AUSTRALIA is about to confront the biting reality of US military decline as its cash-strapped ally moves to abandon the long-standing doctrine of being ready to fight two wars simultaneously on opposite sides of the globe.
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The New York Times reported yesterday on cuts expected to be announced this week by the Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, to slash hundreds of billions of dollars in defence spending across ground forces, navy, air force and the nuclear arsenal.
Coming after earlier reductions, the US's formal strategy to fight two large adversaries at once - as it did during World War II against Nazi Germany in Europe and Japan in the Pacific - will also be surrendered.
For 60 years the Defence chiefs in Canberra have had the luxury to assume Washington will be free to come to Australia's aid, no matter what the US entanglements outside the region.
But those days are gone as a teetering economy forces deep cuts to the US defence budget - at the same time as many are concerned about China's growing military ambitions.
The troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, of which Labor has committed to buy between 14 and 100, is also reported to be targeted.
Despite the cuts, the US would remain the pre-eminent military power with the ability to fight and win one major conflict and ''spoil'' a second adversary's ambitions in another part of the world. But The New York Times reported that the cuts inevitably posed questions such as whether a reduced aircraft carrier fleet could counter an increasingly bold China or whether a smaller army could fight a long ground war in Asia.
Australia has already made plain its hope to see a greater US engagement in the ''Asian century'' as the Obama administration withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The agreement to train up to 2500 US Marines near Darwin, announced during Barack Obama's visit to Australia in November, was widely interpreted as insurance against China's rise.
The US has also made clear a desire to shift the focus to Asia and Mr Obama used his speech to federal Parliament to pledge the US was ''here to stay''.
The shift from fighting two simultaneous wars against major forces recognises the significant changes to warfare during recent decades, with insurgent conflicts the norm and the growing use of drones and other high technology.
The Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd, would not comment on the change.
