In the pre-dawn darkness of a wet June morning, a US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber touched down at RAAF Base Amberley on the outskirts of Brisbane — engines still running — refueled, and vanished back into the sky before sunrise. Nuclear-capable. Unannounced. The scene encapsulates what new data now confirms: the United States military controls or has access to more than 110 facilities across Australian territory, well over half of all military installations on the continent. Analysts are raising urgent questions about whether this extraordinary level of integration could one day drag Australia into a conflict it never chose to enter.

The Scale of US Military Presence in Australia

New data compiled by the Nautilus Institute and published by Guardian Australia maps the full extent of the US military footprint on Australian soil. According to that research, the US military directly controls 17 facilities on mainland Australia and holds access to 75 more Australian-run military installations. US defence corporations maintain access to an additional 18 facilities. The combined total — 110 facilities — represents a level of foreign military penetration that Professor Richard Tanter, the database’s author, describes in striking terms.