VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
(Source: https://www.1news.co.nz )
Moves by the Pentagon to upgrade their Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), have clear-cut lines of demarcation for the Top End of Australia. The Northern Territory has become a 'theatre of operations … for … US interests'. US allies, likewise, have been drawn to Australia for training with regional military operations.
Some of their less well publicised roles have also drawn attention to operations already under-way in sensitive areas and questions therefore arise about what is actually going on under the guise of diplomacy and security relations with certain countries. The shadowy nature of the diplomacy remains a matter of serious consideration; just what is being obscured by whom?
A major media release issued by the Defence Department in Canberra has revealed far more than specifically stated; it has revealed the extent to which the Top End of Australia has been militarily developed to serve 'US interests' across the Indo-Pacific region. While Australia, as a whole, has the status of the regional hub, the Top End has been designated a major training role for the US-led IPS. The network of five major defence training areas composed of the Robertson Barracks, Kangaroo Flats, Mount Bundey, Delamere and Bradshaw, cover a vast area of the Northern Territory. (1)
To date, Canberra has already invested $747 million in the US-led project. (2)
The facilities, however, are already subject to planning upgrades, with increased provision from forthcoming defence budgets, with the bare minimum of open parliamentary discussion. A never-ending spiral of increased defence budgets has already been costed.
The facilities focus upon the US annual Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) which began in 2012 with two hundred marines. It was subsequently upgraded to 2,500 personnel, with more to arrive in due course, as required to fulfil Pentagon regional planning.
Further upgrades to the facilities also include 14,000 Singapore Armed Forces personnel who receive training provision of upwards to 18 weeks each year for a planned 25-year period. (3)
The 2023 Australia-Japan Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), likewise, also forms part of the IPS provision. It also was established in the aftermath of the Pentagon upgrading its alliance with Japan to the status of a global alliance; the US, Japan, India and Australia, are the Quad used to encircle and contain China's region influence. (4)
The ROK, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and others, have the designated status and role of IPS lower-level partners. (5)
Other allies drawn to Australia for US-led training provision include: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. (6) They can also be regarded as lower-level IPS partners, directly or indirectly.
Resting upon IPS intelligence assessments that the main reason 'for this growth is the increasing instability of our region', the Australian-based facilities have been placed on a war-footing with the specific responsibility of fostering interoperability amongst allies.
Israel in the Pacific
It is, however, the participation of other US allies which has not been so well publicised: numerous allegations, in recent times, about Australia's intelligence role with Israel's Gaza War would appear substantiated. While Pine Gap, in Central Australia, has been named as the likely centre of such military intelligence operations, other areas are also implicated.
Israel has fostered particularly strong links with a number of the Pacific Islands countries, for a variety of diplomatic reasons; the often tiny countries have voting rights at the United Nations and other influential regional forums. The Israelis have no wish for the Palestinians to enter into high-level diplomatic agreements with Pacific Islands counterparts. (7)
The Israeli-Pacific Island diplomacy has tended to rest upon Christian-Zionism, a relationship between often small evangelical groups and Zionist influences, with the specific intention of promoting the settlements on Palestinian lands, used to undermine any diplomatic move toward a two-state solution. (8) It is not coincidental, therefore, that twelve Pacific Island countries voted against the June UN vote for a proposed ceasefire in Gaza. (9) The twelve countries appear to consider support for Israel, a state based on racial supremacy and responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing toward its indigenous peoples, as serving their own national interests in the Pacific.
Israel's links with PNG in the South Pacific and Fiji in the wider Pacific region, are particularly strong. Both countries, moreover, have defence agreements with Australia.
Fiji, for example, has recently signed a cyber-security agreement with Israel, which has defence and intelligence implications. In fact, an official diplomatic statement from Suva noted 'Fiji's steadfast support for Israel … and … mutual concerns related to national security'. (10)
It is, therefore, what has accompanied the Israeli-Pacific Islands countries high-level diplomatic relations which require greater clarification; it is unlikely, however, that Tel Aviv will come clean about the small print of the relations. Open disclosures would appear problematic; diplomatic silence is regarded as a more suitable means by which to obscure the facts.
Mossad and the Sayanim
Israeli security, nevertheless, rests upon two distinct groupings: MOSSAD and the Sayanim. The former is a formal intelligence service composed of various departments including those associated with intelligence-gathering, analysis, special and covert operations. Their close working relations with US intelligence and other foreign services have been well recorded. (11) MOSSAD would obviously have established a presence in the Pacific as a matter of standard diplomacy. The Sayanim, however, is composed of volunteers undertaking duties regarded by Israel as important for the maintenance of the colonial-settler state, and are paid expenses for their services. (12) A large proportion are likely to be faceless wonders, lurking inside the corridors of power, living and working in a nondescript manner to avoid unnecessary publicity. They are, nevertheless, conspicuous and identifiable amongst Christian-Zionist movements, which are particularly active in the Pacific region.
The relationship between MOSSAD and the Sayanim is symbiotic: the former rests upon the latter. It has been noted, for example, that, 'Sayanim fulfilled many functions … they provided leads for MOSSAD. Without its Sayanim MOSSAD could not operate'. (13)
MOSSAD has been noted to operate through eight departments: The Collections Department is by far the largest, with offices under diplomatic and non-official cover concerned primarily with intelligence-gathering. (14) Studies of the organisation have found 'the department consists of a number of desks responsible for specific geographical regions, directing case officers based at stations around the world, and the agents they control'. (15) Whether there is a specific Pacific desk, or it forms part of a wider geographical area and hosted by Australia, has yet to be established. Israel has an extensive diplomatic presence in Canberra and networks of supporters across the country.
By the late 1990s a reliable estimate recorded that over 4,000 Sayanim were active in the UK; it was placed against almost four times that number in the US. (16) They also appear to have an active presence in Australia, often through Christian-Zionist evangelical groups which regularly target Palestine protests. Those associated with the Sayanim also appear to not be hindered by lack of financial support from their main benefactor. It was noted in studies of the organisation, for example, that, 'MOSSAD, to maintain its world-wide operations, now spent several hundred million dollars a month maintaining its assets, paying the expenses of the Sayanim'. (17) The group active in Adelaide, harassing Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) activists in Rundle Mall, are particularly well-heeled.
Studies of Israeli foreign policy during the previous Cold War established widespread involvement in Asia, conducted primarily through Thailand, Taiwan and Sri Lanka. (18)
Israeli military trainers were noted to have operated through Singapore; arms sales were also recorded with the ROK and the Philippines as part of a total 'at least $100 million arms sales to South-east Asia in 1981'. (19) It was conducted with the bare minimum of publicity. Four decades later many of those countries now form part of the IPS lower-level partners, enabling the Israelis to operate inside the US-led regional organisation.
The Pacific now appears to be targeted by the Israeli war machine on behalf of the US. The seemingly quiet method of operation, with the minimum of publicity being the standard method of operation. And the role of the Sayanim: questions have arisen; answers have not been forthcoming. A sensible observer might well ask just what else has accompanied the Pacific-Israel diplomatic links and why silence is regarded as so important. Just what is being hidden from closer scrutiny? And what is being obscured by whom?
1. Top End Training areas draw allies' forces, The Defence Report, Australian, 16 October 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
5. Ibid.
6. Defence Report, Australian, op.cit., 16 October 2025.
7. Why most Pacific governments stand with Israel, RNZ., 26 June 2025.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10 Fiji and Israel sign cyber security pact, The Fiji Sun, 22 October 2025.
11. Every spy a prince, Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, (Boston, 1990), page 30 and pp. 76-94.
12. Gideon's Spies – MOSSAD's Secret Warriors, Gordon Thomas, (London, 1999), page 54.
13. Ibid.
14. Israel, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2003), pp. 154-58.
15. Ibid.
16. Gideon's Spies, Thomas, op.cit., page 54.
17. Ibid.
18. See: Garrison State, Palestine Focus Publications, (San Francisco, CA94127, 1985).
19. Ibid.