Page 39 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2022

JULY-AUGUST 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
INFRASTRUCTURE DEFENCE BASES 39
Should China eventually succeed in establishing a military presence in the South Pacific – whether through the recent agreement with the Solomon Islands, or elsewhere – Austra- lian airfields will only grow in importance for protecting lines of supply and communication with the United States, par- ticularly given current low levels of Australian fuel reserves.
An additional consideration is increased US interest in basing military forces in Australia as the missile threat to Guam and Japan grows. The $270 million American invest- ment in the East Arm fuel storage facility near Darwin, which is expected to store 300 million litres of jet fuel, is indicative of this interest: one part of almost $800 million of American investment in northern Australia.
Rapid runway repair capabilities, hardened shelters for aircraft, ground-based air defences and big-picture battle management systems (such as that being delivered under Air 6500), runway diversification and distributed fuel stor-
age facilities are all means of improving the resilience of Australia’s airfields, and of the allied ability to project pow- er from Australia.
In addition to airfields, Australian spaceports are also in- creasing in importance. On 26 June, NASA will launch from the Arnhem Space Centre (belonging to Equatorial Launch Australia) on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory, the agency’s first-ever launch from a fully commercial space- port. ADM understands that Defence has approached Aus- tralian launch providers to discuss responsive space launch capabilities, which would allow the ADF or US forces to quickly re-establish C4ISR satellites should existing space infrastructure be lost in the early stages of a conflict.
ABOVE: Australia’s 5th generation F-35s are just as vulnerable as any other aircraft when they are on the ground
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