There are around 800 American bases deployed around the World. But many of these locations have only minor staff and many are logistic to its nature, and most staffmembers are desktop workers and pencil pushers. However the Americans have quite a few fighting military bases around the World.
The US has got several well integrated installations in Australia. Pine Gap is the commonly used name for an Australian Earth station approximately 18 kilometres i.e. 11 miles South-West of the town of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in the centre of Australia. Pine Gap is operated by both Australia and the United States. Its longer name is Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG). It consists mainly of desktop workers.
But there is another American base in Australia. This American base in Australia I think we have to shed light on. The base as such, wich is located in Darwin at Australia’s North-West coast, does not give you any information of how many Marines Darwin can harbor. Darwin’s port can take in at least one WASP-class vessel. Darwin is a quite small Community, a city but not a big city by American standards, only about 130,000 inhabitants. More about Darwin further down.
If you bring the American troops home the World will be overrun by the Chinese and the Russians in no time, and the US is still dependent on oil from the Middle East to a level of more than a quarter of its oil-consumption (2016). The US would get none oil if the Chinese had their will. The US can hope for and plot for a regime change in Venezuela to create a boost in oil-production in that particular country in order to increase oil imports from that country to the US if the new regime is friendly to the US. Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. But it is shale oil. And Canada has lots of extra oil that they export mainly to the US. Albeit not oil suitable to make gasoline from there either.
I think that China is too weak in its nuclear capacity to survive a war with the US. China relies on Russia’s nuclear capacity and Russia relies on China’s conventional forces. They have a marriage of reasoning. But believe this, they do not trust each other!
Kremlin thinks that Russia should be in par with China since Russia has a bigger nuclear capacity. But China’s bigger economy wins in the every day life. Russia is slowly losing its grip of the Russian Far East to the Chinese. That among other things is why Putin has agreed to develop his nation’s economic ties with Japan, sell some oil to the Japanese to level out the Chinese influence in the Russian Far East. Putin doesn’t want to put all his eggs in one and the same basket, namely China.
Russia’s biggest motivator is China. Russia’s little escapades in the Baltic Sea are a luxury they sometimes can engage in. Its Southern borders and its Eastern border are much more important. They just don’t want us to know that. However Russia is strongly enforcing development economically and militarily in the region of the Kola peninsula at Barents Sea in their North.
Does China have a bad geographic location in case of a conventional war with the US? Not necessarily. America can to my knowledge only accommodate some three thousand marines in total in barracks located at the relatively small community of Darwin in the North of Australia fairly close to the Malacca strait. And even this small number puts a strain on Darwin’s community (you know, unmarried girls). And the port of Darwin is quite limited. LPD:s and LHD:s like San Antonio class or Wasp class visiting Darwin can only do this one by one it seems. Also, Darwin was attacked by air by the Japanese in World war two. Wouldn’t we see a rerun, and this time the crime would be committed by the Chinese? It is true, Obama talked about shipping 25 000 marines to Darwin. Yeah, good luck! They would have to close Darwin down when all the young girls have left for America. As if the Darwiners aren’t pissed off enough as it is. Probably.
Homework:
As we have established in my ”Strategic school introduction” and in an earlier Lesson one ”The importance of Uganda in big politics”, the Americans fear a possible axis between China, Russia and Japan.
1. Do you see a growing axis between China, Russia and Japan?
2. How will that play out you think?
3. Will the US be left in the wake of a new world order?
4. Are the Americans rational in their fear or is Japan going to continue to be benevolent towards the US of A?
Search for information on the Internet for this task! For example you can search for ”Putin, Russian Far East, China, Shinzo Abe, Japan” and then maybe you will get some relevant information.
Roger M. Klang, defense political Spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden
The strategist cowboy 