MAGTFs to Oz
By lex, on November 16th, 2011
Our president and his Australian counterpart have agreed to a rotational Marine Air-Ground Task Force presence in Darwin:
Australia has agreed to host a full US Marine task force in the coming years, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced at a news conference with US President Barack Obama in Canberra.
She said about 250 US Marines would arrive next year, eventually being built up to 2,500 personnel.
The deployment is being seen as a move to counter China’s growing influence.
But Mr Obama said the US was “stepping up its commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific”, not excluding China.
“The main message that I’ve said, not only publicly but also privately to China, is that with their rise comes increased responsibility,” he said.
“It is important for them to play by the rules of the road.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin questioned whether the move was in keeping with the region’s peaceful development.
Three comments: First Darwin is not Perth, but neither is a big, fat amphib either. Second, US servicemen have long benefited from both the fighting spirit of their Australian allies, and the warm welcome routinely given by the Australian people to American liberty parties ashore, despite occasional and even egregious excesses that did not redound to the credit either of the service, or the nation that service represents. Partly this is no doubt because the only thing better than spending money ashore in Oz is pocketing it. But it’s as least as likely that some of the locals retain a certain charitable gratitude for the service provided by the US Navy and Marine Corps, which – for an awkward period there in the early 1940s – was all that stood between their shores and Japan’s Greater Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity sphere, delivered at the tip of an Arisaka Type 30 bayonet.
But welcome mats were not made to be trampled upon, and the issue of even a quasi-permanent, rotational combat presence of US forces in Oz is likely to become part of that country’s national debate in ways that may not benefit our own national interest. Fish and house guests go stale after three days, five at a stretch. It comes to this, at least in my mind: The proud warriors downunda are less in need of rotational Marine Expeditionary Units than our politicians are of symbols.
Speaking of which, for all the will in the world, what do another 2500 Marines forward bring to regional security in the face of the world’s largest armed force at 2.3 million souls on active duty?
I’m all for alliances, especially with those who have proven both their willingness and ability to fight. I’m less in favor of patronizing gestures.