U.S. military agreement setting Australia up as launching pad for war

An agreement authorising the U.S. militarisation of Australia needs to be terminated before our nation is dragged into war, writes Bevan Ramsden.

WHEN IT COMES to military activities or agreements between Australia and the United States, the ANZUS Treaty is waved to provide “motherhood” authorisation or justification for such activities. More recently, the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the U.S. has been used to authorise and justify certain military acquisitions, nuclear-powered submarines in particular.

However, neither of these treaties mentions, justifies or authorises the U.S. military build-up in the Northern Territory and elsewhere in Australia. It is the U.S.-Australia Force Posture Agreement (FPA), signed in 2014 by former Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and former Defence Minister David Johnston for the Australian Government, and by John F Kerry and Chuck Hagel for the U.S., that provides the legal basis for the comprehensive U.S. militarisation of Australia, especially the Northern Territory, thus setting up Australia as a U.S. forward base from which to launch its next war.

It is somewhat surprising that the FPA, which surrenders our sovereignty to a foreign military power, is given little attention by the media or defence academics and strategists. Even the peace movement presently doesn’t give the FPA the attention it deserves. Nothing in the ANZUS Treaty or the AUKUS pact has opened the gate for a foreign military build-up on our territory with integration of our Australian Defence Force (ADF) in its war preparations. Only the FPA does that.

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It started in 2011 when President Barack Obama announced to the Federal Parliament his “Pivot to Asia” military strategy and his deployment of up to 2,500 U.S. Marines for six months each year to the Northern Territory to practice for war with our ADF. His announcement was greeted with a standing ovation by a joint sitting of Federal Parliament, with then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard sycophantically praising Obama and effusively thanking him for his supposed generosity.

Representatives of the Australian and U.S. governments then sat down and produced the FPA, which was signed in 2014. Meantime, the deployment of U.S. Marines to Darwin commenced, initially with 1,200 personnel and increasing each year to the present 2,500. Following the 2022 AUSMIN Conference between U.S. and Australian defence and foreign affairs ministers, that figure is expected to increase even further.

But the gate opened by the FPA to the U.S. military doesn’t end with U.S. Marines stationed in Darwin, as a review of the FPA clauses makes clear:

ARTICLE IV

AGREED FACILITIES AND AREAS

With full respect for Australian sovereignty and the laws of Australia, United States Forces and United States Contractors shall have unimpeded access to and use of Agreed Facilities and Areas for activities undertaken in connection with this Agreement.

Such activities may include: training, transit, support and related activities; refuelling of aircraft; bunkering of vessels; temporary maintenance of vehicles, vessels and aircraft; temporary accommodation of personnel; communications; prepositioning of equipment, supplies and materiel; deploying forces and material; and such other activities as the Parties may agree.

Australia hereby grants to the United States operational control of Agreed Facilities and Areas, or portions thereof designated pursuant to Article 20(3) of the SOFA, for construction activities and authority to undertake such construction activities on, and make alterations and improvements to, such Agreed Facilities and Areas.

ARTICLE VII

PREPOSITIONING OF DEFENCE EQUIPMENT, SUPPLIES, AND MATERIEL

In accordance with the consultation mechanisms in Article III of this Agreement, United States Forces may preposition and store defence equipment, supplies and materiel (“prepositioned materiel”) at Agreed Facilities and Areas. United States Forces shall notify, appropriately in advance, the ADOD regarding the types, quantities and delivery schedules of defence equipment, supplies and materiel that United States Forces intend to preposition in the territory of Australia, as well as regarding the United States Contractors who will make such deliveries.

The prepositioned materiel of United States Forces, and Agreed Facilities and Areas designated for storage of such prepositioned materiel shall be for the exclusive use of United States Forces, and full title to all such equipment, supplies, and materiel remains with the United States. United States Forces shall have exclusive control over the access to, use of, and disposition of such prepositioned materiel and shall have the unencumbered right to remove such prepositioned materiel at any time from the territory of Australia.

United States Forces and United States Contractors shall have unimpeded access to Agreed Facilities and Areas for all matters related to the prepositioning and storage of defence equipment, supplies and materiel, including delivery, management, inspection, use, maintenance and removal of such prepositioned materiel. As mutually determined by the Parties, aircraft, vehicles and vessels operated by or for United States Forces shall have access to aerial ports and seaports of Australia and other locations, for the delivery to, storage and maintenance in, and removal from the territory of Australia of United States Forces’ prepositioned materiel.

AUKUS: The militarisation of Australia

U.S.-funded think tanks continue to uncritically promote the AUKUS arrangement, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

The line at the start of paragraph 1 – ‘With full respect for Australian sovereignty...’ – must be someones idea of a joke. The gateway authority provided to the U.S. military by the FPA might have the agreement of successive Australian governments, both Liberal/Coalition and Labor, but that does not alter the fact that our sovereignty has been sold out.

On the contrary, it simply means that successive Australian governments have severely compromised our sovereignty and should be treated as collaborators with a foreign government to the detriment of the Australian people’s best interests.

The terms of the FPA allow massive fuel, munitions and spare parts storage facilities, as well as maintenance facilities, to be built in the Northern Territory exclusively for U.S. military use. This construction has already commenced.

Because of the FPA, RAAF Tindal, near Katherine in the Northern Territory, is being massively upgraded at Australian taxpayers expense to accommodate and support U.S. military aircraft, including up to six U.S. B-52 nuclear-capable long-range bombers, each able to reach China without refueling.

Of course, the FPA facilitates the stationing of U.S. Marines in Darwin each year and the war preparation training they undertake in conjunction with our ADF. To better direct and control their military forces the U.S. has established a regional command centre in Darwin. The U.S. Marines, Air Force and Navy operating within and from Australia are all under the command of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command whose region of responsibility includes Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and China, all the Pacific Nations and the other countries in South-East Asia. The U.S. military forces and military facilities in Australia are not under the control of the Australian Government.

It would surely be fair comment to see the effect of the FPA as enabling the U.S. military to set up Australia as one of its launching and supporting bases for a war. No second guesses are needed. That war, those hostilities, will be directed at China who the U.S. sees as a threat to its regional dominance. The presence of these launchpad U.S. military facilities and troops on Australian soil could well bring retaliation in such a war from China using their long-range missiles, which can reach all parts of Australia.

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Targets would include Pine Gap, the Harold E Holt Submarine Communications Station at North West Cape in Western Australia and other strategic U.S. facilities in Australia providing critical support for such a war.

Involvement with the U.S. in a war against China would be a disaster for Australia, the region and the world and is unnecessary because the issue of Taiwan’s relationship with Beijing is an internal matter for China to sort out without foreign interference, one would hope peacefully.

As former Australian PM Paul Keating has said:

”Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest.”

The interests of the Australian people, especially our peace and security, would be best served by the Australian Government invoking Article XXI, Clause 3 of the FPA which enables the FPA to be terminated by either party giving one year’s notice.The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, in a recent media release, called for termination of the FPA. It will take thousands of such calls to educate and awaken the public to the implications of the FPA and to generate the public anger and pressure which will give an Australian government the electoral threat and backbone to take the necessary termination action.

Bevan Ramsden is an ex-telecommunications engineer and a long-time peace activist who advocates for Australia’s independence. He was a member of the coordinating committee of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) for a number of years and is the editor of its monthly publication, 'Voice'.