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...

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.

An Aboriginal land council has said it was partially briefed about the US military using a port on the Tiwi Islands to the north of Darwin.

The revelation came amid political argy-bargy at a Senate committee hearing about whether the Tiwi Land Council should publicly talk about the issue.

Senator Nova Peris asked the Tiwi Land Council about facilities at Port Melville.

"Has the Tiwi Land Council been briefed on the potential for the facilities to be used by US Marines or other US military organisation?" Senator Peris asked.

Tiwi Land Council executive member Andrew Tipungwuti was reluctant to go into details.

"We have been briefed on that but in part, it's not to the full extent," he said.

"If you'd really like to know, there is opportunity for any vessels floating around the Tiwi Islands, once the port gets to a development stage and does the processes, there's going to be opportunity for boats to pull in and fuel up."

Singapore-based company Ezion took out a sub-lease for Port Melville in 2010.

The Australian newspaper previously reported the company was in talks with the US military about storing military equipment there and had one day hoped to service military vessels.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion had argued Senator Peris's questions were not relevant to the hearing.

"They're asking the land council whether or not they've been briefed about the use of land that's already been leased out and sub-leased in some cases," he said.

"It just seems that the questions are coming from the position as if the land council would still be in some sort of control of the land."

But Greens Senator Rachel Siewert intervened.

"All Senator Peris asked, I would have thought it was a fair question to ask, have you been briefed? It's a pretty important issue," she said.

Tiwi Land Council acting chief executive Brian Clancy told the ABC he was unable to comment further on the briefing.

The Port Melville redevelopment has now been taken over by AusGroup.

The port was subject of considerable controversy when it was revealed that construction this month that the developer ignored environmental assessment processes.