Quora Answer: Why Does Australia Not Build a Military Base in Malaysia or Thailand?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why does not Australia build a military base in Malaysia or Thailand?”

Australia cannot simply decide to go to another country and build a military base.  Even the United States cannot do that.  Countries have to be invited in, and a series of legal agreements have to be signed.  Hosting a foreign military may have sovereignty issues, and is not taken lightly.  Australia did have a base in Butterworth, Malaysia, which they inherited from the RAF.  This was part of the Five Powers Defence Arrangement, and played a large role in the defence of Malaysia during the Emergency and the Konfrontasi.  Custody of the base was handed over to the RMAF in 1988, but they still have a detachment there to this day.  Australia has never officially had troops in Thailand, but soldiers were sent there for R&R during the Vietnam War.  Australia has never managed any facility there.

Within Southeast Asia, Australia has always concerned itself with containment of Indonesia.  To that end, it has a major base in Darwin, and unofficial deployments to Timor Leste.  Outside of the FPDA, Australia has no need for the expense of a base in Southeast Asia.  Within and without the FPDA, Australia has an arrangement for logistics support in Singapore.  This was a holdover from arrangements with the Western allies during the Vietnam War.