Is Central Australia the geostrategic centrepiece in the USA's new look east policy?

When Canberra announced expanding US military presence in the NT, the Prime Minister forgot to acknowledge the thousands of American military staff already rotating through the vast empty territories of South, Central and Western Australia. The most important of which remains Pine Gap, with a main purpose to control and act as a downlink for geosynchronous satellites stationed over Asia, in utilising satellite, microwave and other low frequency applications of which drone and space debris warfare as well as cybersecurity are significant components. Pine Gap's central proximity between Pacific and Indian Oceans, Asia, and Southern Hemispheric window to outer space, is a prime piece of strategic real estate. If location is anything to go by, then the building of the world's largest aviation boneyard nearby in Alice Springs signifies a possible shift in America's regional footprint.

The boneyard is being built by Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS). If this is the same company that also built Australia's new Defence Headquarters in Canberra, then it is a suburban Brisbane-based company with potentially American parent headquarters housed somewhere in the northwest Pacific. The boneyard alike Pine Gap has everything going for it: just outside twenty degrees latitude south of the equator; arid desert location; isolated in an area of low electromagnetic radiation; relatively low population;an easily controlled-access site; and potential area-denial strategies including no-fly zones. All of which bode well with a close proximity to America's only vital satellite and communications footprint in Southeast Asia in Pine Gap.

Alice Springs climatic suitability, existing infrastructure and capacity for major expansion, makes it the perfect place to develop a significant commercial asset of inherent capital value. Low humidity, infrequent rainfall, alkaline soil and high altitude reduces the threat of rust and corrosion, while hard soil ameliorates the need to pave large runways or storage areas making it easier to move cargo, vehicles and aircraft around. It will provide niche areas not only for aircraft retired from service, but also abilities to process various types of aircraft for any requirements. These may range from longer term storage of maintained aircraft kept intact for future use, to parts reclamation where aircraft are cannibalised for spare parts. Carparking storage capability for intact aircraft, as well as certain surplus craft may be sold off whole or in parts. Yet there are other uses for aviation boneyards because they are a good way to hide various operations or equipment from prying eyes.

As the first large-scale boneyard outside the US and strategically located near any potential Asian theatre of operations, any possibility of joint space and defence projects or functioning as an aerospace maintenance and regeneration centre is very real. If so, then activities including processing ICBMs for dismantling or later reuse in satellite launches, expanding low frequency drone surveillance or nuclear missile storage may also evolve, especially if Australia's new nuclear waste dump literally just up the road at Muckaty Station in central NT comes online sooner rather than later. All of which raise more questions than answers.

In command and control terms, what oversight will determine what equipment may be sold when, to or by whom? Which government's bureaucracies will scrutinise what aviation parts civilians, companies, militaries, foreign governments may or may not buy? Which Treaty terms auspices will be progressed, verified or observed via satellite or first-person inspections, especially in decommissioning or disabling salvageable spare parts including onboard weapons or classified hardware?Could stored craft be sold between governments in contravention of international treaties without Australian consent?

In other strategic terms will the boneyard be used as a transit base in refuelling, staging or forward deploying facility for US military aircraft undertaking warlike operations? Could it function as a base for remotely controlled drones and other types of unmanned aerial warfare? How will command chains operability work in terms of Australian sovereign air and ground space in times of conflict? What delineations of responsibility will have responsibility to in-process undisclosed numbers of aircraft for storage, or out-process similarly unknown aircraft for return to active service? Questions that are just the tip of the iceberg in regional geostrategic terms with no answers forthcoming.

The reality is that drone warfare, low orbital satellite capability and low frequency disruption are key components to twenty-first century warfighting. A battle space that the US lags behind China. A reasoning as to why the US needs the strategic upper hand of Australia's most northerly geography below the twentieth parallel. A geostrategic impetus that might force China's hand into revisiting a surveillance capability across Southeast Asia.