“Restraint.” This should be the one-word diplomatic mantra for Australia about Taiwan. It should be the opening and closing of every statement an Australian prime minister utters because a descent into war between the world’s superpowers over a neuralgic issue that diplomacy has constrained for 70 years – this is the last thing our battered and bruised planet wants.

And it should be the last thing Australia should appear to be talking up. The prospect of such a clash producing a nuclear exchange is spookily high. By installing American facilities on our continent we have made Australia a target. That’s reason enough to plant us in the peace camp.

We’re left a bit exposed because alone of America’s allies we have said we will join America if there’s a showdown, presumably within the first week. It’s almost as if in the corridors of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Defence department the hawks are humming the World War I recruiting song, Australia Will Be There.

This begs the question: is there any rigorous analysis by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on how Australia might help avert war, or whether our diplomats are entirely sidelined and relegated.

Canberra needs to commission a document for the national security committee of cabinet that scripts our leaders to press Washington and Beijing on the practical measures that would avoid a descent into war.

The USFPI are an extension of Australia’s existing Defence relationship with the US and support the common interest of promoting regional security and stability.

The MRF-D has grown in size and complexity since the first rotation of US Marines through Darwin in 2012. In 2019, the goal of 2500 US Marines training with the ADF stationed in Darwin was reached.

The structure of MRF-D continues to evolve in response to the changing environment and advances in technology, with the focus shifting to capability rather than numbers. Highly complex joint training scenarios are now being executed, which continue to challenge our forces and better prepare us to rapidly respond in the region, if and when called upon to do so.

This year, about 2200 US Marines and sailors conducted a comprehensive range of training activities, including humanitarian assistance, security operations and high-end, live-fire exercises – exercises that develop enhanced interoperability between the ADF and US Marines and key partners.

At AUSMIN in September 2021, Australia and the USA announced the agreement to enhance force posture cooperation in four key areas to: establish an integrated logistics capability, expand existing enhanced air cooperation, enhance maritime sustainment cooperation, evolve bilateral and multilateral operations and exercises.

A pair of Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers flew over northern Australia during a training mission Monday, according to Australia’s Department of Defence.

Expect to see more B-1Bs in Australia in future, according to Ross Babbage, a former Australian assistant defense secretary.

The AUKUS defense pact announced by Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in September includes provisions to make it easier for allied ships and aircraft to operate Down Under, he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, is the base for a 2,500-strong air-ground task force of U.S. Marines during the southern hemisphere winter.

Northern Australia provides easy access to Southeast Asia and beyond. It includes a broad logistics and industrial support base, plenty of air space and ranges for training and a friendly local population, Babbage said.

"There is substantial expansion of fuel and other capabilities being built in northern Australia to support these types of operations," he said.

The B-1Bs rendezvoused over the Timor Sea with two Australian tankers, which transferred fuel to them at an altitude of 30,000 feet, according to the statement.

The AUKUS announcement has fuelled more speculation about possible expansion of the marines' presence in the Top End, which Defence Minister Peter Dutton has already said he would like to see.

In an interview with the ABC, the USA's Charges d'Affaires in Australia, Michael Goldman, said talks on the subject were ongoing.

Michael Shoebridge, the director of defence, strategy and national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said northern Australia was becoming another staging point for US personnel, logistics and resources in the Asia Pacific.

Under the 2011 agreement, marines will keep returning to Darwin each dry season for 25 years, ending in 2036. The USA Charges d'Affaires, said the deployments were "just a beginning rather than an end" of the US presence in Australia.

Defence strategist Paul Dibb has urged the upgrade of the RAAF’s Top End “bare bases”, saying the government’s $1.1bn investment in RAAF Base Tindal is a “clear sign of the deteriorating security environment”.

Professor Dibb, who sounded the alarm over the vulnerability of Australia’s north in a landmark 1986 review, also called on the government to consider the acquisition of land-based missiles, to give the nation a credible long-range strike capability.

“We need strike, with significant range. Not short-range. The days of just sitting offshore are gone,” the Australian National University scholar and former intelligence chief said.

US Studies Centre defence analyst Brendan Thomas-Noone said USAF B-52s were likely to be “rotated through” RAAF Tindal.

“It’s about trying to present more targets for China to account for,” he said. “If you are able to land these bombers in Australia, in the Indian Ocean, in other parts of Southeast Asia, up in Alaska, that is a lot of different places that China would have to track, if there was a conflict.

The upgrade of the Tindal base will include major runway extensions, fuel stockpiles and engineering to support Australia’s new Joint Strike Fighters, US Air Force B-52 strategic bombers and RAAF KC-30 air-to-air refuellers.