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.

NT Attorney-General John Elferink defends spending $45,000 of taxpayers' money on a recent study trip to the United States. Mr Elferink said he met with a US Army general and addressed US Marines who would soon be posted in Darwin to "tell those marines that we expect them to obey the law here".

unfortunately a stern word from mr Elferink does not carry the same weight as would a full public review of the relevant (50-year old) treaty

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.”