A U.S. military command—akin to U.S. Forces Japan—should be established in Australia to help overcome the cultural differences between the allies, says one senior official.
U.S. Army Colonel Alan W. Throop said the U.S. Department of Defense often misunderstood just how much smaller the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is, in a report for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Overcoming these differences will be important given the increasing aggressiveness from Beijing in the immediate region and the involvement of both nations in partnerships such as the QUAD, AUKUS, and military exchanges (interoperability).
One U.S. respondent to Throop’s report said, “Americans typically don’t have an appreciation for the size or scale of the Australian military. The entire ADF is smaller than one [U.S.] Marine Expeditionary Force, and I mean, that’s small.”…