sustain combat-credible power where it matters most. Yet this defense architecture cannot rest on American shoulders alone. It must be upheld by a network of highly capable, sovereign nations that have modernized their own forces and stepped up to secure their own territory — transforming our relationships into true partnerships of equals.

The reference to the first island chain means that this architecture is right at China’s maritime border. It is not an example of deterrence so much as pro[position of conquest; Colby makes that clear elsewhere in his speech: add in the Opium Wars and the Boxer rebellion to underline the point.

This is not a new observation. Indeed, this recognition of the importance of Asia is also a return to the deep roots of American foreign policy. Such an understanding of the rising importance of Asia and its economic heft goes back not only to the postwar period but to the 19th century — to the Open Door, the opening of Japan, and of course America’s presence here in the Philippines as well as across the Pacific in places like Hawaii and Samoa.

Our defence establishments are increasingly integrated and planning to be further so, our diplomatic and security agencies are also aligned, and our Prime Minister describes us as a “force multiplier.” The citizenry has no say, even as the evidence shows that its assessment is moving against the official stance that the greatest threat to our security comes from China.

Distance is no longer our friend. Particularly if we turn ourselves into a logistics depot to serve the interests of the United States. They will not come to our aid; we should not be offering to support their strategic conquests.