VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, head of US Space Forces, Indo-Pacific, told a conference in Sydney yesterday, that the US is “working very closely with Australia” to develop the ability to crack a Chinese space-based defensive line designed to keep US forces at bay.
The cooperation of Australian military officials and civilian contractors further enmeshes Australia into the military confrontation promoted by the US against China.
Mastalir said that “a formidable new technology — a jam-resistant Link-16 that now extends to and from space” enables radios to operate across all five US military services as well as with NATO and other allies so all users can see the same up-to-the minute intelligence, and automate fire control.
He referred to “kill chains” used by both the US and China to deny each other access to areas in the event of war. The kill chains are based on the so-called “island chain strategy” first conceived by US imperialism’s John Foster Dulles in 1951, during the US war of aggression against Korea.
The first island chain runs through Chinese territorial waters down to and including the nine-dash line in the South China Sea. The second island chain runs from Japan through Guam and Palau to the western end of New Guinea. A third island chain runs from Alaska through the middle of the Pacific to New Zealand.
Mastalir said China’s progress in strengthening its kill chain since 2019, built expressly to keep the United States well outside the second island chain, has been “breathtaking.”
But he said that testing of Link 16’s anti-jamming capability had strengthened the US’s own anti-China kill chain.
Further moves are afoot to prepare for war with China.
Mastalir revealed the military is planning to set up a US Space Forces -Japan based on their work in South Korea, where a component was established in December 2022.
“When we stood up Space Forces Korea, that’s the model that I’m using for Space Force Japan,” he said, without offering a date by which he expected the unit to be stood up.
And a week ago, so-called “regional experts” issued a call for an Arctic Quad comprising the US, Canada, South Korea and Japan to counter a growing Russian and Chinese presence in the Arctic where there is competition for resources and new trade routes being made possible by climate change.
None of these developments indicate any lessening of tensions in our region.
Despite the comprador media’s repeated references to Chinas “increasingly assertive and aggressive” presence in the region, it is US imperialism’s preparedness to use war to maintain its declining global dominance that threatens the future well-being of the Australian people.
Breaking news:
The embedding of US military and intelligence agents in the relevant Australian government departments underscores our subservience to the Empire. So it came as no surprise today (May 29) when Monash University and SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Larry James, former Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a retired lieutenant general with the US Air Force, to their respective space research offices.
“The opportunities for Australia’s space sector are huge, and I hope to share my experience and knowledge with the talented teams at both institutions," Lt Gen James said.
"I am also keen to strengthen my connections and share expertise with Defence Space Command and the Australian Space Agency,” he said.