Could the US drag us unwillingly into war?

0:00This is the Guardian. Regidarmate here on Gadigal Land with a full story. Australia has been closely aligned with America's interests and its military for some time. I would say there's never been anybody better before it war together. And as a result, dotted like an outline around parts of Australia's coast, a military bases, many of which the US has control of or access to. America is sending thousands of troops to Australia and building infrastructure. You want to know what role intelligence facility Pine Gap may be playing in. The United Nations are ramping up the US's military presence on Australian soil. Now a special Guardian investigation reveals those numbers and a breadth of Donald Trump's US military presence that some say the Australian public might not be fully aware of.

1:00Some analysts are even warning it represents a saturation or colonization of the Australian continent. Today, senior reporter Ben Doety on whether America's strong military presence in Australia could drag us unwillingly into war. It's Monday the 7th of September. Support comes from wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the world. Your life is global, your money should be too. Some providers promise no fees on overseas transfers. Don't be fooled. Extra costs often hide in bloated exchange rates. Choose wise. You can send spend and receive money in over 40 currencies. Count on the exchange rates that you'd usually see on Google. That's how millions save billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get wise, visit wise.com. Season C's apply. Hi Ben, welcome back to Full Story. Thanks for having me, Regid.

2:00First of all, I just want to start by getting you to give us this visual snapshot of how many Australian US installations there might be around the country. Because there's quite a few. Look, it is hard to conceptualize and that's what we've tried to do with this project. This has been a project we've been working on with the Nautilus Institute, which is a US-based think tank. We wanted to really understand the extent of the US military presence in Australia. Dr. Richard Tanter has been doing this work plotting basically every US military installation and sight in Australia. Perhaps in my naivety, I thought it was a few. It might have been a couple of dozen and it just kept going and growing and growing. What we're looking at is more than 100 defence facilities across the Australian mainland that the US military are the controls, that they run or that they have access to or that US military corporations. And we're talking some of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world have access to these places. Is this the first time someone has gone and plotted them all?

3:00It really is. For the obvious reasons, this is not something that's going to advertise where all the military bases are and who has what presence. But a lot of this information is publicly available. It's found through accountability mechanisms, through defence reports, through standard estimates, but actually the work of sitting down and plotting out where these all are and just how extensive that I mean, it's not really a penetration of the Australian landmass. It's something like a saturation. There are biometric 110 defence facilities in Australia that the US either controls or has access to on the Australian landmass. And do we know what they all do? Do they have soldiers on site or is it just collecting surveillance? Look, there's lots of different ones. A lot of them are involved in that intelligence function. So the one that people will know most is of course Pine Gap, which is right in the middle of the country near Alice Springs as a signals intelligence base. There is also a cluster of very high tech listening stations and space communication stations on the west coast of Australia.

4:00There are troops in there are about 2,500 Marines who rotate through the Northern Territory. Every dry season there are air bases like Tindallamboly where giant US warplanes like the B2s and the B52s can land and refuel. Any nuclear facilities? It's a really interesting question. The US has a policy of strategic ambiguity around its nuclear platforms. It doesn't tell people where its nuclear platforms are and we don't ask. So B2 bombers, B52 bombers, some of them are nuclear capable. They can land and take off and transit through Australian Territory. The US won't tell Australia if and when it, those are carrying nuclear weapons and the Australian government doesn't ask. So if we're talking about the Australian government and this plethora of US military installations or Australian installations that the US has access to, how did all of these get approved? Was it one by one? I mean presumably the US government would say they have cleared and approved all of them.

5:01Of course. And it doesn't need to be seen in the context that this is Australia's great and powerful friend in the sort of catchphrase of Australian foreign policy. The US is Australia's most significant security ally. It has been since World War II. We have an increasing interoperability is the word that they like to use with the US military in the words of one very senior US general. Australia represents to the US location, location, location. This is a very useful piece of real estate for the US military. The Australian people understand and know about the US alliance and the ANSIS agreement. If not the particulars of what that agreement says. I think many in Australia would be shocked to learn just how deep that military integration goes and how significant the US military presence is in this country. Well, as you say, we've heard a lot over the years about how close we are with the United States. So you've been talking to analysts as they plot where all of these bases are. What is the concern about the number of them?

6:02What are they really worried about? The most fundamental concern around an increasing military presence in Australia is that Australia could be dragged unwittingly into a war in this region. We are a large continent in a very useful location. There is a lot of talk about China's military build up and its presence, its military presence across the Pacific. There is absolutely concern about a potential conflict over the Taiwan Strait, over Taiwan and in Australia's region. The presence of the US military in Australia could draw Australia into that. Do these bases make Australia safer or does a base like Pine Gap make Australia a target in the event of a war in the Pacific? Why would they be worried about that? Because presumably the Australian government would say they have a level of autonomy about how involved they are. How much do we know about the agreements we have with these bases in the US and how much say the Australian government has about how they're used? Look, that is certainly the Australian government's position. The decision to deploy Australian troops remains the sole preserve of the Australian government.

7:07But I think we need to look at how that plays out in actuality. We saw in March at the beginning of the conflict with Iran, the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, that a US nuclear submarine torpedoed in sank and Iranian frigate of Sri Lanka. There were three Australian naval personnel on board that boat. Australia wasn't told about it. Australia wasn't given the option. We were involved in that conflict. Now Australia says that its personnel's role was purely defensive, but they were part of the crew of that nuclear submarine. I think increasing in measurement and interoperability with the US military means that the opportunity to say no, the opportunity to decline to be part of a conflict to make that autonomous decision is lessened all the time. If the US are running logistics bases out of Victoria, which they've recently announced, they're going to build up a logistics base at a place called Bandiana in Country Victoria. If the US is making decisions to deploy its material from Australian soil, what agencies does Australia have to prevent that happening? How does that involve us in a conflict? If Australia builds an East Coast nuclear submarine base through which US nuclear submarines

8:09will transit, does that involve Australia in a conflict? The decisions being made now about the US military presence in Australia will, to a large extent, dictate what's possible in terms of future decisions around conflict. Because just as a counterpoint to that, I mean the government would say they haven't got involved in the war in Iran, we didn't send troops or ships alongside the US. They would argue we do have a bit of a choice here. I don't think that's an argument that stands up to scrutiny. Australia is involved in this conflict. There were Australian naval personnel on board the nuclear submarine. We sent an E7 wedge tar legal surveillance aircraft to the UAE. We sent personnel to run that. We are part of that conflict. I think trying to draw a line between defensive and offensive operations and insisting that Australia is only involved in defensive operations is a distinction without a difference. I do wonder if some of the concern around having the US military assets in Australia is watching

9:11how Iran targeted bases in the Gulf. I think that's absolutely part of it. We've seen that hosting US bases on your territory makes you a target. It is absolutely a risk. This has been the experience of Middle East countries. The argument is often run that if the US has a base there, the US has reason to defend it and will come to your aid essentially. But what we've seen is repeated attacks on those bases that haven't necessarily been defended. The US alliance is the bedrock of Australian security and it has been since World War to this. The US remains the largest and best equipped military on the face of the earth. But the question is being so closely allied to the US, does that make you safer or does that make you a target? Because on that, there is the argument and I've heard the Australian government make this that the bases themselves are a deterrence that it keeps us safe and you could argue there's no way we could have that kind of military power that the US has without some

10:14sort of alliance. Australia couldn't necessarily do it alone. What's the response to that? That is absolutely true that the US military dwarfs Australia's and we are reliant hugely on US technology and we're seeing that I suppose most obviously manifest in the orcas agreement. But I suppose the question is where does that deterrence become provocation? If China is accepted to be the sort of adversary in this region, what does that look like to China? This military build up and this is what Richard Miles has called it and increased US military foot pretty in Australia. What does that look like from Beijing? Does that invoke a response from Beijing of an increased military build up there? I mean, this is the thing that these things become vicious circles. Is that the concern? Is that the concern? It's like an arms race. Exactly. That we are contributing by the use of our real estate, our useful piece of real estate, our location, location, location that Australia is contributing to this region, our arms race and an escalation rather than a deterrence rather than a de-escalation. We'll be right back.

11:16Hi, I'm Tom McAroy, the political editor at Guardian Australia. If you're a fan of full story, you will love our new politics newsletter. It brings you the real stories behind the headlines as well as the politics and news that really matters to you. Every day in your inbox for free. Sign up at the Guardian.com slash newsletters. See the newsletters.

12:20Ben, there's one name we haven't mentioned yet in this discussion. It brings me to the question of whether there's a timing element here to some of the concern about the number of US military bases. How much are the analysts worried because of Donald Trump as the US president who is far more unpredictable than other presidents? Is that why there's a renewed focus now on our relationship with the US? I think the politics is inseparable from this and I think the presidency of Donald Trump who has upended the global order in a way that we haven't seen for generations is bringing to very sharp relief those concerns. We've seen Trump's belligerency with allies. We've seen his capriciousness with allies in NATO, with Canada. You know, we wanted to invade Denmark. Australians are increasingly worried about the role of the US in global affairs and whether the US is any more a reliable ally that we can depend on. We hear a lot about the kind of strength of the US, Australian alliance and the fact that

13:21it's broader and deeper than a single president or a single prime minister. I would argue that Donald Trump has changed America perhaps irreparably. We don't know who follows Donald Trump. We don't know how much America will, you know, in the terms of the think tankers, snapback to kind of a more predictable US regime. It is because analysts are looking at what's going on with NATO. I think it is absolutely. You need to look at the way the US is treating other allies, the way he's bullying Europe, the way he's, you know, wants to, you know, Canada is the 51st state. If that's the way he's treating allies, then what hope for a far distant ally like Australia that again might be very useful real estate, but isn't central to, you know, Trump's America first view of the world. Trump and whoever follows Trump. We often hear, and this rhetoric comes from both sides of relationship about, you know, 100 years of May chip and that the US and Australia are fought alongside each other in every battle since World War I. And I think that is genuinely felt. I think that comes after that doesn't proceed the sort of the exploitation of the relationship

14:24that we're seeing. I mean, we see people like Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary of War, sort of third most important person that's depending on, say, Australia is with us in all of our conflicts, even our less advisable ones. There's this expectation that Australia will be alongside the US. And I wonder how much freedom Australia has anymore in that relationship to be able to say no, we don't want to go there. Well, I guess you've brought us to the end thought on this, which is the question of whether we still have buy-in from the Australian public and where we go from here, whether you can even unpick, given we've got all of these bases. So first of all, do we know whether or how much support there is amongst Australians for the number of installations that we have? Look, I think that's been very much part of the rationale of this project is to sort of lay this out there and say, this is a discussion we really need to be having about the way Australia charts it way in the world in a very different world to the one we knew before Donald Trump, before the turn of the century.

15:25I think there's a lot about Australia's national security that we don't get told about. We woke up one morning to find out we were now in nuclear submarine nation. We were just in Orcas. There was no public discussion. There was no parliamentary debate. There was no rationale articulated for the Australian people. And I think we have seen consistently in polling that Australians trust in the United States to act responsibly in the world as fallen quite dramatically. You know, it's sort of the low institute of had polls saying that it's about 31%. The lowest level in its polling history, again, according to low E, only 21% of Australians had confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. Again, that's the lowest ever level of confidence we've seen in a US president. We've seen the Australia Institute with very similar findings. More than twice as many Australians, 59% believe Australia's interests are best served by a more independent foreign policy rather than a closer alliance with the US. So if there's a public mood towards us moving away from the US military alliance and the

16:26way that it is now, what can be done about it? Because it's not like you can go and uninstall all of those. Right. Maybe you can. It is a wicked question because of the decisions that have been made previously have led us to this point. And I think the Australian government to its credit is working at thickening is one of the phrases that use those relationships, those security alliances with other allies in the region, South Korea and Japan, looking at creating other forms. But you're right. You can't just sort of go and find another superpower off the shelf. They don't come along very often. And it is an uncertain and unpredictable world order that Australia, as you know, classic middle power, as we like to say, is trying to navigate. This is not an easy question to solve. And it's not a question of sort of turning our back on the United States. It's a question of saying, well, how do we want this alliance to function and how can it function? And how does it function a way that serves Australia's interest, not one that serves the US interest? So our analyst saying it's time for a conversation.

17:27I think absolutely. I think this is the most fundamental role of government is to protect its citizens. And it feels like so often this discussion isn't happening with the Australian public. Decisions are made. Decisions are announced. We're twisted upon the Australian people, but we're not part of the conversation. And I think we all have a role in that. Ben, thank you so much for all of your reporting on this. Always a pleasure, Reg. That was Senior Reporter Ben Doherty. You can see the Guardian's special visual investigation, including data and maps on our website. This episode was produced by Shane Anderson and Lou Hill, who also did the sound design and mixing. The executive producer of Full Story is Hannah Parks. Don't forget to subscribe or follow Full Story wherever you listen to podcasts, or telling a friend can help as well. I'm Reg at Armed. See you soon.