In recent months, China has been challenging the Unites States’ security agenda with its territorial claims in the South China Sea. And now that Australia has basically teamed up with the US and its allies against China, it becomes more interesting

the North West Cape base in Western Australia is a key US “anti-satellite” facility, tracking Chinese as well as Russian satellites for destruction by unspecified weapons.

Therefore, deals signed between the US and Australia have paved the way to station US Marines in the northern Australian city of Darwin and thus provide broader access for US aircraft and warships to Australian military bases and ports.

That kind of ‘cooperation’ allows the US to take Australia to the war against China even without having a vote in the Australian parliament. Australia would immediately become a participating side of the conflict, with or without the wish to become one.

Australia should have learned from its involvement in Iraq that its interests are not served by following the USA into conflict

ALMOST 19,000 troops will be playing war games in the Territory and off the coast of Northern Australia in July as part of the Australian and US military exercise, Talisman Sabre.

The biennial event is the Australian Defence Force’s biggest combined military exercise.

Australian Army Brigadier Robert Brown said the Northern Territory part of Talisman Sabre had grown this year and would involve about 18,800 Navy, Army and Air Force personnel from Australia and the US.

“This year a larger portion of the exercise will be staged in the Top End,” he said.

“For 2015, the focus of the exercise, particularly air and maritime operations, will be in the North Australian Range Complex, Timor and Arafura seas however, a number of land activities will continue to be carried out at training areas in the East Australian Range Complex in Queensland.


“We continue to work with traditional owners to fine tune a staged beach landing at Fog Bay which will occur before the exercise moves into the vast Bradshaw Field Training Area on the Northern Territory and Western Australian border.”

A public open day will be held at the Darwin Showgrounds on July 5 and there will be heightened military activity in the Darwin region.

This year will be the sixth time the exercise has been conducted and will involve about 30,000 Australian and US participants with planning and military operations at sea, in the air, and on land.

The exercise will be run in the Northern Territory and Queensland from July 5 to 21.

Japan's Ground Self-Defence Force (JGSDF) — its army — will send 40 personnel to participate in Talisman Sabre, a two-yearly drill that begins on July 7 which will involve around 27,000 servicemen, a spokesman told AFP.

"We will participate in joint exercises with the US Marines rather than operating directly with the Australian military," he said.

But the participation was seen as part of efforts to strengthen defence ties between Japan and Australia, he added.

The drill, which takes place in Australia, is intended to "improve tactical expertise in amphibian operations and to strengthen Japan-US interoperability", an army statement said.

News of Japan's participation came as tensions remain high in the region, with increasing criticism of China's behaviour in the South China Sea, where it has accelerated building artificial islands in disputed waters.

In July last year the United States, India and Japan held week-long war games in the Pacific.

Australia has sided with the US in a program of strategic containment of China and Darwin is at the centre of a regional military buildup. But you’ll likely read better coverage of it in China than here. Later this month, as the monsoon subsides and soft mud becomes solid ground, the permanent rotation of US marines through Darwin will enter its next iteration. Another 1,150 marines will arrive in the Top End, bringing with them a plethora of vehicles, weapons and ammunition. In Chinese media, details of the rotation, along with the similarly underreported plans to use the Australian Cocos Islands as a base for American drones, are represented as what they in fact are: clear evidence that Australia is siding with the US in a program of strategic containment of China.

It is unsurprising that Australians are only vaguely aware that the first ever permanent peacetime deployment of foreign troops in the nation’s history is now occurring. The yarns spun by our politicians portray the deployment, which will swell to at least 2,500 marines over the next few years, as doing all things for all people. To our wary southeast Asian neighbours, the rotation is presented as a humanitarian aid and disaster relief operation, ready to spring into action at the first whiff of a meteorological event. Nationally, it is downplayed as a mere “troop rotation” and “interoperability” exercise, an end in itself with no greater military implication. Locally, an upsurge in jobs servicing the American troops is promised, as too is an influx of foreign currency to be spent on entertainment, infrastructure and tourism. Recent news of Chinese military construction in the South China Sea is troubling, but in the context of the unprecedented American regional military expansion that has been occurring for years it is unsurprising. If the Australian government desires to dampen regional tensions, and seek a path different from unquestioning support for the US in a zero-sum confrontation with China, an honest dialogue on how our foreign policy supports the national interest must be undertaken. While the nature and purpose of the Darwin marine rotation remains obscured, the prospects for this are bleak.

USA war planes including the eight-engine bombers and fast fighter jets will operate from RAAF Base Darwin and Tindal. The NT is set to be pounded by the world’s oldest and most destructive heavy bomber - the legendary B-52 Stratofortress - under the 25-year “force posture agreement” signed by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Defence Minister David Johnston during the annual AUSM talks Sydney today.

The 1950s era B-52 is the oldest aircraft in the US air force inventory and is at the leading edge of its strategic nuclear strike capability. The aircraft can carry nuclear warheads to targets anywhere on earth.