Most Ardent Supporter of America’s ‘Pivot to Asia’: Australia Moves to Provide Staging Ground for U.S. Nuclear Stealth Bombers with China in the Crosshairs

Australia has been a leading supporter of the American ‘Pivot to Asia’ initiative since its outset in the early 2010s, with one of the first moves by the Barak Obama administration to expand the U.S. Military presence in the region being the opening of a large military facility for U.S. Marines in Darwin. Australia has been a leading client for the F-35 fifth generation fighter, and in 2019 reportedly considered becoming the only export client for the American B-21 Raider heavy bomber - which would allow it to threaten targets in China and North Korea from bases on its own territory. This combined with reports that Canberra was even evaluating the possibility of developing a nuclear weapons capability has made the country among the committed nations to sustaining a Western-led order in the Asia-Pacific - despite a shifting balance of power which has seen regional powers increasingly sideline the Western nations by expanding their own economies and military capabilities.

Australia has most recently committed to a massive expansion program for Tindal Air Force base, which is ideally located as a staging ground for the projection of Western power across Southeast Asia and beyond. The base will reportedly be used both by the country’s growing F-35 fleet, and by American strategic bombers which are set to be relocated there. The expansion of North Korean and Chinese strike capabilities, including deployment of sophisticated intermediated ranged missile platforms such as the Hwasong-12 and DF-26, have left traditional staging grounds for American attacks such as Andersen Airbase on Guam vulnerable - with such facilities likely to be put out of service in the opening hours of any potential conflict. Australia’s role, both as a contributor to the Western arsenals in the region and as a facilitator of a greater American military presence, is thus particularly vital. While Canberra likely will not see through plans to develop nuclear weapons and to acquire American stealth bombers, expansion of its airbase will effectively subsidise the costs for the United States to deploy its own nuclear armed stealth bombers from its territory - which is arguably a more efficient way to contribute to the sustaining of Western primacy in the region than developing such capabilities independently.