http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/5-lessons-of-us-plan-for-a-permanent-military-presence-in-australia/248266/The U.S. has arranged with Australia to install a permanent military presence near the northern Australian town of Darwin, a move that signals shifts in President Obama's foreign policy and the U.S. vision for its role in the world. Obama will formally announce the new base with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard during his visit to Australia next week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning.
Why is the U.S., at time of economic trouble and declining military deployments abroad, creating an all-new marine base in the land that Australians call Oz? Australia is a small-ish country by any measurement except for acreage, which is actually a poor way to understand the relative strength of nations. The World Bank ranks it 15th by GDP, between South Korea and the Netherlands. It's ranked 52nd by population, less than one tenth the size of its northern neighbor, Indonesia. Its military spending is about on par with Spain.
So this is probably not about protecting Australia itself. But repositioning U.S. forces in this way reveals how Obama sees the world -- and America's place in it -- as changing. Here are five immediate lessons from the plan to build this new permanent base, something that suggests a significant change in long-term U.S. foreign policy.
(1) Yes, it's about containing China's military reach. As China rises, the U.S. is attempting to either manage or contain that rise (which you believe depends on whether you see Chinese growth as necessarily threatening to the U.S. -- given how close U.S.-China economic ties have become, it's probably more about managing than containing). But, whatever the overall U.S. strategy on China might be, the U.S. has appeared more eager to deter China's sometimes aggressive behavior in naval disputes with its neighbors, mostly over disputed islands and shipping lanes. These small-scale conflicts, especially if they escalated, could be incredibly damaging to global trade, much of which goes through the South China Sea. A greater U.S. military presence in the region, it's hoped, will deter Chinese aggression against its neighbors (which become relatively weaker as China becomes stronger) and maintain stability in this increasingly important region. "Australian strategic rationale is that we are also hedging against increasing Chinese military power and their capacity to destabilise maritime trade routes," a former Australian senior defense official told the Sydney Morning Herald. Putting troops in Darwin will expand the U.S. military reach in the Pacific, and more importantly it will establish a western Pacific troop presence that is close enough to deter China but far enough away to not have to worry about Chinese missiles.
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