US Marine ‘Red Dragons’ Dispatched

Dragons

A squadron of U.S. Marine Corps. tilt-rotor combat aircraft will be dispatched to the northern Australian city of Darwin to participate in this year’s Marine Rotational Force. The 10 Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys, likewise called the Red Dragons, will belong to a contingent of thousands of marines who will be training with the Australian Defence Force.

“The Red Dragons are excited to join 5th Marines as part of the MRF-D 2022 rotation,” Lieutenant Colonel Vanessa Clark, the aviation combat element commanding officer said on April 18 in comments obtained by AAP.

“Honoured to be working hand in hand with the Australian Defence Force, the importance of the U.S.-Australia team cannot be overstated.”

The Osprey fleet follows the arrival of the U.S. Air Force’s biggest airplane, the 75-meter-long C-5 Super Galaxy, which showed up in Darwin in late March, along with an earlier arrival of the B-2 Stealth Bomber.

The existing seasonal workouts have actually been broadened to around 2,200 servicemen and will consist of 250 U.S. Army personnel for the very first time.

The effort comes as part of a force posture to promote stability in the Indo-Pacific area.

Adm. John Aquilino, leader of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who went to Darwin in late March, stated he thought Australia could be at risk of attack from the north.

“There is certainly a threat,” he told reporters on March 23. “Today in the Indo-Pacific, it hosts the most concerning security challenge that we have faced in a number of years.”

The admiral was describing Beijing’s militarisation of 3 manmade islands in the South China Sea.

“They are full-fledged offensive bases,” he said. “Runways, hangers, barracks, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship missiles, jamming capability, hangers for fighter aircraft, bomber aircraft.”

U.S. and Australian authorities have actually likewise been worried at a current security pact “initialled” by the leaders of the Solomon Islands and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The pact, if totally executed, might unlock for the CCP to station soldiers, weapons, and marine ships in the South Pacific– extending the reach of the Peoples Liberation Army beyond the South China Sea and into a tactically essential area under 2,000 kilometers from the Australian shoreline.

Australian and U.S. political leaders have actually alerted Solomon Island leaders versus the offer, with Sen. Bob Menendez ( D-N.J.), chairman of the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee, alerting that Beijing might end up being the ” owner and minder” of the Pacific country.

“That’s what their ultimate goal is, and they’ve shown in Africa and other parts of the world that where it seems like they’re coming with good intention—and then their coercive economic policies and practices ultimately [result in you being] owned by China. I don’t think anyone wants to be owned by China,” he said, in reference to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Solomon Islands’ opposition leader Matthew Wale has actually been critical of the offer, stating it was unneeded for calming external and internal hazards.

“All the drivers of instability, insecurity and even threats to national unity in Solomon Islands are entirely internal,” he said in a statement.

Wale called Solomons’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare a “mercenary” of Beijing, which he had actually wished for the day he might “exact revenge” on Australia– the prime minister has actually been a veteran critic of the nation’s participation in the area declaring it was taking part in “colonialism.”.

The opposition leader stated ““that day [of vengeance] has arrived, and he has gladly thrust his sword into Australia’s back. China is only too happy to oblige Prime Minister Sogavare, there is a meeting of minds on this.”

H/T The Epoch Times

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