In 2021 the AUSMIN communiqué agreed to ‘establish a combined logistics, sustainment, and maintenance enterprise to support high-end warfighting and combined military operations in the region’. The location wasn’t specified, but look at a map. It won’t be Hobart.

Just south of Darwin the US is installing a fuel farm planned by September 2023 to hold over 300 million litres of military jet fuel. Although the government is reluctant to say what is in prospect, it’s obvious the Americans are going to be here in much larger numbers soon.

This all points to a need for a radical rethink about Darwin’s role in the defence of Australia and what we need to do to rebuild our threadbare military infrastructure across the north. The PLA threat is pushing south, and we need a response to it.

I understand the prime minister doesn’t want a new defence white paper or a national security strategy. There’s a view that written policies constrain freewheeling decision-making. So be it, but something must be done to instil a disciplined focus around Defence’s strategic planning, jolting it away from its fantasies about the late 2030s and towards the tough realities of today.

When there’s no time left to change the structure of the military, the need is to look instead at force posture

The nation’s pre-election preoccupations are trivial, even while huge shifts in global security demand that our leaders consider actions that have been unthinkable.

In this article, AALD alumni Peter Hartcher proposes:

•  conscription
•  cutting trade with China
•  even more new USA war bases

Australia soon will be discussing with Washington the options for hosting major US combatants, including nuclear-capable planes and ships and subs, on Australian territory, in rotation or home-basing.

... but expect to be left in the lurch in the likelihood of USA abandoning democracy

300 million litres of American-owned jet fuel will soon be stored on the outskirts of Darwin, increasing speculation the USA is preparing to expand its military presence in the Northern Territory.

On the back of the announcement of AUKUS, an alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, the US charges d'affaires to Australia flagged a "bigger, more integrated, more ambitious" Marine Corps deployment.

The USFPI are an extension of Australia’s existing Defence relationship with the US and support the common interest of promoting regional security and stability.

The MRF-D has grown in size and complexity since the first rotation of US Marines through Darwin in 2012. In 2019, the goal of 2500 US Marines training with the ADF stationed in Darwin was reached.

The structure of MRF-D continues to evolve in response to the changing environment and advances in technology, with the focus shifting to capability rather than numbers. Highly complex joint training scenarios are now being executed, which continue to challenge our forces and better prepare us to rapidly respond in the region, if and when called upon to do so.

This year, about 2200 US Marines and sailors conducted a comprehensive range of training activities, including humanitarian assistance, security operations and high-end, live-fire exercises – exercises that develop enhanced interoperability between the ADF and US Marines and key partners.

At AUSMIN in September 2021, Australia and the USA announced the agreement to enhance force posture cooperation in four key areas to: establish an integrated logistics capability, expand existing enhanced air cooperation, enhance maritime sustainment cooperation, evolve bilateral and multilateral operations and exercises.

The US military plans a dramatic and comprehensive ramping-up of its defence presence in the Northern Territory to counter the rising threat of China – measures which experts say will, for the first time, involve all four branches of the American armed services.

Senior US and Australian defence officials and analysts, speaking on background, confirmed to the Defence Special Report that while “final details were getting worked out”, the measures envisaged big increases in joint US air exercises, troop deployments, pre positioning of equipment, and the use of more sophisticated weapons systems across the Northern Territory’s key training ranges.

Spurred by growing perceptions of a rising Chinese threat, last month’s announcement of the AUKUS trilateral defence agreement will see the transformation of the Top End from a very convenient military training area for the ADF and its allies to a vital southern US defence anchor encompassing a vast area of the Pacific, linking Guam to the north and Hawaii to the east.

These are bigger consequences and will have a bigger, more immediate, impact to the region.