Australia Won’t Host Any US Missiles

Over the weekend, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper made it clear he is eager to see a lot of new US deployments of intermediate-range missiles around Asia, and suggested they might be in China’s area.

But where exactly would these missiles go? Australian DM Linda Reynolds said they none of the locations for the US missiles are yet known, but she added that Australia had no intention of hosting such missiles.

Reynolds said the US had not asked them to host the missiles, and that no such request was expected. That just raises the question even more of where the US intends to find a home, in Asia, for all these missiles.

There is no easy answer, especially if China is the intended target. South Korea probably isn’t going to be interested because of the harm it would do to North Korean denuclearization, and Japan almost certainly wouldn’t want to host missiles either because of their historic anti-nuclear movement.

Australia was one of the few logical hosts for US missiles in the area, as the Aussie government tends to be eager to please the US. US officials have not elaborated on other possibilities.