There’s hectic construction activity taking place in Australia with the help of the United States.
What makes this collaboration interesting is the location on these air bases – in Darwin and Tindal in northern Australia. Thanks to its location, Darwin is closer to the Philippines than Australia’s capital city of Canberra. It also makes it strategically important in the context of the tension in the South China Sea.
Wing Commander Fiona Pearce, RAAF Base Tindal said, “Tindal is geographically really important. We are in the north of Australia so we have a greater reach into our near region and we also have the ability to avoid cyclones by being that little bit further inland so that weather that can impact our capacity to respond to incidents is not something that we suffer from here in Tindal to the extent that they do in Darwin. So that does make this location vitally important.”
Darwin has been a garrison town in Australia for years. A US Marine Rotational Force also spends six months here per year. A few hundred kilometres to the south of Darwin is Tindal, another Royal Australian Air Force base, that has key elements of Australia’s airpower and was a temporary base for US jets in recent exercises.
Documents reviewed by Reuters show that the US military wants to be ready in the event that there is any escalation in the South China Sea. Commanding Officer of the United States Marine Rotational Force Colonel Brian Mulvihill called Darwin a key terrain.
“Darwin is absolutely what we call key terrain for us to bring, to help bring stability to the region. It gives us access to the southern portion of those islands that you mentioned earlier through a nation in which we have close sovereign ties with. Our governments are aligned, our militaries are aligned so it really is just a prime area for the Marine Corps to be able to come and train, train with Australian Defence Forces and gain access to the region.”
In fact, war games this month included troops from the Philippines and Timor Leste. So what exactly does the construction activity involve?
Wing Commander Fiona Pearce explains, “Tindal has traditionally been a fast jet base and what that means is that we’ve had small runways, the amount of fuel that we need for fast jets to take off and land. What we are moving towards is a multi-purpose base so we are going to be big enough to take any aircraft in the world and to park and fly every different variant of aircraft. So there’s runway increases, fuel increases and a whole bunch of other facilities that are being worked on as well.”
The United States has started building facilities worth hundreds of millions of dollars to support B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters, and refuelling and transport aircraft. This is part of a larger effort to distribute US forces around the region and make them less vulnerable.
These construction projects are expected to continue next year too and aim to make northern Australia the top overseas location for US Air Force and Navy construction spending, with more than $300 million set aside under the US congressional defence authorisations.
