page_title: Australian Defence Force
section_title: Foreign defence relations
hierarchical_section_title: Australian Defence Force / Foreign defence relations
caption_attribution_description: English: (May 12, 2017) An Armed Forces of the Philippines Joint Special Operations Group soldier and an Australian 2nd Commando Regiment soldier, clear a room during close quarters battle training in support of Balikatan 2017 at Fort Magsaysay in Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. By training together, the Philippine, Australian and U.S. military build upon shared tactics, techniques, and procedures that enhance readiness and response capabilities to emerging threats. Balikatan is an annual U.S.-Philippine bilateral military exercise focused on a variety of missions including humanitarian and disaster relief, counter-terrorism, and other combined military operations. Note: The author identified the soldier as U.S. Army Special Forces. The soldier is wearing an Australian flag patch on the camouflage uniform and the Crye Precision AirFrame helmet has a double diamond patch of the 2nd Commando Regiment.
context_page_description: The Australian Defence Force is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia and its national interests. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and several "tri-service" units. The ADF has a strength of just over 85,000 full-time personnel and active reservists and is supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies.
  During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established the armed services as separate organisations. Each service had an independent chain of command. In 1976, the government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the services under a single headquarters. Over time, the degree of integration has increased and tri-service headquarters, logistics, and training institutions have supplanted many single-service establishments.
  The ADF is technologically sophisticated but relatively small. Although the ADF's 58,206 full-time active-duty personnel and 29,560 active reservists make it the largest military in Oceania, it is smaller than most Asian military forces.
context_section_description: The Australian Defence Force cooperates with militaries around the world. Australia's formal military agreements include the ANZUS Alliance with the United States, the Closer Defence Program with New Zealand, the Five Power Defence Arrangements with Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and the ABCA Armies Standardisation Program with the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Australia has also established a partnership with NATO. ADF activities under these agreements include participating in joint planning, intelligence sharing, personnel exchanges, equipment standardisation programs and joint exercises. Australia is also a member of the UKUSA signals intelligence gathering agreement. Members of the ADF are posted to Australian diplomatic missions around the world as defence attachés; in 2016 the role of these officers was expanded to include promoting export sales for the Australian defence industry. The 2016 Defence White Paper stated that the Government will seek to further expand the ADF's international engagement.
  New Zealand, Singapore and the United States maintain military units in Australia. The New Zealand and Singaporean forces are limited to small training units at ADF bases, with the New Zealand contingent comprising nine personnel involved in air navigation training. Two Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot training squadrons with a total of 230 personnel are based in Australia; 126 Squadron at the Oakey Army Aviation Centre and 130 Squadron at RAAF Base Pearce. The Singapore Armed Forces also uses the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area in Queensland for large-scale exercises; under the terms of a bilateral agreement, these run for up to 18 weeks each year and involve as many as 14,000 Singaporean personnel.
  The United States maintains intelligence facilities in Australia, and regularly rotates military forces to the country for training purposes. The intelligence facilities comprise the Pine Gap satellite tracking station near Alice Springs and Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt near Exmouth, Western Australia. Pine Gap is jointly operated by Australian and United States personnel and Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt has been an exclusively Australian-operated facility since 1999. In early 2007 the Australian Government approved the construction of a new US communications installation at the Defence Signals Directorate Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station facility near Geraldton, Western Australia, to provide a ground station for the US-led Wideband Global System which Australia is partly funding. The United States Military also frequently uses Australian exercise areas and these facilities have been upgraded to support joint Australian-United States training. As well as these facilities, between 200 and 300 US Military personnel are posted to Australia to liaise with the ADF. In November 2011, the Australian and American Governments announced plans to base on rotational basis a United States Marine Corps Marine Air-Ground Task Force in the Northern Territory for training and exercise purposes and also plans to increase rotations of United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft through northern Australia. As part of this agreement, the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin has been deployed to Australia for six months each year since 2012. It is planned for this force to eventually comprise around 2,500 personnel with supporting aircraft and equipment. The expanded rotations of USAF units to Australia began in early 2017.
  The ADF provides assistance to militaries in Australia's region through the Defence Cooperation Program. Under this program the ADF provides assistance with training, infrastructure, equipment and logistics and participates in joint exercises with countries in South East Asia and Oceania. The Pacific Patrol Boat Program is the largest Defence Cooperation Program activity and supports 22 Pacific class patrol boats operated by twelve South Pacific countries. Other important activities include supporting the development of th
caption: An Australian commando (at left) training with a Filipino soldier in 2017
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