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Deepen a series of military cooperation and cooperate in implementing the "Indo-Pacific Strategy"——

The escalation of the US-Australia military alliance has a serious impact on the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region

Australia recently signed an agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom to exchange nuclear secrets and transfer nuclear materials, taking a key step towards equipping the Australian Navy with nuclear submarines. In a new round of "2+2" talks between the US and Australian defense and foreign ministers, the two sides announced that they would deepen a series of military cooperation, including upgrading key air force bases in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, increasing the frequency of US rotational forces in Australia and the deployment of patrol aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, and bombers, and strengthening cooperation in the production of precision strike missiles and other ammunition.

In recent years, as the United States promotes the so-called "great power competition" and "Indo-Pacific strategy", the status of the US-Australia military alliance in the US global strategy has continued to improve, and the military cooperation between the two sides has gradually upgraded, showing many new trends in strategic cooperation, tactical integration, equipment and logistics integration, etc., becoming an uncertain factor affecting the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Royal Australian Navy's destroyer HMAS Sydney launches a missile during the Rim of the Pacific 2024 exercise.

The US military's F-22A fighter jets, the Royal Australian Air Force's F-35A fighter jets, and the KC-30A multi-purpose tanker are at the Australian Tindall Air Force Base.

Upgrading Relationships——

Aims to create a "fulcrum" for the alliance

The Australia-New Zealand-United States Security Treaty signed by Australia, New Zealand and the United States in 1951 was the starting point of the US-Australia military alliance. Since then, successive Australian governments have used the alliance mechanism with the United States as the ballast of their defense policy. In 2014, the United States and Australia signed a military deployment agreement to set a legal framework for the US military presence in Australia. The "2+2" talks between the US and Australian defense and foreign ministers have also become a mechanism for communication channels.

After the Biden administration came to power, the United States accelerated the implementation of the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and attached greater importance to the role of Australia. On the basis of deepening the bilateral military alliance between the United States and Australia, the United States has also continuously built a "mini-multilateral" alliance network to maintain US hegemony and deter strategic opponents. For example, the establishment of the US-UK-Australia trilateral security partnership (Ocus), the strengthening of the US-Japan-Australia trilateral defense relationship, the upgrading of the US-Japan-India-Australia "Quadrilateral Mechanism", and the consolidation of the "Five Eyes Alliance" involve areas such as intelligence exchange, strategic coordination, and military and technical cooperation.

In order to cater to the United States, Australia proposed in its 2020 National Defense Strategic Update that the Indo-Pacific region should be the focus of future national defense planning, and advocated that Australia play a special role as a "pivot" country in the Indo-Pacific region. After Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom formally established "Ocus" in 2021 and sought to import nuclear submarines, in April this year, the United States, Britain and Australia wooed Japan to join "Ocus" and expanded military and technological cooperation to important military and technological fields such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and hypersonics. In the future, the pace of upgrading the US-Australia military alliance may be further accelerated.

Upgrade facilities——

Strengthening the role of the island chain as a “southern anchor”

Australia has always been regarded by the United States as the "southern anchor" of the second island chain, echoing Japan as the "northern anchor". Australia not only allows the US troops to use Australian military bases, but also opens existing military training venues and military ports to ensure the training of the US troops and the pre-positioning of advanced weapons and equipment. The United States has continuously increased its military investment in Australia and promoted infrastructure construction, attempting to build it into an unsinkable "aircraft carrier" that integrates attack, reconnaissance and support.

In the US military's new normalized military deployment plan, Darwin in northern Australia is an important strategic hub. Darwin is located at the junction of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and together with Guam and Diego Garcia, it constitutes a new deterrence circle of the US military in the Indo-Pacific region. Currently, the number of US Marines stationed at the Darwin base has increased to 2,500, and plans to form a joint training brigade with the Australian military. In March 2022, Australia announced that it would spend A$10 billion to build a new submarine base on the east coast to dock nuclear submarines jointly developed by the United States, Britain and Australia, and to ensure their regular deployment.

In addition, the U.S. military has also funded the implementation of the "Aviation Squadron Operations Center" plan to build a dedicated combat command center, apron and maintenance center, ammunition depot and other facilities for B-52 strategic bombers at the Tyndall Air Force Base in Australia. After completion, it can also be used to deploy various strategic delivery platforms such as B-21 strategic bombers. The United States uses multiple bases in northern Australia to frequently rotate the deployment of P-8 anti-submarine aircraft, B-52 and B-1B bombers, etc., providing a dispersed deployment plan for the U.S. troops stationed in Guam and Okinawa.

It is not difficult to see that as the so-called "great power competition" opponents' "regional denial/anti-access" capabilities improve, the United States increasingly values ​​Australia's geopolitical value in its global strategy. People of insight in Australia have expressed concerns about this, believing that the continuous escalation of the US-Australia military alliance will make Australia more dependent on the United States militarily, and its diplomatic and security policies will also be subject to the United States. If Australia cannot maintain its own strategic autonomy and continues to dance to the tune of the United States, it will face the risk of getting burned.

Upgrade training

Improving integrated combat capabilities

In recent years, the United States and Australia have comprehensively enhanced the "interoperability" of the two militaries through bilateral and multilateral joint exercises such as "Rim of the Pacific" and "Pitch Black", designed the Australian military's combat forces into high-end war preparations against the background of "great power competition", and created an integrated alliance combat system.

In February 2017, the US and Australian air forces launched the "Enhanced Air Cooperation" agreement, which aims to "rapidly strengthen the capabilities of the Australian air force and achieve seamless cooperation between the air forces of the United States and Australia." Under this framework, this year, from Australia's first dispatch of F-35A fighter jets to the United States to participate in the "Red Flag" exercise, to sending a combination of F-35A fighter jets, E-7 early warning aircraft and KC-30A tankers to participate in the "Counter North-2024" joint exercise led by the US Air Force, to more than 140 aircraft sent by 20 countries including the United States, Britain, Australia and the Philippines to participate in the "Pitch Black-2024" multinational joint military exercise, the main combat equipment of the US and Australian air forces frequently conduct air exercises and tactical training to improve the level of joint operations and coordinated combat capabilities.

The United States and Australia also frequently participate in maritime exercises. In April this year, the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines held their first joint military exercise in the South China Sea, which included anti-submarine warfare training and maritime patrols. In June, during the multinational maritime exercise "RIMPAC 2024", the Australian Navy's destroyer Sydney launched a "Naval Strike Missile" and sank the retired US amphibious assault ship "Tarawa" as a target ship. During the "Pacific Dragon 2024" exercise held earlier this month, the destroyer Sydney tested a US-made "Standard-6" missile, indicating that the Australian Navy has integrated this type of missile into its naval air defense arsenal.

In these exercises and training activities, the Australian military actively cooperated with the US military to verify new combat concepts such as agile combat deployment, distributed lethality, and penetrating air control, and to enhance the ability to use new and old equipment in a mixed manner and to coordinate across multiple services. The US military has enhanced its ability to project troops remotely to the southern Asia-Pacific region, realizing the transformation of the US military's strategic forces from "continuous stationing" to "dynamic force use", and enhancing the flexibility of force deployment.

All the facts show that the United States is trying hard to join hands with Australia to push up the strategic competition in the Asia-Pacific region. With the strengthening of the US-Australia military alliance, Australia's defense policy is changing from "passive defense" to "active intervention." This escalation of the US-Australia military alliance will make the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region more complicated, thus bringing serious negative impacts on regional peace and stability.