US troops in Darwin - for what?

This hasn't had anything to do with our current gormless PM Tony Abbott. It was arranged during the Gillard gov. Why she agreed to a massive expansion of US troops in Darwin was beyond me at the time, and it still is. Isn't it enough that Australia comes running to get involved in every stupid US war that they invent, like the bloody US lap dog we are. Do we have to have 1,000 US troops here as well?

And for what? What possible benefit could there be to Australia to suit up with a warmonger? Hasn't our international reputation been trashed enough already with the rise of Tone and his band of merry knights and dames? Do we have to become almost a state of the US on top of having a fuckwit of a PM? *sheesh*  

But where is the benefit to Australia? 

What we get out of it is the certainty that we are now directly involved, if hostilities break out between America and China. That would make parts of Australia potential targets for attack. 

Sure, the U.S. might offer us ‘protection’ in such a scenario — but the scenario would not arise without the prior existence of our too close alliance in the first place. 

Hugh White, Professor of Strategic Studies ANU, in his 2012 book The China Choice, Why America Should Share Power, argues that stability in the Asia-Pacific region depends on the U.S. negotiating with China on equal terms. He explains that a new understanding between China – as a rising regional power – and the U.S. – whose power is presently projected the whole way across the Pacific – is absolutely vital. 

Yet all the indications are that the U.S. is more ready to follow its customary pattern of confrontation — hence its aggressive response to China’s recent establishment of a special air zone over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. 

Should Japan provoke China over this dispute and should China retaliate, the U.S. will side with Japan. And, following its long habit of fighting wars for the US, there is little doubt that Australia would become involved. 

In other words, having U.S. marines in Darwin increases the likelihood of Australia joining that country in yet another war with yet another nation with which we have no substantive dispute — following the pattern set successively in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. 

In the absence of any strategic justification for the presence of the US marines in Darwin, it is very arguable that there is a significant strategic cost to Australia, but no benefit whatsoever. more