U.S. Considering Basing Navy Ships in Australia

The U.S. is considering basing Navy vessels in Australia, its main South Pacific ally, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said.

“We’re doing a study together with the Australia Defence Force to see what might be feasible for naval cooperation in and around Australia, which might include basing ships,” Greenert said during a speech Tuesday at a university in Canberra.

While Australia has no formal U.S. naval bases, it hosts marines in its northern port city of Darwin and the two countries regularly hold joint military drills. The U.S. is bolstering its presence in the Western Pacific as China expands its military reach and presses its claims to the South China Sea, where shipping lanes carry more than $5 trillion in goods each year.

The U.S. has “forward deployment” bases in nations, including Italy, Bahrain and Japan, with talks between the U.S. and Australia in “the early stages,” Greenert said.

“Right now it’s at the stage of, well what’s the art of the possible?” he said. “What kind of infrastructure exists? What would it take to do that? What sort of support measures and how that would fit into the two nations’ common strategic desires, if you will, into the future.”

This article appeared in print on page 3 of the February 11th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.