Australia and the US： continuing congruence of strategic interest
For Australia, alliance with the United States continues to rest on congruence of strategic interest-essentially, the maintenance of a balance of power in East Asia. In maintaining that balance, the US-Japan alliance is critical because it both protects and constrains Japan. The US-Japan Joint Security Declaration of April 1996, and the September 1997 revised Guidelines for US-Japan Defense Cooperation, represented much-needed post Cold War upgrades of the US -Japan alliance. These upgrades complemented the 1995 reaffirmation of the US commitment to maintain 100,000 troops forward deployed in East Asia, in Japan and South Korea. The November 1998 defense white paper, the US Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region, is a further signal of US determination to use its alliance structures to help shape the regional security environment.
By upgrading the US-Australia alliance, the July 1996 Sydney Statement represented another milestone in US post Cold War commitments to East Asian security. The Statement saw an extension of the arrangements coveting the Pine Gap defense joint facility in central Australia, and a greatly expanded program of joint military exercises. These exercises are significant because the United States does not maintain combat troops in Australia. The exercise "Tandem Thrust" was held in northern Queensland in March 1997, with 17,000 US forces exercising alongside 5,000 Australians. This was the largest combined and joint exercise held in Australia in twenty years. 12 The refurbishment of this alliance underscores the way in which Australia contributes to the maritime basis of American security.
The maritime basis of American security
America must think strategically and globally. Some Americans, whose strategic focus is Europe, are inclined to think that geography ought to make the United States and China natural allies. They reason that America has no designs on the Asian mainland, and has historically opposed both Japanese and Russian encroachment on a weak China. 13 This approach fails to comprehend the maritime basis of American security.
The United States must oppose hegemony over East Asia by any potentially hostile power, China being the current chief candidate. Despite the protection afforded by its great ocean moat, the United States cannot afford to ignore what is happening strategically on the opposite shore, either in Europe or in Asia. America's interest in maintaining a balance of power in East Asia goes back at least to President Theodore Roosevelt, much influenced by Mahan, who brokered the settlement of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. In the 1930s, Japan's territorial expansion on the Asian mainland collided with the US interest in the 'Open Door' in China, and threatened the Philippines.
