Australia and Japan: When Your Friends are Friends - Everyone is Stronger
1 + 1 = 3
This may get lost in the background noise, but if you are concerned about the rule of law, democratic governance and security in the Pacific, you would be hard pressed to find more important news than this;
Australia and Japan are set to sign a treaty to beef up defence and security cooperation at a virtual summit on Thursday, in the latest move to strengthen ties amid China's rising military power and economic clout in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the two leaders will sign a Reciprocal Access Agreement, which will for the first time set out a framework for the two countries' defence forces to cooperate with each other.
What do they bring to the table? Primarily, this sends a message of solidarity, but like the USA, these are nations that are primarily maritime and aerospace powers due to geography.
Looking just at their navies, if you combine their fleets they have (+/-) 28 submarines (6 AUS/22 JPN), 6 LHD/CVL/DDH (2 AUS/4 JPN), and 53 destroyers and frigates (11 AUS/42 JPN).
This is good. Good for them, good for the USA.
Everyone smile.
Good move on their part. The ChiComs are likely tasking their DoD, Congressional and WH agents with determining POTATUS admin level of determination to back them. What threshold , trigger etc.
That's good news indeed. If we can figure out how to prevent the current infestation of the executive branch from doing more lasting harm until we can arrange some less feckless and malicious replacements, even better.