AUSTRALIAN and American environmental specialists were cleaning up a suspected fuel spill at a popular Darwin beach on Wednesday.

The ADF and Marines were notified of a marine fuel spill on Casuarina Beach, off Lee Point on Tuesday.

Results of sand quality testing revealed an area about 20m long and 10m wide that may have been contaminated in a spill which occurred during an amphibious offload as a part of Exercise Talisman Sabre — Australia’s largest combined military exercise, which runs through until July 21.

A spokesman said the ADF had “notified all appropriate government agencies”.

“The ADF’s environmental team took immediate steps to cordon the area and began to assess the extent of the incident,” he said.

It’s not known what caused the spill.

"It’s not known what caused the spill" - you don't think it might have been that big old Landing Craft that kept coming up onto the sand?

AUS­TRALIAN, Amer­i­can and Japanese troops will storm the beach to­day at Fog Bay, just west of Dar­win.

Dig­gers from the 2nd Bat­tal­ion will test Aus­tralia’s abil­ity to mount a full-blown am­phibi­ous as­sault as part of north Aus­tralia’s Ex­er­cise Tal­is­man Sabre, which in­volves 30,000 sol­diers, marines, sailors and fly­ers from Australia, the USA, New Zealand and Ja­pan.

The test will not only in­volve a success­ful land­ing and as­sault, but also the abil­ity to op­er­ate seam­lessly with a mas­sive force of USA Marines and their vast ar­ray of equip­ment that in­cludes huge hov­er­craft, Har­rier jump jets, Osprey ver­ti­cal take­off air­craft and am­phibi­ous land­ing craft that emerge from the wa­ter like sub­marines with wheels.

The 2nd Bat­tallion has be­come the na­tion’s first truly am­phibi­ous force and while they are not tech­ni­cally Marines the sol­diers are train­ing to spend months at a time on board one of the navy’s three new am­phibi­ous ships.

note: the aussies do still recognise they are not technically working for a foreign military.

A deserted beach south-west of Darwin is under attack in an exercise involving United States Marines and Japanese and Australian soldiers.

Fog Bay, about 70 kilometres south-west of Darwin, is where the Talisman Sabre 2015 exercise is underway.

The exercise is described by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) as a "biennial combined Australian and United States training activity, designed to train our respective military forces in planning and conducting Combined Task Force operations to improve the combat readiness and interoperability between our respective forces".

interoperability - you keep using that word.

THE USS Green Bay pulled into the Port of Darwin on Wednesday with assault and utility helicopters on her deck and a 41m landing boat in her guts.

“Our charge is to make sure those marines are where they need to be, when they need to be there, ready to fight,” Capt McCallum said.

“What this entails is amphibious landings both from air and sea.

“We’ll have landing craft (and) helicopters on board that will be able to transport the Marines and equipment to where they need to be.”

This year, for the first time, amphibious landings that previously took place in Queensland as part of the biennial wargames will now turn to public beaches in Fog Bay, threatening sensitive turtle nesting events.

Last week US assistant defence secretary David Shear announced to a Congressional hearing that the United States would soon be basing B-1 Lancer bombers and surveillance aircraft in Australia as a deterrent to China’s “destabilising effect” in the South China Sea.

This move is, in fact, part of the USA’s pre-existing “pivot to Asia” strategy, which aims to gradually emplace a blockade on China, so the USA can strangle China economically by closing off its trade routes, affecting its ability to import oil from the Middle East or elsewhere by sea.

Australia is being upgraded as a US operated base for this purpose.

Australia has a “force posture agreement” with the USA that allows “enhanced aircraft cooperation initiatives.” It has already had heavy bombers (B-52s) deployed in Australia, though the justification at this stage is that these have only been “visits” for exercises and training.

For the US Defence forces it is apparently OK to inform their own Congress about their plans for further deployment of military forces before informing the government of one of their most obviously obsequious colonies of their intentions.

However, the Chinese government almost immediately issued a statement expressing “serious concern”, declaring it would “resolutely uphold its territorial sovereignty” and warning the United States to “talk and act cautiously and not take any actions that are risky or provocative”.

Following the Chinese reaction, the Australian Prime Minister Abbott and his Defence Minister Andrews were soon claiming that the US government had contacted them to advise that the official had “misspoke” and as far as the PM understood, “the US does not have any plans to base those aircraft in Australia.”

Abbott’s statement betrays the real relationship between Australia and the United States – Abbott “understands” the Americans have no “plans” at present for basing aircraft in Australia, but there is no independent Australian view on the matter.

Contrast this with the government view on refugees and immigration...