Ruby, Felicity: Silent partners: US bases in Australia

Felicity Ruby

Silent partners: US bases in Australia‘, Australian Foreign Affairs, Issue 8, February 2020, pp. 29-54

[T]here is very little public understanding or discussion of these bases, or their uses, or the way in which they have constrained Australian foreign policy. This is because successive governments have tried to ensure that they remain clandestine, extending the legitimate need for some operational secrecy to almost blanket silence.

Convenient summary of the history of American bases in Australia, dating back to the opening of Pine Gap in 1970, and even earlier back to the start of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence arrangements in 1947. For other material on the Honest History site on US bases, see particularly, Professor Richard Tanter in 2019 and 2016, and Richard Broinowski’s review of Tom Gilling’s book, Project Rainfall.

Felicity Ruby is a former adviser to Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and has worked with advocacy groups. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.

This edition of Australian Foreign Affairs also has Michael Wesley on how China is testing the Australia-US Alliance, Brendan Taylor on how to maximise US strength in Asia, and Kelly Magsamen on the US after Trump, plus reviews and correspondence.

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