No to US troops in Australia!

Vanguard December 2011 p. 1
Nick G.

In a shameful abdication of responsibility for the protection of Australian national independence and sovereignty, the Australian government has agreed to the permanent stationing of US troops in Australia.

US imperialist President Barak Obama announced the permanent stationing of 2500 US marines at Darwin’s Robertson Barracks on his mid-November visit. In a cynical manipulation of media spin, the announcement was leaked the day after the annual misuse by the ruling class of people’s genuine remembrance of war dead on November 11.

In order to deflect popular opposition, the base will not be identified as a “US base” and the US Pacific Command troops will be rotated on a “pre-positioning” basis which one assumes means before being sent to other areas in the Pacific region. Robertson currently houses 4500 Australian soldiers, and will have to be expanded to accommodate the desired US deployment size.

Obama also indicated that a greater number of US war planes will use RAAF bases in the Top End, including for live bombing training exercises, and there is talk of the Curtin naval base near Perth becoming virtually a permanent dock for the ships and nuclear-powered submarines of the US Pacific Fleet.

US imperialism struggling to control the region

The Asia-Pacific Region is seen by the US imperialists as crucial to their continued economic, military and cultural domination of the globe. Establishing a much more prominent “forward presence” in the Pacific and Indian ocean regions is seen as central to out-manoeuvring China, and keeping India under control respectively. (Gillard’s proposal to reverse the ban on sales of uranium to India has also been made on US instructions and is part of the same plan.)

This new development was the thrust of a revealing article by Hillary Clinton, in the November 2011 edition of Foreign Policy magazine. Under the heading, “The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action”, Clinton articulates a vision about being “smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values.” Central to that vision is positioning the US militarily to vie with China, or as she puts it, “defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea”.

The so-called “freedom of the seas” has been a bone of contention between colonialist and imperialist powers since at least the mid-1600s, when Holland and Britain struggled over the issue. It is ironic that the US purports to champion the principle, now embedded in article 87(1)a of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, since it is the only major power to refuse to ratify the Convention. China, on the other hand, has signed and ratified the Convention.

Clinton went on to define the new US regional strategy. “For starters, “she wrote, “it calls for a sustained commitment to what I have called ‘forward-deployed’ diplomacy. That means continuing to dispatch the full range of our diplomatic assets – including our highest-ranking officials, our development experts, our interagency teams, and our permanent assets – to every country and corner of the Asia-Pacific region.”

We will, we will rule you!

It is not difficult to see that the dominant imperialist power will stop at nothing to deny sources of raw materials, access to labour, opportunities for investment and political and cultural influence to its competitors. In this respect, an imperialist power led by a Nobel Peace Prize winner is nothing but an imperialist power.

“We have to guarantee that the defense capabilities and communications infrastructure of our alliances are operationally and materially capable of deterring provocation from the full spectrum of state and non-state actors,” declared Clinton.

It is almost like she has rewritten the old Queen lyric and is singing “We will, we will rule you!” And Obama has made it clear that only the US can make global rules, and that China must abide by them.

US imperialism redefines Australia’s subservience

Clinton again: “We are also expanding our alliance with Australia from a Pacific partnership to an Indo-Pacific one, and indeed a global partnership. From cyber-security to Afghanistan, to the Arab Awakening, to strengthening regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific, Australia's counsel and commitment have been indispensable.”

This is the US imperialist state machine dictating the terms of the service it expects from the client traitor class running Australia. It is not necessary to consult the Australian people on the role they wish to play internationally, as they do not hold state power and are under the class dictatorship of a bourgeoisie that aligns with US imperialism.

Noting that “we have resumed joint training of Indonesian Special Forces units,” Clinton observed that “The stretch of sea from the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca to the Pacific contains the world’s most vibrant trade and energy routes.”

Hence, in addition to basing US forces at Robertson, there will be a significant permanent naval presence in Singapore.

“The United States will be deploying littoral combat ships to Singapore, and we are examining other ways to increase opportunities for our two militaries to train and operate together”, wrote Clinton. All of this adds up to what Clinton called “a more broadly distributed military presence across the region (which) will provide vital advantages”.

For national independence and socialism

We Australians must reject the imposition on us of even greater subservience to US imperialism. We must demand of our government that it develop and maintain a capacity for independence in foreign policy.

Ultimately that noble goal can only be achieved when we take state power into our own hands and formally establish national independence on the basis of a socialist economy.