In the near pitch blackness of a wet June morning, a US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber swoops from the sky, touching down on the outskirts of Brisbane to swiftly refuel – engines still running – at one of the US air force’s key allied bases. Before the sun is up, the nuclear-capable warplane is back in the air. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
RAAF Base Amberley, about 50km south-west of Brisbane, is a vital staging point for US military operations across the region. But it is hardly alone.
This map shows every military base in Australia, which includes US- and Australian-run bases.
Experts' warning
Analysts warn of a “saturation” of the continent by the US military, and argue that Australia’s most important security ally could drag the country unwillingly into war.
Amid the red dirt of Katherine, the runway at RAAF Base Tindal is being expanded to be able to better accommodate massive American B-52 bombers, the so-called “Stratofortresses”. These aircraft are able to land on Australian soil carrying nuclear weapons. The US government won’t tell Australia if and when they are. The Australian government won’t ask.
On the remote coast of Western Australia, a cluster of highly technological assets – deep space radar, space surveillance telescope, and the Harold Holt naval communication station – provide vital information to enable US submarine and space warfare.
The naval communication station is designed to reach submerged submarines. Its antenna array broadcasts on very low frequency radio.
Pine Gap base
The US-run Pine Gap, in the centre of the country, is regarded by some as the US military’s most valuable intelligence site outside the continental United States.
The satellite tracking and signals intelligence base detects missile launches, intercepts military communications and provides targeting information for US forces around the world.
Essentially incorruptible – difficult to access, physically or otherwise – in a desert valley in the centre of a massive continent, it downloads and transmits masses of data from powerful US satellites constantly monitoring vast swathes of the globe.
For the US military, Australia represents, in the words of one now-retired general, “location, location, location”.
Number of facilities under US control
New data compiled by the Nautilus Institute and published by Guardian Australia maps the extent of US militarisation. The US military controls 17 facilities on mainland Australia and has access to 75 more Australian-run military installations. US defence corporations have access to an additional 18.
In total, the US military and US defence corporations have control of or access to 110 facilities on Australian territory, well over half of all the military installations in Australia.
“We have been thinking about American influence on Australian defence policy as a matter of penetration,” the database’s author, Prof Richard Tanter, tells the Guardian, “and we’re aware of the closeness of the alliance, the integration of the armed forces … But what this database shows is it’s not a matter of penetration, it’s a matter of saturation. Over half of the defence facilities that we have looked at have some level of American access: that means American personnel, it means American corporations, some of the biggest armaments companies in the world.”
The US military controls or has access to 92 defence facilities on Australian soil for:
- 01Gathering intelligence, accessing satellite data for targeting information and communications intercepts.
- 02Training, including for 2,500 marines on dry-season rotation in the Northern Territory.
- 03Pre-positioning warfighting assets such as Osprey aircraft.
- 04Logistics hubs holding weapons, munitions and fuel, stored in case of a war in the Pacific.
Some bases, including Pine Gap, play critical roles in identifying targets for US strikes overseas and are well known by Australians, even if their operations are highly classified.
Others are massive – the Bradshaw field training area in the Northern Territory is the size of Cyprus – but barely known.
New bases and corporations
Announced in June, Bandiana base in Wodonga will be the site of tens of millions of dollars worth of pre-positioned US weapons, munitions, fuel and vehicles, stationed for rapid deployment in the event of conflict in the Pacific.
Beyond the military’s presence, at least 42 Australian military facilities are accessed by US defence contractors – some of the biggest weapons manufacturers in the world – which use Australian sites for manufacturing, testing and training of weapons systems deployed by militaries across the globe.
Lockheed Martin assembles guided missiles in Port Wakefield, South Australia. Northrop Grumman signed a multimillion-dollar contract this year to build rocket motors for guided weapons at Mulwala in New South Wales. Collaboration with US manufacturers will “promote allied interoperability and provide a second source of supply for critical munitions”, the Australian defence force says.
Of the military bases that operate under US control, with Australian access, Pine Gap is the best known. But its precise role in US warfighting is hidden from public view.
Like several large military bases across Australia, Pine Gap hosts multiple defence facilities, each with distinct functions: a ground-control station for signals intelligence satellites; a relay ground station for early-warning missile launch systems; and a site for intercepting foreign satellite communications.