Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the US will increase its military presence in Australia in a buildup aimed at China.

In a joint press conference with Australia’s defense minister and foreign minister, Austin said that the US will increase its rotational forces in Australia. “That includes rotations of bomber task forces, fighters, and future rotations of US Navy and US Army capabilities,” Austin said.

Many countries in the region are not eager to get on board with the US’s confrontational approach to China. The prime minister of Papua New Guinea said this week that his country can’t afford to get caught between the US and China and said he told the US your “enemy is not my enemy.”

Indonesia’s president expressed similar concerns during a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in November, saying the ASEAN must not let the region turn into a frontline for a new Cold War.

Details on the rotational deployments aren’t clear, but they will likely focus on the Australian city of Darwin in the Northern Territory, where US Marines have been rotating through for years.

American submarines will visit Australia more regularly but Defence Minister Richard Marles has rejected basing them down under to bolster our defences until our nuclear-powered boats hit the water.

Mr Marles is planning to use this week’s first meeting of AUKUS defence ministers to lock in the key planks of Australia’s nuclear submarine plan before it is unveiled early next year.

But he said home-porting US submarines in Australia was “not the answer” to covering any capability gap that emerged before our boats were in service.

This week’s AUSMIN meeting between Australian and US defence and foreign affairs ministers is also likely to lock in an expanded US Marine rotation in Darwin, and potentially the deployment of more US aircraft including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers.

The Yanks have bade farewell to the Northern Territory with the end of the 2022 Marine Rotational Force – Darwin.

The Territory hosted 2200 US military personnel in the MRF-D’s 11th rotation, which began in March, for the relationship strengthening exercise.

There were a multitude of activities undertaken this year, including Exercise Koolendong, a bilateral warfighting exercise held in the NT and Western Australia.

MRF-D Commanding Officer and regimental commander for the historic 5th Marine Regiment Colonel Chris Steele said the US and Australia were “committed to ensuring a secure, stable, and inclusive Indo-Pacific”.

MRF-D 2023 is expected to begin next March.

Police & Courts

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An American Marine who drunkenly groped a woman in a Territory nightclub has promised to hold his mates to account and prevent future seedy assaults.

Kymani Powell appeared in Darwin Local Court on Friday to plead guilty to unlawfully assaulting a woman at the Landmark Hotel on Roystonea Ave, on April 30.

Prosecutor Marty Aust said the Connecticut man “forcefully groped” his victim, who was unable to defend herself in the popular nightclub. 

“This was an uninvited, unwanted intrusion on an intimate area of her body by a stranger,” Mr Aust said.

Defence barrister Mary Chalmers said 21-year-old  Powell had struggled with being separated from his family, and was appalled by his own actions.

“It was … an ill-advised lapse in his otherwise exemplary character.”

Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris found him guilty, but did not record a conviction. Powell was also fined $150.

Major construction, funded by the U.S. and Australian governments, is underway in Australia’s Northern Territory for facilities that will be used by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

The facilities will support U.S. and Australian forces training to defend chains of small islands that would likely be an arena for any future conflict with China, according to former Australian assistant defense secretary Ross Babbage.

The allies are learning to conduct dispersed operations and deploy anti-ship missiles to island chains in the Western Pacific “to make it extremely difficult and dangerous for Chinese operations in a crisis,” including a conflict over Taiwan, he said by phone Wednesday.

The Australian government will likely announce more initiatives in the northern Australia before the year is over, Babbage said.