An expert in US politics says Australia is not in total control of the rotation of US Marines through Darwin and warns tensions may arise in the future. Associate Professor at the US Study Centre at the University of Sydney, Brendan O'Connor, sounded a note of caution as Darwin prepares to welcome 1,200 US Marines, who begin arriving on Monday. "This may [have] been something that governments over a long period of time may have wanted, but when you are dealing with such a powerful ally and an ally that is so much more powerful than Australia you are not in total control of the situation," he said. Under the deal struck between former prime minister Julia Gillard and US president Barack Obama, the number of US Marines rotating through Darwin each year will gradually increase to become 2,500 troops by 2017.

Mr O'Connor said while Australians may be in favour of the deal while Mr Obama is the US president, the agreement is a long-term deal and it may lose public support in Australia if a Republican president wins office. "That is somewhat of the naivety of how the original deal was looked at. As a deal with Obama rather than with American politicians over a 20-year period," he said.

Australia has sided with the US in a program of strategic containment of China and Darwin is at the centre of a regional military buildup. But you’ll likely read better coverage of it in China than here. Later this month, as the monsoon subsides and soft mud becomes solid ground, the permanent rotation of US marines through Darwin will enter its next iteration. Another 1,150 marines will arrive in the Top End, bringing with them a plethora of vehicles, weapons and ammunition. In Chinese media, details of the rotation, along with the similarly underreported plans to use the Australian Cocos Islands as a base for American drones, are represented as what they in fact are: clear evidence that Australia is siding with the US in a program of strategic containment of China.

It is unsurprising that Australians are only vaguely aware that the first ever permanent peacetime deployment of foreign troops in the nation’s history is now occurring. The yarns spun by our politicians portray the deployment, which will swell to at least 2,500 marines over the next few years, as doing all things for all people. To our wary southeast Asian neighbours, the rotation is presented as a humanitarian aid and disaster relief operation, ready to spring into action at the first whiff of a meteorological event. Nationally, it is downplayed as a mere “troop rotation” and “interoperability” exercise, an end in itself with no greater military implication. Locally, an upsurge in jobs servicing the American troops is promised, as too is an influx of foreign currency to be spent on entertainment, infrastructure and tourism. Recent news of Chinese military construction in the South China Sea is troubling, but in the context of the unprecedented American regional military expansion that has been occurring for years it is unsurprising. If the Australian government desires to dampen regional tensions, and seek a path different from unquestioning support for the US in a zero-sum confrontation with China, an honest dialogue on how our foreign policy supports the national interest must be undertaken. While the nature and purpose of the Darwin marine rotation remains obscured, the prospects for this are bleak.

THE state-of-the-art warship USS America is slated to join a record contingent of Marines in Darwin this dry season, according to US Navy chiefs. More than 1100 American Marines will arrive in Darwin this month. The US Navy has been developing plans to send ships to Darwin Harbour, effectively allowing the Marine contingent to rapidly deploy anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region. Initial plans for the Marine rotation were to expand to 2500 troops a year by 2016 or 2017. Reports from the US suggest the build-up will reach its peak sooner rather than later.

Plans are also afoot to send amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, amphibious transport dock Green Bay and dock landing ship Ashland to the Top End this year.

MORE than 1000 US Marines will begin arriving in the Top End in the coming weeks for the fourth Marine Rotation Force-Darwin. The 2015 rotation will see about 1150 Marines, mostly from 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California, calling the Top End home for six months of the dry season. Four CH-53E helicopters from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, will also be part of the rotation. Commander of Northern Command, Commodore Brenton Smyth, said the Marines would train with Aussie troops and by themselves at defence facilities in the Northern Territory. “This is now the fourth rotation of Marines to Northern Australia and we continue to build greater understanding and co-operation between our two forces with each new ­rotation,” he said.

The number of Marines in the annual deployment will increase to 2500 in coming years. Chief Minister Adam Giles said the NT Government had appointed a Strategic Defence Advisory Board to help secure some of the Australian Defence Force’s $600 million of federal funding on offer during the next five years, saying: “I want to see this grow even further.”

Jonathan Greenert, U.S. Chief of Navy Operations, said the navy base in Australia will hold warships that will become part of an Amphibious Ready Group, acting as support group to a Marine Air Ground Task Force. Reflecting reluctance on both sides to permanently station US troops on Australian soil, a spokesman for Greenert later said the increased US naval presence in the country would be rotational, which he characterized as “placing and not basing.” Amid longstanding plans to rotate up to 2,500 US marines at a base outside of Darwin for six months every year, Washington has already identified warships which would form an Amphibious Ready Group to support a Marine Air Ground Task Force. That group would include a large amphibious assault carrier and two smaller helicopter carriers. The plan would also require the expansion of Darwin’s port. “Now, the question is by when do they need to be ready, will they come in all three, or one or two at a time,” Adm. Greenert said.

and, to everyone's shock and horror, we learn about this significant new development in our subservient relationship with the USA military via USA military leaders in foreign media outlets. #ausFailure