US Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger said he supports an open-ended increase in the number of Marines rotated into the country.

“I think the limits of that will be as far as Australia will allow us to go,” he said.

“Darwin does for us … two basic things. It gives us a place to train at scale alongside a partner at a high end.

“You can use every tool in the tool kit and press things to the limit in terms of realism.

“It’s awesome and we’re doing it with a partner who uses the same howitzer, uses the same equipment, who thinks the same.

During the Q&A session, ASPI executive director Peter Jennings said he supported the inclusion of Japanese Marines in the north Australian posture.

The Marine Rotational Force-Darwin (MRF-D) Aviation Combat Element (ACE) has arrived in Darwin.

The aircraft are critical to accomplishing Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) missions and tasks in 2022.

As one of the major subordinate elements of the MAGTF, the ACE offers much more than just aircraft in the skies.

Led by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 (VMM-268), and joined by detachments from Marine Air Control Group 38 (MACG), Marine Wing Support Squadron 174 (MWSS), and Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 24 (MALS), the MRF-D 2022 ACE provides mobility, response, and awareness to the MAGTF.

Compared with traditional rotary-wing platforms, the MV-22 extends the operational reach of the MAGTF which will be showcased during the exercises of this year’s rotation.

F-35B Lightning IIs from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, will participate in Australia’s biennial Exercise Pitch Black, Marine Aircraft Group 12 spokesman Gunnery Sgt. Vitaliy Rusavskiy said in an email Thursday.

Pitch Black involves the Royal Australian Air Force working with regional, coalition and allied nations. It will take place from Aug. 19 to Sept. 8

Ten MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft deployed with the rotational force from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268, out of Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, will participate in Pitch Black, DiPietro said.

Marines from Air Control Group 38, part of the rotational force, will also take part in Pitch Black

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

Experts say a new port could replace the USA military’s main fuelling station in the Pacific region after the closure of a storage facility at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

The federal budget allocated $1.5 billion to build “new port infrastructure, such as a wharf, an offloading facility and dredging of the shipping channel” in the Northern Territory.

Infrastructure Department Secretary Simon Atkinson told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday the new port would be built at Middle Arm in Darwin Harbour.

The government has been in discussion with Defence officials for five months, the hearing was told, and the new port would be open to naval ships as well as private industry for minerals exports and energy exports.

Australian National University professor of defence studies, John Blaxland, said the USA would “no doubt” be looking to locations such as Darwin to bolster its fuel storage.

“It’s not unreasonable to say that additional facilities in and around Darwin will be dual-roled, they will be available for use by US forces,” Professor Blaxland said.

“Darwin is a frequently visited port for US warships transiting from East Coast USA to the Middle East, through the Pacific, across the Indian Ocean, as well as visits from the Seventh Fleet based in Japan.”

The USA military’s massive Red Hill facility, which stored 950 million litre of fuel in underground tanks, was closed down earlier this month due to groundwater contamination.