Red dust rises in Australia’s Northern Territory as tractors churn the earth to build facilities for U.S. forces deployed to bolster a longtime ally threatened by China’s rapid military buildup.
Major construction, funded by the U.S. and Australian governments, is underway in Darwin’s northern port, at Larrakeyah Defence Precinct, and at Royal Australian Air Force Bases Darwin and Tindal for facilities that will be used by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.
According to former Australian assistant defense secretary Ross Babbage, the facilities will support U.S. and Australian forces training to defend chains of small islands that would likely be an arena for any future conflict with China.
NORTH WEST CAPE — SPACE WARFARE
Perhaps the most frightening of all the bases, North West Cape is at the cutting edge of warfare — in space.
The monstrous structure sits on the northwest coast of Australia, where kilometres of wire surround a soaring central tower and others fanning off it, sucking up huge amounts of electricity.
North West Cape (also known as Harold E Holt Communications Station) was established as an American nuclear submarine communication station, with a very low frequency that could penetrate water, before being given back to Australia in the 1990s.
In 2008-10, the US and Australia agreed it would be upgraded with an advanced space radar and space telescope.
The radar was built in New Mexico by the US, with Australia paying for installation, and the space telescope comes from Antigua in the Caribbean and was once part of Cape Canaveral rocket range in Florida.
The telescope points at the sky, providing what the US calls “space situational awareness.” The rationale is that it will find space junk, as in the movie Gravity. In fact, Professor Richard Tanter from the School of Political and Social Studies at the University of Melbourne says its primary purpose will be looking for where adversaries’ satellites are in space and what they do.
If a country like Russia, for example, was hiding a satellite’s purpose, the US might photograph or neutralise it.
Professor Tanter warns Australia could become enmeshed in anti-satellite warfare. If there was a war between US and China over the South China Sea and US could not bring a fleet near the coast any more, “the first thing they want to do is blind other side’s satellites”.
We are providing the US with extra capacity to make that happen, says Prof Tanter. “Do we really want to be implicated in that?”
DARWIN — TROOPS ON THE LAND DOWN UNDER
In 2011, President Barack Obama visited Darwin to announce US troops would begin making regular visits to the Northern Territory as part of the country’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region.
The Gillard government agreed to the “permanent rotation of US marines and US air force aircraft”, meaning we have a constant flow of US soldiers on the ground in Australia. There are currently 1500, but this could rise to 2500.
It was this development that triggered the establishment of IPAN in 2012 as onlookers became alarmed at the move from “the invasion of nerd and computer freaks” to actual “troops in uniform with rifles”, Denis Doherty, national co-ordinator of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign, told news.com.au.
Some of the world’s best fighters and bombers, and Osprey hybrid aircraft, now regularly fly into Darwin and nearby Shoal Bay Receiving Station and RAAF Tindal in Katherine, with huge ships coming down from a US base in Okinawa, Japan.
The purpose is officially for training, but IPAN delegates say Australia has also acquiesced to potential deployment. A few thousand troops may sound like small beer but in conjunction with marines at US bases in Hawaii, Okinawa and Guam, it is a significant force.
PINE GAP – TOP SECRET CIA FACILITY
Pine Gap was established in Alice Springs in 1966 when the CIA came up with the idea of putting satellites 36,000 kilometres above the earth’s surface. These had giant antennae that could listen to very weak signals from Soviet missiles testing, allowing the agency to work out the capability of enemy weapons.
The spy base was placed in isolated Alice in the NT because at the time, the massive amount of data had to be collected over 130km of land.
A top secret CIA spy base located deep in the outback could make Australia a nuclear target for America’s military adversaries, an expert has warned.
Pine Gap is a satellite tracking station southwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. It is operated by US intelligence agencies in partnership with Australia.
Established in 1970 when 400 American families were moved to central Australia, Pine Gap is now the most important overseas US intelligence facility.
Few photos exist of the base due to its remote location and high levels of security, but photographer Kristian Laemmle-Ruff managed to get close enough to take spectacular pictures back in 2014.
Mr Laemmle-Ruff told Daily Mail Australia he was only able to find a good vantage point after walking around the outer perimeter for hours. ‘I planned to hike in and get as close as I could,’ he said. ‘It was quite intimidating and scary. The risk was very apparent in my head space.’
Mr Laemmle-Ruff recalled seeing a high barb-wired fence surrounding the inner perimeter, cameras and security patrols that circled the base every ten minutes. He claimed Pine Gap was ‘positioned quite specifically’ so that the view was always obstructed by the surrounding hills.
‘After I took the photographs I got the hell out of there,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going to get caught or at least get surveilled. There was a potential charge and jail. I didn’t publish it (the images) for awhile for that reason.’
But despite legal advice not to release the images, he eventually went public when Professor Richard Tanter, Director of the Nautilus Institute at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, released a report on the facility.
Dr Tanter told Daily Mail Australia hosting the base was no longer in Australia’s interest, and warned it makes the country a military target. ‘It’s a high-priority Russian target in the event of conflict with the US, and now China as well,’ he said.
‘The deterioration of relations between China and the US has led to this increased tension and the B52 bombers will be registered in China.’
‘We are, in Chinese eyes, going along with military escalation to attack China and help the Americans destroy China’s military deterrent.’ Dr Tanter said that while there was once a strong argument to have a facility like Pine Gap for intelligence purposes ‘we’ve gone far beyond that now’.
‘Pine Gap has roles and capabilities now like nuclear war fighting capabilities that we should have nothing to do with.’ ‘It has played a very important role in extra judicial assassinations for the US in countries Australia is not at war with.’
He added that the country ‘needs its own autonomous capabilities for its own needs’. ‘It’s possible to have a balanced relationship with the US and put serious limits on risk assessments.’ ‘It’s okay for Australia to say yes on some matters and no to others, it just takes a lot of political pressure,’ he said.
The facilities at the base consist of a massive computer complex with 38 radomes protecting radio dishes.
The base has since been used by to watch and listen to intelligence from around the world that could be of interest to the Five Eyes alliance which consists of Australia, the US, Canada, the UK and New Zealand.
It controls US spy satellites as they pass over one-third of the globe, including China, North Korea the Asian parts of Russia, and the Middle East. Antennas provide early warning of missile strikes, guide anti-aircraft and missile defence systems, and paint targets for Australian and US weapon systems.
The most controversial role for these signals is that they assist with targeting areas for drone strikes, which was utilised during the war in Afghanistan. Data from the antennas are analysed by a massive computer system covering 20,000sqm – the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Pine Gap’s remote location 900km from the coast means spy planes and ships from foreign countries are unable to intercept signals travelling to the facility.
The base is also far from any major city or town in Australia with the exception of Alice Springs which has a population of just 26,000. Pine Gap has used nine geosynchronous satellites over the past 45 years, with at least three used by the base today.
These satellites follow the earth’s rotation and track a vast section of the same surface area of the planet.
They are able to pick up a significant amount of signals and transmissions which are relayed back to Pine Gap. The three geosynchronous satellites currently used by the base cover even a wider area of the globe, including the whole of Asia, the Middle East, Russia and as far as west Africa.
MILITARY TARGET
Despite numerous protests, the Australian government remains committed to the project. ‘[Pine Gap] makes a critical contribution to the security interests of Australia and the United States,’ a Defence White Paper reads.
‘Delivering information on intelligence priorities such as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and military and weapons developments, while contributing to the verification of arms control and disarmament agreements.’
Experts have warned that Pine Gap is a major target for a nuclear attack from foreign nations if tensions between the superpowers continues to escalate, with analysis showing a nuclear strike could wipe out Alice Springs.
It comes following an announcement from the US last year of upgrades to the RAAF Base Tindal in Katherine. The announcement includes plans to expand the parking area of the base so six of the nation’s strategic B-52 ‘stratofortress’ bombers can be stationed there as well as a ‘squadron operations facility’ and an ammunition bunker.
These aircraft can be armed to deliver long-range strikes of nuclear and conventional weapons. The move was seen as both a ‘warning’ to China and a preparation for a war that a leading US expert on China said would be the ‘worst war in modern history’.
The expansion is estimated to cost $100million and will be entirely funded by the US. There are also plans to put funds towards upgrading the equipment and making improvements at Pine Gap.
SECRET ROOMS
There’s a wealth of secrecy surrounding the surveillance base. In 2018, the UK-based surveillance and privacy watchdog Privacy International gained access to an old US diplomatic cable from 1985 that referred to secret rooms at the base where Australians were not allowed to enter despite the base being jointly operated.
The cable was released to PI by the US State Department following a lawsuit by the watchdog to seek access to the UKUKA agreement in December 2017.
The UKUKA agreement is a multilateral agreement of intelligence sharing between the Five Eyes nations.
In the records disclosed to PI, one cable from the US State Department recorded comments made by then-defence minister Kim Beazley, who said the government was ‘fully aware of everything that takes place at the joint facilities’ at Pine Gap.
He then added: ‘Nothing happens at these facilities about which the government is unaware.’
The cable then presents remarks by the late defence expert Professor Desmond Ball, who rubbished Mr Beazley’s assertions. Dr Ball said he was advised of two secret rooms at Pine Gap where Australian nationals could not enter.
‘Ball claimed that he has spoken to individuals working at Pine Gap and that there were at least two areas of the facility where Australian nationals are not permitted entry – the US ‘national communication and cypher room’ and the ‘key room where they (Americans) do the final analysis of all incoming intelligence,’ the cable read.
Dr Ball argued that Australian nationals should have full access to Pine Gap.
Next to the text within the cable is a handwritten comment from an unknown US official who referred to Dr Ball’s claim of there being a ‘national communication and cypher room’ as ‘CORRECT’.
The note alleges that former Labor leader Bill Hayden entered that secret ‘area’ once and was the only Australian to do so.
It also said that the ‘key room’ referred to by Dr Ball did not exist. The comment next to the assertion read ‘NO SUCH AREA’.
Dr Tanter said the US was more restrictive with Australian personnel accessing the base during that time compared to today.
‘Australians today have access to all areas of the base as they’re employed in all areas of the base,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘We have access to all operational parts of the base and the deputy head of the station is always Australian.’
‘There is only one room Australians don’t have access to and that’s where the Americans decrypt intelligence that’s gathered and sent to Washington,’ he said.
According to Dr Tanter there is also one room Australians have access to that the US personnel don’t.
Dr Tanter, who has worked extensively with Dr Ball in the past, said the cable was from a period when Australians were very restricted.
‘The first Australian workers at Pine Gap in the 1970s went through hell. They were very restricted in accessing the base.’
OTHER BASES
The Defence Satellite Communication Station at Geraldton in Western Australia, along with Kojarena 20km inland, was one of Australia’s spy bases. It is now shared with two large American operational military communication systems that pull down information on Indonesian and Chinese satellites from the sky. This is part of the Five Eyes surveillance system used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kojarena is creating “battlefield conditions”, says Mr Doherty, providing data a soldier in Iraq can use to ascertain what’s behind a hill — the visual, weather and so on — making it “an American war fighting base”.
Australia paid $800 million for one of the satellites used by this system. But if America does not approve of an operation the Australian Defence Force requests, for example in Timor, it can turn off our access, says Prof Tanter.
The US also has access to the Delamere Air Weapons range and the Bradshaw Ranges (which are the size of Cyprus) in the NT, and the multinational training facility of Shoalwater Bay in Rockhampton, which boasts a mock town complete with pub, mosque and church.
America trains its troops in Australia in all conditions — jungle, savannah, woodland and desert.
Mr Doherty believes there are effectively almost 50 joint bases from Broome in WA to Richmond in NSW, since the US can use all Australian bases in a poorly defined “emergency”, and regularly does. The government insists there are only two joint bases, Pine Gap and North West Cape, since troops rotate out of Darwin — a claim Prof Tanter slams as “specious”.
“If the United States built it, if the United States paid for it, and if it can only function as part of an American global technology, then it’s an American base to which Australia might have some access; greater or lesser access as time goes on.”
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