According to an Australian Department of Defence article published on November 16, 2021, Australia and and the United States had reach the 10 year mark in their enhanced defense cooperation.

On November 16, we celebrate a decade of expanded cooperation between the Australian Department of Defence and the United States Department of Defense through two Force Posture Initiatives (FPI): Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) and Enhanced Air Cooperation (EAC).

The USFPI are an extension of Australia’s existing Defence relationship with the US and support the common interest of promoting regional security and stability.

The MRF-D has grown in size and complexity since the first rotation of US Marines through Darwin in 2012. In 2019, the goal of 2500 US Marines training with the ADF stationed in Darwin was reached.

The structure of MRF-D continues to evolve in response to the changing environment and advances in technology, with the focus shifting to capability rather than numbers. Highly complex joint training scenarios are now being executed, which continue to challenge our forces and better prepare us to rapidly respond in the region, if and when called upon to do so.

This year, about 2200 US Marines and sailors conducted a comprehensive range of training activities, including humanitarian assistance, security operations and high-end, live-fire exercises – exercises that develop enhanced interoperability between the ADF and US Marines and key partners.

These deployments also offer a valuable opportunity to develop working relationships with other government agencies, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment; and the Australian Border Force.

The EAC has deepened air-to-air integration between the ADF and US air elements, particularly in the areas of maintenance, logistics, refuelling, aeromedical evacuation, and advanced warfighting.

Investments by Australia and the US in a range of infrastructure projects that support USFPI activities in the Northern Territory have benefitted local businesses, with several winning multimillion dollar contracts for the development of key infrastructure, including modular accommodation and aircraft maintenance facilities.

At AUSMIN in September 2021, Australia and the US announced the agreement to enhance US force posture cooperation in Australia in four key areas to:

• establish an integrated logistics capability
• expand existing enhanced air cooperation
• enhance maritime sustainment cooperation
• evolve bilateral and multilateral operations and exercises.

These new areas of cooperation will increase interoperability and deepen alliance activities in the Indo-Pacific.

And an RAAF article published in the November 25, 2021 Air Force magazine focused on the EAC part of enhanced cooperation:

The United States Force Posture Initiative (USFPI), including the establishment of Enhanced Air Cooperation (EAC), are core to the alliance and a tangible demonstration of our shared interests and deep engagement with the Indo-Pacific region.

Since then, EAC and the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) – which make up USFPI – have grown in complexity and size.

EAC commenced in February 2017, as a second initiative under the USFPI. The EAC initiative is led by CAF and Commander US Pacific Air Forces.

GPCAPT Paul Nicholas, of AFHQ, said that EAC was designed to significantly enhance and strengthen not only our relationship with the US Air Force, but with all the aviation arms of the US military including the Marines, Navy and Army.

“EAC is more than partnering for combined exercises, it is an opportunity to focus on lines of effort to progress interoperability across areas such as combat support, health, air-to-air refuelling, engineering, and logistics,” GPCAPT Nicholas said.

“Through the EAC, exercises such as Talisman Sabre and Pitch Black have allowed SMEs from both nations to develop the necessary changes to policies, regulations, tactics, techniques and procedures, through hands-on collaborative work.

“EAC has a strong focus on logistics to ensure we are able to operate and sustain air forces across the full operational spectrum and basing locations.”

EAC provides the opportunity to test operating procedures under exercise conditions and being able to rationalise resources on those areas that are most important.

“We don’t need to be able to drive every air movements vehicle, although we may want to cross-qualify on key ones such as tow motors and forklifts,” GPCAPT Nicholas said.

The authorisation for RAAF and USAF maintainers to service each other’s C-17 Globemasters was a high-profile outcome.

“To have another nation service your aircraft is a key milestone that was built on a common understanding and trust in each other’s platform maintenance regulations and standards, common training systems and agreements,” GPCAPT Nicholas said.

The aim is now to progress additional agreements with common USAF and USN aircraft systems, such as C-130J, F-35 and P-8.

“We want the emerging capabilities such as F-35s to do more than just operate together from a shared location; we want them to operate seamlessly together as a truly integrated and coherent force package,” GPCAPT Nicholas said.

Noting the long, shared history of RAAF and USAF working together, GPCAPT Nicholas said the EAC is adding another layer of depth to the partnership.

“We’ve always had a sense of shared experience and great trust between the aviators of both nations, and with EAC we are building on that understanding” he said.

The EAC has deepened air-to-air integration between the ADF and US air elements, particularly in the areas of maintenance, logistics, refuelling, aeromedical evacuation and advanced warfighting.

By Robbin Laird

I have visited Belarus in the past and have very clear memories of my time there. And with my recent visit to Poland, was reminded again of how Belarus is a border country in many respects, but one dominated by Russia.

The use of migrants by the Russians through the Belarus conduit operating as a battering ram against Poland, particularly, and Europe more generally, is something which the Poles have clearly focused upon and see as a direct threat to them and to Europe.

When I attended the Defence 24 Conference held in Warsaw in September, the topic of the “hybrid war” character of what was happening on the Polish border was discussed frequently throughout the conference. And when the Commanding General of the territorial forces discussed the formation of a new brigade to support border security, there was a clear sense of a direct threat to Polish security which had to be dealt with. When a humanitarian crisis is actually hybrid war then simply treating in the former terms misses the point.

It should be remembered that in the past border incursions have been used by authoritarian leaders to breach Polish territory and to ramp up conflict against Poland itself. It should therefore be no surprise that Poles are deeply concerned with these events, which have little to do with migrants but everything to do with the state of permanent war with the West that is described in the July 2, 2021 version of Russian military doctrine.

For those who don’t remember, this is how the German attack on Poland began in 1939.  In an article by Wojciech Zurawski published on August 29, 2014, this is how the prelude was highlighted:

Joachim Fulczyk still remembers the fateful radio broadcast 75 years ago this weekend that provided Adolf Hitler with a pretext to launch his invasion of Poland that sparked World War Two.

Now 83, Fulczyk listened with his mother and aunt to a brief address supposedly given by Polish saboteurs who had seized the local radio station in Gleiwitz, then located inside Nazi Germany, a few km from the Polish border.

“My mother, hearing the news (that Poles had taken the radio station), told her sister ‘this can’t be true’,” said Fulczyk, who still lives in Gleiwitz, now known by its Polish name Gliwice. The town became part of Poland after border changes following the 1945 defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich.

As Poles and Germans prepare to mark the 75th anniversary on Monday of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, historians and residents of Gliwice recalled the seizure of the radio station – still today Europe’s tallest wooden structure – and drew parallels with the role of media in modern conflicts such as Ukraine.

Andrzej Jarczewski, director of the museum now at the site of the radio station, recounted how Germans posing as Poles staged the attack on the evening of August 31, 1939, with the aim of providing justification for a German invasion of Poland.

The seven-strong band, led by SS officer Alfred Helmut Naujocks, broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish.

Hitler made a speech in Berlin the next day citing the Gliwice attack and other similarly orchestrated incidents to justify his decision to storm Poland. World War Two began two days later when Britain and France declared war on Germany.

“The provocations in Gliwice and in some other places too were necessary to allow Hitler to make his speech, to say ‘we are innocent, the Poles started this war’,” said Jarczewski.

The Russian/Belarusian provocations that for the Poles defending their border against authoritarian states is not just important in itself but recalls a history which they have no intention of repeating.

Also, see the following:

The Defence 24 Conference on Polish Defence, September 2021