A View from Canberra: Home on the (weapons) range | ADM December 2011/January 2012

A Special Correspondent | Canberra

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was about Australia being a good ally, pointing to the benefits from enhancing inter-operability and of being able to mount humanitarian operations into the region. Defence materiel minister Jason Clare made the reasonable point that Australia is set to acquire two very large landing ships, giving the ADF a vastly expanded power projection capability and who better to teach us how to use that than the US Marine Corps, an explicitly expeditionary force.

Lots of commentators said this was all about containing China, a view which China itself implicitly endorsed with its comments that the marine deployment to Australia wasn’t exactly appropriate.

All the above is probably right to greater or lesser degrees. What hardly anyone seems to have noticed is that the US desperately needs space to train its personnel because its main marine base in the Asia-Pacific, the island of Guam, is full up.

For the last decade, the US has been rebalancing and reorganising its military presence in the Asia-Pacific which initially grew out of WWII and then the Cold War. In 1991, the US withdrew from its very large naval base at Subic Bay, Philippines, a process speeded by the eruption of nearby Mount Pinatubo and by the Philippines Senate’s refusal to ratify an extension of the base agreement.

That left Korea and, most importantly, Japan with around 36,000 military personnel, half of them Marines based on the island of Okinawa. Overall Japan supports the US presence but that dwindles to around 15 per cent on Okinawa, not helped by a series of high profile cases of misconduct by US troops. The worst was the 1995 abduction and rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by two marines and a sailor. That and other incidents sparked outrage and widespread calls for the US to leave.

In 2006, the US agreed to relocate 8,600 Marines of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force and 9,000 of their dependents from Okinawa to the unincorporated US territory of Guam by 2014. Another 600 military personnel with the US Army Missile Defense Force, plus dependants, are also heading for Guam.

US bases cover around a third of the island and the buildup, requiring around US$15 billion investment in new facilities and other costs, prompted one US Congressman to opine that Guam was in danger of tipping over and sinking. This is an island of 540 square kilometres, under a quarter the size of the ACT, with a population around 180,000.

The 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force includes the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, numbering around 2,200 troops and one of seven USMC expeditionary units but the only one permanently forward-deployed outside the continental US. Termed a Marine Air Ground Task Force, 31ME U has extensive operational experience in the Asia-Pacific including East Timor in 2000 and most recently in Japan assisting with earthquake relief. Though not named, this would appear to be the unit the US and Australian governments have in mind.

31ME U comprises a ground combat element of around 1,200 plus aviation and logistics arms. Guam undoubtedly has much in its favour but not the sort of space needed for a unit of this kind to train properly for the missions it will inevitably conduct. Australia does.

Under the timetable outlined by the PM and President, the initial deployment starts in 2012 with a 200-250 member liaison group, rising to a battalion group of 1,000 in 2014 and a full Marine Air Ground Task Force in 2016.

The Americans will stay for around six months at a time during the northern dry season of May to September, when temperatures are warm but reasonable but most importantly, roads are passable. They have their choice of a range of training facilities – major air bases at Darwin and Tindal plus the fully instrumented Delamere air weapons range plus two big training areas –Mount Bundey, covering 1,173 square kilometres and Bradshaw, covering 8,700 square kilometres. Mount Bundey, 120 kilometres south-east of Darwin, is used extensively for live fire training by the ADF’s 1st Brigade. Bradshaw is further out but possesses a C-17 capable airstrip.

Significant money has already been spent on these areas, plus Shoalwater Bay, following the decision at the 2004 Australia-US Ministerial meeting to create the Australia-US Joint Combined Training Centre, first tested at the 2007 Talisman Sabre (TS) exercise.

The latest biennial TS exercises in July involved some 14,000 US and 8,500 Australian personnel. It means there will be a US military presence in the NT every year, though that falls well short of permanent basing. There were of course the usual fevered media reports about basing of big numbers of Uncle Sam’s finest on Australian territory, despite routine statements by the minister that permanent basing was not planned.

Robertson Barracks in Darwin, home of the ADF 1st Brigade, has been tipped as likely jump off point for US Marines heading into or out of their training cycle, with a liaison group of around 250 arriving as early as July. All this may require some investment in new accommodation and associated facilities, although Robertson is currently not jam-packed following the departure of 7RAR to Adelaide.

There was one unequivocally joyful group from all this – those who will directly benefit from the business of cash laden US Marines heading into town after a couple of months in the NT bush.

“US defence personnel have always been welcome, will always be welcome,” said NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson. None of this changes the reality that the routine foreign military presence in Australia is not the US but Singapore which conducts its military pilot training at RAAF Pearce, WA. That’s a permanent presence of around 150 military and civilian personnel and 30 aircraft. With negligible open space for military activities, Singapore also conducts mechanised infantry training at Shoalwater Bay with a selection of armoured vehicles warehoused at Rockhampton for use in these exercises.