US to Announce ‘Permanent Military Presence’ in Australia

New Deployment Has Something to Do With China, Officials Insist

The Obama Administration didn’t get the permanent military presence it sought in Iraq, but they are reportedly on the brink of announcing a new permanent deployment in a rather surprising place – Australia.

Opposition figures within the Australia government say that the announcement will be made next week during President Obama’s visit to Australia, and that the US will begin deploying Marines to the nation’s Darwin military base.

The “why” of the sudden (but permanent) deployment is unclear, but some media outlets cited unnamed officials saying it had something to do with “heightened concern about China.”

Which is of course the default reason for any and all US military actions in the South Pacific, but makes even less since in this case, since there is no conceivable reason to expect that Australia is about to be overrun by Red Chinese, or that if this were somehow the case the deployment of US Marines would make the US seem more committed to that incredibly improbable war.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.