U.S. Pacific Marines tested their marksmanship skills against 18 countries in the Australian Army Skills at Arms Meeting

These skills tests are becoming a bit annoying.

Why compete if the goal isn't to win but to build "jointness"?  If you want to simply call it a training evolution ok, but don't hold back cause you want to "encourage" the locals.

With that said why even have a base in Australia.  Why partner with them? We can do better and a base in North Australia is too far away to do much good.  Better to have a secure locale without the international headache by developing something in Alaska (which would offer the dual benefit of covering the Pacific and the Arctic...if the passage does open up we're gonna need Marines up there anyway!).

We need to rethink our base in Australia.  Does it make sense?  Is it too far away to actually be worthwhile?