The Marine Corps this spring is sending its largest aircraft element to date -- four tilt-rotor Ospreys and five Super Cobra and four Huey helicopters, all out of Hawaii -- to the next $25 million rotation of Marines to northern Australia as the Corps continues to redistribute its forces around the Pacific.

The Marines are moving to four major forward areas of operation over the next decade -- Japan, Guam, Hawaii and Australia -- as part of a "distributed laydown" that seeks to deter growing threats in the vast Asia-Pacific region, particularly from from China and North Korea.

The Osprey, with its long range and speed, is seen as a key connector for the Marine Corps in its new island-hopping strategy.

In November 2011, President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that U.S. Marines would be sent on six-month rotational deployments to train with the Australian Defence Force in Darwin and elsewhere in the Northern Territory. The move puts the Marines closer to Southeast Asia and allows Australia, a key ally, to bolster its defense.

The presence was to grow to a 2,500-member Marine Air-Ground Task Force during the 2016-2017 time frame, but officials said the sixth iteration of the deployment will remain at 1,250 Marines who are expected to arrive in Australia in April.

Most of the Marines will be from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, out of Camp Pendleton in California, Marine Corps Forces Pacific said.

According to Australia's Department of Defence, 200 Marines deployed in 2012, 250 in 2013, 1,150 in 2014, 1,150 in 2015 and 1,250 in 2016.

But the deployment number is stuck at 1,250 for the time being as funding problems continue to be worked out for the full Marine Air-Ground Task Force of 2,500 with aircraft, vehicles and other equipment.

"The Marine Corps position to date has been that we will not grow the force beyond 1,250 Marines in Australia until we get some top-line (overall Marine Corps budget) relief for funding for military construction," Craig Whelden, executive director of Marine Corps Forces Pacific at Camp H.M. Smith, said at a recent Chamber of Commerce Hawaii event.

Whelden added that "we've essentially tapped out what we can use of existing facilities and for sustainment." The deployment of 1,250 Marines costs about $25 million, he said. Marine Corps Forces Pacific is the tasking authority for the units participating in the rotations.

Australia and the United States in October agreed to a more than $1.5 billion cost-sharing agreement to improve infrastructure in northern Australia as well as pay for ongoing costs over the 25-year pact -- ending a disagreement over who would pay the tab, The Australian newspaper reported.

Australian media also said the Marine Corps rotational force is expected to double to its full strength of 2,500 by 2020.

The four Hawaii MV-22 Ospreys scheduled to make the deployment are from Marine Medium Tilt Rotor Squadron 268 (VMM-268), while the five AH-1W Super Cobra and four UH-1Y Venom helicopters are part of Marine Light Attack Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 (HMLA-367). The Aviation Combat Element of 13 aircraft will be hosted at Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin.

By comparison, the Marines sent four UH-1Y helicopters for the rotational deployment in 2016 and four big CH-53E Super Stallions in 2015, according to Australia's Defence Department.

Whelden called the next contingent to deploy "a more diversified, a more capable force than we've had previously."

The "distributed laydown" in the Pacific, which dovetails with the Marine Corps' expeditionary nature and ability to rapidly move forces from one place to another, calls for moving more than 4,000 Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam. Whelden said hundreds of millions of dollars already have been invested on Guam, with wharves to support amphibious ready group ships already completed and ramp and hangar work ongoing for Ospreys and the new F-35B Lightning II, which the Corps called the "world's first operational supersonic short takeoff and vertical landing fighter." "We aren't basing F-35s in Guam, but we train on Guam a lot," Whelden said. Ten of the stealth fighters this week were sent to Iwakuni, Japan, with six more expected to arrive this summer. Whelden said the relocation of about 2,700 Marines from Okinawa to Hawaii is about 10 years away.

The U.S.A. Marine Corps has suspended flights of its Osprey aircraft in Japan after one of the planes crash-landed off the coast of Okinawa, injuring five crew members.

The crash triggered protests on Okinawa, where anti-U.S. military sentiment is already strong.

Many Okinawans were opposed to deploying the Osprey on the island due to safety concerns following a string of crashes outside Japan, including one in Hawaii last year.
The Mayor of Nago, Susumu Inamine, said: 'This is what we have feared might happen some day. We can never live safely here.'

More than half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan are stationed on Okinawa under the Japan-US security treaty.

During a visit to Sydney on Wednesday, the commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, signed a 2017 agreement for Australia to host Raptors, which will "send a strong signal about USA military presence in the region"

Euan Graham, the Lowy Institute's director of international security, described the presence of the F-22s as "pretty high-end coercive signalling to China". While the rotation of marines in Darwin got more attention, the stationing of planes was much more strategically significant, he said.

THE US is strengthening a network of secretive military bases across Australia that could be used for waging wars against our interests, it was claimed at a weekend summit.

Instead of fostering crucial relationships, we are allowing the US to create enemies for us with its growing strategic presence on our soil, say the academics, politicians and campaigners who gathered for the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) conference attended by news.com.au in Alice Springs this weekend.
Under a burning hot sun in the red centre, experts and citizens shared their fears over what is happening in the most remote parts of the country. These mysterious bases may be invisible to the majority of us living in the most populated regions along the coast, but could threaten the fabric of all our lives. Here’s what you need to know:

NORTH WEST CAPE — SPACE WARFARE
Perhaps the most frightening of all the bases, North West Cape is at the cutting edge of warfare — in space.
The monstrous structure sits on the northwest coast of Australia, where kilometres of wire surround a soaring central tower and others fanning off it, sucking up huge amounts of electricity.

DARWIN — TROOPS ON THE GROUND
In 2011, President Barack Obama visited Darwin to announce US troops would begin making regular visits to the Northern Territory as part of the country’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region.
The Gillard government agreed to the “permanent rotation of US marines and US air force aircraft”, meaning we have a constant flow of US soldiers on the ground in Australia. There are currently 1500, but this could rise to 2500.
It was this development that triggered the establishment of IPAN in 2012 as onlookers became alarmed at the move from “the invasion of nerd and computer freaks” to actual “troops in uniform with rifles”

PINE GAP — ‘THE POISONED HEART OF AUSTRALIA’
Pine Gap was established in Alice Springs in 1966 when the CIA came up with the idea of putting satellites 36,000 kilometres above the earth’s surface. These had giant antennae that could listen to very weak signals from Soviet missiles testing, allowing the agency to work out the capability of enemy weapons.
The spy base was placed in isolated Alice in the NT because at the time, the massive amount of data had to be collected over 130km of land.

OTHER BASES
The Defence Satellite Communication Station at Geraldton in Western Australia, along with Kojarena 20km inland, was one of Australia’s spy bases. It is now shared with two large American operational military communication systems that pull down information on Indonesian and Chinese satellites from the sky. This is part of the Five Eyes surveillance system used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kojarena is creating “battlefield conditions”, says Mr Doherty, providing data a soldier in Iraq can use to ascertain what’s behind a hill — the visual, weather and so on — making it “an American war fighting base”.
Australia paid $800 million for one of the satellites used by this system. But if America does not approve of an operation the Australian Defence Force requests, for example in Timor, it can turn off our access, says Prof Tanter.

So why is the US using our bases a problem? Well, we aren’t just passive bystanders. “Australia is very, very deeply involved,” says Prof Tanter. “At least we’re not locked out the way we were before, but with that comes culpability. The government seems to lack the ability to ask the question, ‘When do Australian and American interests coincide, and when do they not?’”

Barack Obama’s grand plan of using US marine exercises in the Northern Territory as a basis for a new military “pivot in Asia” has been finalised and locked in ahead of the Presidential elections next month.

Australia’s role in providing seasonal training base for 2,500 Marines — the original plan agreed to by President Obama and Julia Gillard in 2011 — was under threat from a dispute over cost sharing for facilities in the Northern Territory.

The dispute about shared costs was limiting the original plan to half the annual intake of 2,500 marines and undermining the effectiveness of the joint training scheme.

The end of Mr Obama’s Presidency, Donald Trump’s strident isolationism and threats from the new Philippines’ President Rodrgio Durtete to end US Marine exercises after this year and “break off” with the United States made finalisation of the original plan urgent.

Julie Bishop and Marise Payne were trying to organise an urgent meeting of US and Australian Foreign and Defence Ministers — Ausmin — in Sydney this month with US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and Defence Secretary, Ash Carter, to seal the deal before the election.

Malcolm Turnbull said on his trip to Washington DC two weeks ago, after meeting Mr Carter, that agreement would be reached but left the detail to the Defence Minister and Australian Defence Secretary, Dennis Richardson.

Senator Payne has been in Washington this week meeting Mr Carter and senior US Defence officials to discuss “the bilateral defence relationship and regional security and stability”.

Christopher Pyne, Defence Industry Minister, has also been in Washington this week in discussions over defence purchases and agreements.

A formal announcement of the final agreement is expected soon outside the auspices of an Ausmin meeting.

The US is facing increased pressure in South East Asia to withdraw troops from the Asia-Pacific realm and Australia’s role as the effective host to a battalion of US marines, who could be readily deployed to crises in the region, was even more crucial.

There were also fears that should Mr Trump become President, or even Hillary Clinton, a new administration would baulk at the costs and refuse to finalise the agreement stalling it at half its original strength and even going backwards.

Such a step would be a major strategic reversal in the region and deprive Australia of the opportunity to be a regional base for US military preparedness as well as cutting off millions of dollars from the Northern Territory economy.

As this stage the US Marine commitment for this year, the fifth rotation of US troops since the agreement began, of 1,250 troops is still only half the target President Obama and Ms Gillard envisaged in 2011.

The Abbott Government ratified the first stage of the agreement in 2014 and there were a scheduled 2,500 US Marines expected to be exercising near Darwin by 2016-17.

But because of an argument over cost sharing the troop rotation has stalled at half the target level. The fifth rotation of US marines for six months’ combined training with Australian and other forces in April this year was 1,250, half the final target after four previous rotations of less than half.

The Foreign Minister was confident an agreement would be reached in time soon after a series of meetings she had in Washington DC two weeks ago.

A formal national analysis of the “Force Posture” agreement found failure to implement it would “undermine Australia’s longstanding alliance with the US” — a view endorsed by the Parliamentary Treaties committee last year.

Although the training rotations at the Roberston Barracks in Darwin, which also involve aircraft and pre-positioned military hardware for a rapid deployment force, have begun the fight over the cost of deploying the Marines stalled the increase in numbers.

In April this year the fifth rotation began at Darwin Airport with the arrival of a US Galaxy C5 aircraft carrying CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters from Hawaii and the first of this year’s 1,250 US Marines.

US defence officials described the rotation as “part of the US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region” and said it was not known when the target of 2,500 troops would be reached.

The officials said it was “not immediately clear when all 2,500 Marines are expected to rotate through Darwin” and that the decisions are made based on a number of variables including cost.

Mr Turnbull said on his arrival in New York for the UN General assembly the negotiations on cost-sharing for the rotation of up to 2,500 marines a year through Darwin was an ongoing negotiation. “I expect them to be resolved,” he said. “These are negotiations that are going on between officials.”