in briff
- US$30 million ($42.4M) will be spent on warehouses in rural Victoria to stash military weapons for the United States.
- The move is designed to “improve responsiveness” of US forces across the Asia-Pacific region.
The U.S. military is set to establish a permanent arsenal for its Marine Corps on Australia’s southeastern coast, strategically positioned beyond the reach of most Chinese missiles. This initiative, confirmed by officials and revealed through tender documents, was reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
Marking a first for the Marine Corps in Australia, this stockpile highlights the United States’ intent to utilize Australia’s strategic location in the South Pacific. Experts suggest this move is aimed at counterbalancing China’s swift military expansion in the region.
During the Cold War, the U.S. Marine Corps pioneered the global prepositioning of military supplies, maintaining floating reserves on ships and storing equipment in Norwegian caves to support extensive troop deployments.
The first land-based stockpile in the Asia-Pacific is anticipated to debut this year in the Philippines, near potential hotspots in the South China Sea.
According to documents released by the U.S. Navy this month, plans are underway for a more extensive stockpile in Australia. The project has a budget of $30 million (AUD $42.4 million) to construct warehouses and offices in Victoria’s southeastern region for “critical forward provisioning.”
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The Australian stockpile, expected to reach full capacity by 2028, will be kept in Melbourne before being moved to US warehouses to be constructed next year at an Australian military base at Bandiana in rural Victoria, tender documents show.
Australia does not permit foreign military bases on its soil, a sensitive issue in a country that has a security alliance with the United States and is hosting an increasing variety of US forces on rotation at Australian defence bases.
The US navy is engaging a global defence contractor to employ around 110 engineers, mechanics, material and safety specialists to manage the Australian stockpile, which includes “crew-served weapons”, the documents show.
“Marine corps activities in Australia support integrated global sustainment by maintaining ready-for-issue equipment and supplies for operations and exercises across the Indo-Pacific,” a US marine corps forces pacific spokesperson told AFP.
The spokesperson declined to comment on contract details or force planning assumptions but said marines’ equipment is kept at “high readiness”.
Contracting arrangements and the operation of the facility would be made in close coordination with Australia’s Department of Defence.
“These activities improve responsiveness, strengthen interoperability with allies and partners, and support a range of missions across the Indo-Pacific,” the spokesperson said, using an alternative description for the Asia-Pacific region.
US army trucks were left at the Bandiana base in 2023 after an Australian war game involving US troops held every two years. The marines’ stockpile at Bandiana, approved last July, is separate.
“Marine corps and army equipment programs are designed to support their respective service requirements and are managed under separate authorities and processes,” the marines spokesperson said.
Beyond China’s missiles?
The Pentagon has asked Congress for $500 million next year to improve prepositioning of equipment and fuel across the Asia-Pacific to deter China.
Around 2,000 US marines conduct exercises for six months of the year on the opposite coast of Australia in the northern city of Darwin.
A report from the Lowy Institute think tank this week warned that China has the capability to strike northern Australia with ballistic missiles deployed from its South China Sea outposts.
Its director of international security, Sam Roggeveen, told AFP that was likely a “relevant consideration” in placing a stockpile in Australia’s southeast.
“Once these facilities are operational, they would be obvious targets for China,” he said.
The growth of US forces and equipment in Australia is “a major change to Australian policy that ties Australia much more closely to America’s strategic objectives in the region”, Roggeveen said.
Australian National University professor of international security John Blaxland said the country’s location is being seen with “a growing sense of significance” given concerns over the vulnerability of the US military base on Guam.
“With competition for influence in the Indo-Pacific having reached the highest level in over a generation, it is not surprising that the US Marines might look to Australia to enable such storage,” he said.
“Barring a massive increase in Australian defence expenditure, for which there is little political appetite, facilitating greater US investment in Australian real estate is widely considered to be the most prudent approach to take.”
Australia’s Department of Defence told AFP it has a strategy to maintain “southern base infrastructure focused on force generation, sustainment, health networks and logistics nodes”, to enable the military to project power from Australia’s north.
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