Exercise Balikaton, Philippines, 2026: the relevance of the so-called 'Squad'

 Written by: (Contributed) on 26 April 2026

 

(Protest against the visit of US imperialism's Hegseth, 2025. Source PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central)

As the Philippines-based and US-led Exercise Balikaton military exercises take place, other related military planning behind the scenes has also become an important consideration.

While using the Philippines as the centre for the Balikaton exercises, the US-led theatre of operations has remained seemingly focused upon Island Chain Theory (ICT) with new and well publicised plans to upgrade the defence and security provision across the entire Indian Ocean. Other related considerations, however, remain subject to diplomatic silence.

The annual nineteen-day Balikaton military exercises this year have taken place against a backdrop of rising diplomatic tensions in the South China Seas. At least, that has been the openly stated reason. The Philippines is regarded by US-led diplomacy to be a major player in the close vicinity. More than 17,000 military personnel have been mobilised, together with about 10,000 US counterparts and a large contingent from Japan, with other contingents from Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada. (1) The Five Eyes would appear well represented. France, likewise, is also a substantial player in the Pacific.

The Japanese contingent has been mobilised by the US in line with their Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), marked by the alliance between the two countries being upgraded to that of a 'global alliance'. (2) Japan, previously constrained by Clause 9 of a pacifist constitution, is now allowed to act when 'the US or countries US forces are defending are threatened … with new rules that eliminate any geographical restriction'. (3)

The rising diplomatic tensions between the Philippines and China have also included direct reference to Taiwan. In fact, part of the Balikaton exercises have been planned for the Batanes island chain which is less than 200 kms from Taiwan's southern coast. (3) Balikaton has also provision for live-fire exercises in the northern part of the Philippines, facing the Taiwan Straits. (4)

The Luzon, northerly part of the Philippines, is also used by the Pentagon to house numerous sensitive military facilities, ostensibly referred to as joint facilities although controlled by the US. There is little doubt their main focus is the Taiwan Straits.

The Philippines has also been historically regarded by the US as the most reliable vantage point in the Asia-Pacific region to monitor developments and dominated by a deep penetration of US capital, ensuring a long list of compliant presidential administrations to serve 'US interests'. The present Marcos presidential administration is an example of a totally compliant government; one Cold War has merged into another, with father and son. With the changing balance of forces evident across most of the Asia-Pacific region, the US have strengthened their hold on the Philippines: geo-strategic considerations for intelligence-gathering remain of central importance, together with the country being used as a springboard for US-led incursions elsewhere. (5)

The Philippines, furthermore, has long been regarded by the US as the centre of an arc, with the northerly wing consisting of the industrial countries including Japan and the Korean peninsula, and the southerly wing swinging over less developed but resource-rich countries including south-east Asia. (6) Other US military facilities are based in the southerly Mindanao area which provide intelligence-gathering from predominantly Islamic areas which also produce oil. (7)

The role of the Philippines, in recent times, has also been upgraded by the Pentagon, largely to replace India inside the so-called 'Quad'; it is no longer a lower-level IPS partner. (8) References, moreover, have recently been given to the 'Squad' (the US, Japan, Philippines and Australia) as a replacement for an important part of the IPS. (9)

There is, however, a further reason why the Philippines has been upgraded as part of the US regional defence and security provision: the Philippines has an important role within the US Island Chain Theory, used by the Pentagon to restrict China's access and egress into the wider region.

Studies of sea maps from the previous Cold War reveal the significance.

The Philippines is strategically placed along the first island chain, which runs from northern Kuril Islands, and Bering Sea, to Japan, Taiwan, Luzon and Indonesia. The Kuril-Kamchatea Trench separates sea-waters a few hundred feet deep, from wider ocean depths of thousands of feet. (10) The second island chain extends further to the east, from Japan to Guam in Micronesia with a major US military presence. (11) The third island chain is Oceania, which has included Australia and New Zealand.

The US proposed nearly a decade ago to extend the three island chains into fourth and fifth chains, across the entire Indian Ocean, with Diego Garcia being a centre for the new chains; the remote island houses sensitive global intelligence-gathering facilities linked to Pine Gap in central Australia. (12)

It is not coincidental that the arc from US military facilities in Luzon, swings to the beginning of the first northerly island chain, then Diego Garcia and finally Pine Gap. Military facilities in Luzon, therefore, appear central importance for the IPS.

While official media releases from the Pentagon have stressed the new Squad grouping has 'more relevant focus on defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea', other considerations have been subject to diplomatic silence. (13) And the silence speaks louder than words. The evidence, nevertheless, is already in the public domain, complete with military assessments and maps.

Changes in climatic conditions have caused a significant part of the normally frozen Arctic wastelands to thaw, exposing a sea route along the northern Russian borders, with access and egress from the Bering Straits into the Chuckchi Sea along to Greenland. China's close diplomatic relationship with Russia, furthermore, is regarded as problematic by the Pentagon. China, for example, has already navigated the northern sea route.

A carefully worded diplomatic release would tend to indicate that the Pentagon has responded with alarm to this recent development and assessed the northerly sea route along lines that, 'the greatest danger the US and our allies face in this region is the erosion of conventional deterrence vis-a-vis the PRC'. (14) Classic Cold War paranoia arising from inter-imperialist rivalry/

Hidden in the small print of the Balikaton exercises, therefore, lies far more than a display of military power and inter-operability focused solely upon the South China Sea. But then, deflecting attention away from sensitivities and hidden agendas is nothing new.

Exercise Balikaton, 2026, has been marked by the upgrading of the Philippines and sensitive US military facilities in Luzon as part of a global plan to serve 'US interests' elsewhere, well to the north!

 

1.     Different strait for US show of force, Australian, 21 April 2026.
2.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
3.     Japan to extend military reach beyond self-defence, The Age (Melbourne), 29 April 2015.
3.     Australian, op.cit., 21 April 2026.
4.     Ibid.
5.     See: The role of the bases, A. Counter-insurgency and the US bases, B. Springboards for intervention into other countries, The Bases of our Insecurity, Roland G. Simbulan, (Quezon City, 1983), Chapter Five, pp. 169-216.
6.     The Objectives of the US., The Guardian, 6 August 2003; and, Ibid., page 193, which has provided a diagram of the region, with the Philippines depicted in a central position linked in straight lines to other US military facilities.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Hankyoreh, op.cit., 12 November 2019.
9.     See: Quad was made to stop China; war just broke it,  Australian, 21 January 2026; and, Quad must not whither and die, Editorial, Australian, 22 April 2026.
10.   See: Pacific Ocean, Atlas Plate 61, National Geographical Magazine, April 1962.
11.   US Indo-Pacific command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021; and, US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021.
12.   Wikipedia: Fourth and Fifth Island Chains.
13.   Australian, op.cit., 21 April 2026.
14.   RFA., op.cit., 5 March 2021.

 

Elections Within Unions and Their Limitations

Written by: Ned K. on 26 April 2026

 

(Original image from www.freepik.com)

Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto writing about the class struggle of workers under capitalism said, "Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers."

The expanding union of workers is influenced by the leadership of workers' mass organisations (unions) as well as other factors such as unemployment, and the relative strength of competing classes in particular industries or regions. In Australia, leaderships of Unions periodically have to answer to members as a whole.

Most Unions hold elections every four years or so when members vote for governing bodies of the respective Union concerned. There are variations from one Union to another on whether members vote for industry or occupation-wide candidates or whether they vote for candidates standing for a geographical region, similar to the parliamentary geographical electorates. Union elections are a voluntary voting system. 

Some Unions are Federations which means the members of each State or Territory vote directly for their State or Territory governing body such as a State Council. They also vote directly for the State Officers of the Union such as State Secretary, Assistant Secretary and State Presidents and Vice President/s.
The elected State and Territory candidates may then vote on who becomes the National Executive and National Officers of the federated Union. 

Some Unions are national in character and candidates elected to governing bodies such as a National Council are elected by members from clusters of industries or occupations covered by the Union. In National Unions, members may directly elect the National Executive and full time National Officers of the Union, or members only directly elect a large National Council who in turn elect the National Executive and the full time National Officers. The bodies such as National Councils usually have to meet on a regular basis during each year of each term of office and the Executives and full time Officers such as Secretaries are accountable to the elected National Councils.

Within both the Federated and National Unions it may or may not eventuate that there are rank and file members on the Executive for the National Officers.
Unions are mass organisations and came in to being to defend and extend the collective interests of workers, whether they are federated Unions or national Unions. The biggest challenge for Union members standing for any elected position in a Union is that capitalism in Australia has imposed an industrial system on workers that alienates them from one another and separates them from those in the leadership positions.

Site specific and company specific enterprise bargaining in place of industry-wide Awards as the method for workers acting collectively to improve wages and conditions, are coupled with industrial laws that make taking action on the job a highly risky business.

Workers nowadays who do join Unions have the opportunity to take significant collective action every three or four years if they have an enterprise agreement. If they are on an Award, they do not have any legal right to take industrial action in pursuit of better pay and conditions.

Transactional Relationship Between Union Member and Their Union Organisation

The restrictions placed on workers in the workplace by the system of capitalism as it operates today has resulted in many workers joining a Union firstly as an insurance policy if individually in trouble with the boss or needing information on their legal rights and entitlements.

This transactional relationship with the Union as an organisation as the primary relationship combined with the voluntary nature of internal Union elections has often seen candidates at Union election time appealing to members on the basis of what they will do for members rather than what they will do collectively with members to further the interests of workers as a whole.

Competing candidates or competing groups of candidates all "promise the world" to members and often "the world" they all promise is very similar.
When this is coupled with a voluntary voting system, candidates become desperate to find ways not only to win over hundreds or even thousands of members who they have never met to agree with what they offer, but also to ensure that those convinced members actually vote!

Recently a Union in England held the required Union election under English law and under 10% of members voted!

In Australia, Union elections are often conducted by the Electoral Commission who post the election ballot papers to residential letter boxes. This method of voting occurs in a social environment where more and more transactions are completed online, adding to the likelihood of low return rates of those who vote.

The limitations of Union elections facilitate unpredictable outcomes, irrespective of the sincerity of most candidates who stand for election and irrespective of the hopes of those who vote.

In Australia, there is the additional factor of affiliation of most Unions to the ALP. Union members may or may not know the political affiliation of candidates for a Union election. For some members the most important factor determining whether they vote or not, or who they vote for will have nothing to do with parliamentary political affiliations of the Union or a candidate. The decisive factor for them may be how the Union leadership which in their eyes may be their immediate Union rep or Organiser will represent them in the near future. 

The upshot of all this is that outcomes of Union elections when there are highly contested groups of candidates are very hard to predict.

 

Financialisation: fictitious capital and its real impact

 

Financialisation: fictitious capital and its real impact

Written by: Nick G. on 24 April 2026

 

A new Party publication addresses the political economy of finance capital. 

Marx analysed the growing separation of capital from the productive economy, calling such investments “fictitious capital”.  Lenin analysed finance capital’s control over industrial capital and the export of capital as one of the characteristics of imperialism. The separation of finance capital from production in the imperialist era has seen a massive growth in fictitious capital in the new financial arenas of derivatives and cryptocurrencies. The publication analyses this and the damaging impact of finance capital in Australian conditions in respect of interest rates, housing and the privatised water market. It concludes that only independence and socialism will break the hold of imperialist finance capital.

The publication is available as a pdf here: Financialisation+2.pdf

Imperialism's "Global Supply Chains" Exposed

 Written by: Ned K. on 24 April 2026

 

(Source: www.freepik.com)

The closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran has exposed for millions of working people around the world to see the fragility of "globalization" and "global supply chains". US imperialism's Trump's decision to attack Iran militarily has been a case of lifting a rock only to drop it in their own feet.

Albanese stupidly but predictably became one of Trump's first cheer leaders when the US war machine started its war on Iran. It wasn't long before he was jet setting to other countries to try and shore up alternative energy and fertiliser supplies to keep the squeaky wheels of capitalism in Australia. 

Closure of oil refineries in Australia over the last 30 years were part of the de-industrialisation of Australia by imperialism. One government after another assured the Australian people that "free trade" and "global supply chains" would more than compensate for the destruction of whole industries including oil refining in Australia.

The actions of one relatively small country, Iran, supported by its people, in blocking the Strait of Hormuz has shown the fragility of the imperialist "world economy" and caused increased hardship to millions of people across the globe.

The Albanese Government is now looking to use taxpayers' money to lure multinational oil barons to build new oil refineries in Australia as well as expand the capacity of the two remaining ones in Australia.

This is unlikely to occur as the biggest oil corporations Exxon Mobil and Chevron are frantically doing deals with African countries to seize their oil reserves both on and off - shore.

The tactic of blocking the Strait of Hormuz by Iran has also shown how dependent on fossil fuels countries like Australia are, despite all the talk about moving rapidly to a green energy future.

For millions of Australian people, the US war on Iran and the Albanese Government's tamely applauding it, has them thinking it's time for Australia to establish economic, political and military independence from foreign powers, especially USA.

A Tale of Two Imperialisms

Written by: Nick G. on 23 April 2026

 

It’s a story of two imperialisms. One, trying to stave off its decline, threatens to obliterate a nation’s bridges and power plants; the other, still rising, builds ports and infrastructure.

But their aims are the same – to secure for themselves control over spheres of influence within which to extract raw materials, secure markets for their commodities, and to invest capital in the exploitation of the labour-power of the workers of other countries.

Within the broader Left, it is now quite acceptable to talk of imperialism and to label the United States as an imperialist power.  It currently sits astride the globe like a colossus, demanding that all accept its hegemony, even as its feet of clay can no longer keep it standing as the king of the castle.

Chinese social-imperialism

Yet the question is not so clear in the case of the rising power, the one we label Chinese social-imperialism, because it claims to be socialist but is in reality imperialist. The term originated with Lenin during the First Great Slaughter when many European socialist parties sided with their own ruling class against the workers of other counries.

Our assessment is rejected by some who genuinely believe that China, despite the capitalist path followed since the deforms of Deng Xiaoping, remains socialist and is not imperialist. Others have their doubts about China, but argue that its rivalry with the United States has an anti-hegemonic character and is therefore welcome and to be supported. 

It is obvious to all that the approaches of the two rival powers to global affairs are quite different. The US has long had economic dominance and its gun has closely followed its dollar. The other has massive amounts of capital to invest and does not yet need to blast the doors to its investments open: they are opened from the inside by local elites keen to seek alternatives to the terms sand conditions applied to economic development by the US imperialist overlords.

Starting from a much lower base than the US, the Chinese are building a formidable force of arms, outstripping the US in nuclear-armed submarine production and in the new domains of cybernetics and space.

Chinese ports, but not in China

A prime example of Chinese expansion is its acquisition of ports in foreign countries. 

A list of some of the major ports includes Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Gwadar in Pakistan, Piraeus in Greece, and the Port of Djibouti in Africa. Not as large or as strategically important as these is the 99-year lease it has on the port of Darwin.

Of probably greater strategic and commercial importance is the expansion of the Peruvian port of Chancay. It has been built by China’s state-owned shipping company COSCO and the Peruvian, and now Argentinian, company Volcan. 

In 2019, COSCO acquired a 60% interest in the Port of Chancay from the mining company Volcan, in which Anglo-Swiss mining giant Glencore had a stake, purchasing 23% of Volcan in 2017 for $734 million. In 2024, Glencore sold its stake in Volcan to Argentinian businessman José Luis Manzano’s private equity firm Integra Capital.

The scale of the Chancay project is enormous.  It has been rebuilt as a major deep-water port with advanced technology and capable of servicing the world’s largest container vessels with an expected transfer of 6 million containers per year. It is planned to link Chancay by rail with Brazil’s Atlantic coast to facilitate export of raw materials needed by Chinese industries.

As a project financed by private capital, Chancay has aroused controversy by the Chinese partners’ insistence on Peru not having regulatory oversight of the port’s operations.

Drawing upon Article 60 of Peru’s Constitution, which safeguards freedom of private enterprise, COSCO took out an amparo, a case for constitutional protection, which was upheld by Peruvian courts in a decision on January 29 this year. The court ordered the national transport infrastructure regulator, Ositrán, to refrain from exercising its supervisory, regulatory, inspection, and sanctioning powers over the terminal’s operations. 

US anxiety disorder

Not surprisingly, this has caused a certain amount of anxious pants-wetting in US circles.

Much of this has been led by R. Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army War College.

In November 2024, he wrote: “From a military perspective, Chancay would be particularly useful as a large capacity deepwater port that could receive the largest PLA Navy warships and submarines. Its distance from the United States is sufficiently far to partially shield it from attacks by military forces coming from the Continental United States, while still allowing PLA Navy forces launched from there to influence the US West Coast.”

Following the amparo ruling, he upped the ante, writing on February 25, 2026 in The Diplomat that “in time of war, the Port of Chancay could be used to resupply Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships operating in the Eastern Pacific, presenting a direct threat to the U.S. homeland…”

Some in the US have even speculated that Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s Maduro was prompted by concerns about China’s expanding influence through Chancay, and that it was designed as a message to Latin American governments to cut ties with China, coming the day after Maduro had met with a Chinese government representative.

The imperialist and expansionist growth of China’s overseas interests are reason enough for US imperialism to plan for war with China, a war that will inflame our region and inevitably cause the US empire loyalists in the Australian government to throw in our lot with the US.

In a second article, we will review other Chinese ports mentioned earlier, as well as looking at the strange case of the port of Darwin, a Chinese-operated port adjacent an expanding US military presence in the Top End.

 

 

Australia’s 2026 Defence Strategy: Last gasp of US empire loyalists?

Written by: Nick G. on 23 April 2026

 

The recently released 2026 Australian National Defence Strategy continues the government’s blind acceptance of the US imperialist stranglehold on Australia at a time when that viewpoint is being increasingly rejected in favour of a more independent and peaceful foreign policy.

It is sometimes said that the erratic and bizarre behaviour of US President Donald Trump means that Australia can no longe rely on protection from its major strategic partner.

But the US-Australia “alliance” has never been about Australia’s protection, but about our being forced to accept the domination of our country by US imperialism.

Even so, the breadth and extent to which the relationship with the US is now being questioned is very welcome, and the Defence Strategy, which seeks to strengthen that relationship, may well be the last time that such an obsequious political and military “strategy” will be able to be foisted on the public.

It is not just that a stronger emerging Left is challenging the Albanese-Marles-Wong triumvirate. Led by Retired Admiral Chris Barrie, the former head of the Australian Defence Force, and Ian Dunlop, a former senior international oil and gas executive and ex-chair of the Australian Coal Association, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group slammed the Strategy. In an op ed piece in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, the pair said: “The fragility of fossil fuel supply lines and our reliance on them is now obvious, yet the newly released defence strategy downplays the strategic consequences of Australia’s fossil fuel dependence. The strategy fails to fully recognise how Australia’s expanding coal and gas exports are perpetuating a cycle of fossil fuel addiction, undermining our long-term security and claims to regional leadership.”

On the same day, in the Canberra Times, they said “The document is not a genuine strategy, but a short-term tactical response to current events that flinches from the strategic clarity required in a profoundly altered security environment.”

In fairness to the authors of the Strategy, the words “climate” and “climate change” are mentioned seven times, but with no commitment to any plan of action that would address the concerns raised by Barrie and Dunlop.

But they were not alone.

Kym Bergmann, editor of the online Asia Pacific Defence Reporter, attended the talk by Richard Marles, the Minister of Defence, at the National Press Club following the launch of the National Defence Strategy.

He described the presentation by Marles as “frankly appalling. Insulting, short-sighted and full of stupid mistakes, and most seriously of all, demonstrated an utter lack of recognition, let alone acceptance, that one of the major causes of global instability is the behaviour of the United States.”

In response to a journalist’s question about the continuing operation of the so-called international rules-based order, Marles said that you only have to fly low over the waters separating Indonesia from Australia to see its operation in the acceptance by Indonesian fishermen of the need to stay on their own side of the “border”.  It was a response that left the audience gasping at Marle’s stupidity: Indonesian fishermen regularly move into Australian waters in search of rapidly depleting fish stocks.  

As for referring to the kidnapping of one nation’s President by the armed forces of another, the sinking of boats and ships in international waters, the provision of arms for Zionism’s genocidal war against Palestinians, threats to take Greenland by force, and demands that Canada cease to exist except as a part of the United States, let alone the bombing of Iran and the threat to destroy it as a civilisation…no, Marles could see none of this.

Under his signature, the Defence Strategy declares, “The United States is our closest ally and principal strategic partner. Our Alliance contributes to the peace and stability of the region… Any effective balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific will require the continued presence and role of the United States… Australia’s force posture cooperation with the United States will continue to be a key pillar of our Alliance. It supports Australia’s ability to deter and respond, strengthens the credibility and resilience of the United States’ force posture in the region and supports collective deterrence efforts.”

Like a flagellant monk begging for more of the lash, Marles wants even greater subservience to his imperialist masters.

But across the nation, there is the growing rumble of stomachs being turned by such a sickening and servile display.

Those rumblings will become louder as the servility deepens.

There is little chance of a change in direction from the major parties. They try to outdo themselves in displays of Empire loyalty.

We are well-positioned to win more of our people to the demand for anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

 

Japan: the South-West foreign policy, 2026

Written by: (Contributed) on 21 April 2026

 

The three island chains of US military control

A Pentagon military plan to strengthen the top end of the First Island Chain has included increased reliance upon Japan. The present Takaichi government appears only too willing to oblige; couched in misleading diplomatic terminology; however, the new South-West foreign policy has a wider arc of influence than merely islands south-west of key strategic military facilities, which serve 'US interests'. The foreign policy position has, moreover, raised questions for Australia, as Japan's military partner in the Indo-Pacific region.

A major diplomatic statement from Japan, issued in early April, drew attention to it developing a South West foreign policy toward strategic islands, as it increasingly has become a front-line for the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) toward China. (1) In recent years the Pentagon has reverted to previous Cold War regional defence and security provision with Island Chain Theory; it has subsequently been revamped to serve 'US interests' with the onset of the present Cold War, and expanded into the Indian Ocean with fourth and fifth chains centred on Diego Garcia. (2) The Indian Ocean intelligence facility is
directly linked to similar Australian-based facilities at Pine Gap, Central Australia.  

The US-Japan alliance has also been upgraded in the present Cold War to a 'global alliance'. (3) It marked the culmination of US diplomatic moves to shift Japan away from a pacifist constitution imposed immediately after the Second World War, toward a fully-fledged military power to serve 'US interests'. The moves have been accompanied by Japan's defence budget doubling during the past decade, to $77.8 billion by 2024. (4)

The position of the Takaichi government has been one of total compliance; a recent diplomatic statement issued from Tokyo announced their intentions to push for policies of 'a normal country capable of war'. (5) The issue of the 're-interpretation' of Japan's pacifist constitution, however, has proved highly contentious, amongst other countries and inside Japan itself. While the moves have been supported by other US allies, they have raised serious concerns in some Asian countries previously occupied by Imperial Japan, and also some Japanese people who fear the problems associated with militarism.

Source: Global Times

And Taiwan, and its precarious defence and security provision, has conspicuously formed part of the US-led agenda for Japan; assessments have noted that 'Taiwan is moving towards the centre of world affairs', and a regional flash-point. (6) Tokyo-Taipei diplomacy is close.

It is not difficult to calculate the extent to which the Pentagon have pushed Cold War agendas during the recent period. During the period between 1991 and 2016, Taiwan initiated about 42,000 investment projects in China; in fact, it was central to China's rise to prominence. (7) Since 2016, however, most Taiwanese businesses have relocated their China operations to other ASEAN countries, in compliance with US-led directives. (8)

The East China Sea and Miyko Strait have now also been assessed as sensitive for the wider First Island Chain, which include small islands and other outcrops which have become highly strategic. Runways are under construction on Mage Island, for example, whereas missile defence batteries and surface to air missile units have been placed elsewhere. (9)   

Japan has also stationed military personnel on some islands; defence officials have verified that 'more than 10,000 Japanese military personnel are in the south-west, but several hundred each on at least four other islands'. (10) It is as if the Takaichi government has followed similar examples of policies pursued by pre-war and wartime Imperial Japan, common during the fascist period while pursuing their own far-right political agendas.

The Takaichi government has also been keen to push for the military upgrading of Japan's defence and security provision; it has followed initiatives over a decade ago for Japan to nationalise about 280 remote islands as part of military planning, despite sovereignty of some of the landmasses being contested. (11) The 'new' foreign policy has a long history.

What the recent diplomatic statement did not divulge, furthermore, was the arc from US military facilities to the islands south-west of Japan also swings northerly to the Kuril Islands and Sea of Okhotsk, which mark the beginning of the First Island Chain. (12) It has become highly sensitive in recent years with the thawing of Arctic waters, exposing sea passages north of Russia from the Chuckchi Sea and away from southerly routes. (13) The recent high-level diplomatic discourse and disagreements about Greenland are best assessed in the context. The vast landmass forms part of the access and egress into Arctic waters.

While the US has continued to fortify their First Island Chain, with military upgrading of military facilities in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines, to restrict China's access and egress into the wider Indo-Pacific region, the northerly route, for the Pentagon, has become extremely problematic. It is largely beyond normal bounds for any direct US military involvement apart from regular spy flights from satellite systems.

These developments, with the militarisation of Japan and rapid deployment facilities, have far-reaching implications for Australia which is bound by various diplomatic agreements with Tokyo. The US-led IPS, for example, rests upon the so-called 'Quad', which has been planned to contain and encircle in China, together with other diplomatic considerations between Tokyo and Canberra. Compliance, by all concerned, remains the order of the day.

It is not idle speculation, therefore, to note that Australia could be drawn into 'real-war scenarios' by the Takaichi government eagerly following directives from the White House concerning Taiwan, or elsewhere in any one of several serious regional flashpoints:
                                        
  We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Japan races to fortify island chain, Australian, 1 April 2026.
2.     Websites: Island Chain Theory.
3.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 1 April 2026.
5.     Bracing for the fallout as Japan's Iron Lady shows some mettle, Australian, 6 February 2026.
6.     Australian, op.cit., 1 April 2026.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Ibid.
10.   Ibid.
11.   Japan to nationalise 280 islands, The Age, 10 January 2014; and, Japan puts disputed islands on school curriculum, The Age, 13 January 2014.
12.   See: Map of the World, Peters Projection, Actual Size.
13.   Ibid.