Upgrade of key facilities highlights US alliance

Major work is being carried out to defence facilities across Australia and a significant portion falls under the umbrella of the US Force Posture Initiative.

ADF soldiers and US Marines during Exercise Koolendong 2022, the annual bilateral warfighting exercices at at Yampi Sound in Northern Australia. Picture: Department of Defence.

Set against the backdrop of growing regional tension, major work is being carried out to defence facilities across Australia and a significant portion falls under the umbrella of the US Force Posture Initiative (USFPI).

The FPI agreement was initially signed by Australia and the United States in September 2011, and since that time Washington has invested heavily in base infrastructure and training areas, with a major focus on the defence facilities in the Northern Territory.

The original agreement included the annual deployment of US Marine Corps units to the Top End under the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin initiative, as well as an Enhanced Air Co-operation agreement with the US Air Force, which is overseeing major infrastructure work at RAAF Darwin and to cater for the rotational deployment of US strategic bombers and large air mobility aircraft.

Since then, the umbrella FPI agreement has been expanded in 2021 to include Enhanced Land Maritime Co-operation and Enhanced Land Co-operation initiatives.

The same year also saw the addition of the Combined Logistics Sustainment and Maintenance Enterprise (ColSME), which is intended to support high-end warfighting and combined military operations in the Indo-Pacific region. An early example of activities under the CoLSME initiative is the recent endorsement by Defence Minister Richard Marles of the establishment of Bandiana in northern Victoria as a logistics node to support pre-positioning of US equipment.

The most recent additions to the overarching USFPI occurred in 2023 with the signing of an Enhanced Space Cooperation agreement, together with a commitment to conducting more regular and longer-duration visits of US Navy nuclear submarines, and increased rotations of US Navy maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft.

The terms of the USFPI are set during the annual Australia-US Ministerial (AUSMIN) dialogues, and these are subsequently overseen from a Defence Department perspective by the Force Posture Initiative Branch, currently led by Brigadier Mick Say.

“The branch has moved into the International Policy Division within the Strategic Policy and Industry Group, which is a significant shift,” Brigadier Say explained during the recent Northern Australia Defence Summit in Darwin.

“We are still very closely engaged with the Defence Security and Estate Group.

“But a review indicated that we needed to be a little more strategy-led in regard to our force posture across the board.”

As director-general of the FPI Branch, Brigadier Say is in charge of the engagement with the US Indo-Pacific Command on all force posture investment in Australia.

“The Australia-US relationship and force posture co-operation is absolutely the core of the alliance, and it’s a tangible demonstration of our shared commitment and deep engagement within the Indo-Pacific, and part of the response,” he said.

“This defence relationship is underpinned by deep levels of co-operation through training exercises, operations, intelligence, capability development, science and technology, industry and our deep people-to-people links over many years.

“AUSMIN over the past couple of years has cemented that alliance with a firm focus on the Indo-Pacific region and committing Australia and the US to ambitious defence outcomes, advancing our force posture and critical capabilities.”

Under this framework, there has been a significant growth in the scale and complexity of the initiatives undertaken with force posture by the MRF-D, which is now looking beyond the Northern Territory and further into the region.

Looking to the future, the most recent round of bilateral discussions (AUSMIN 24) agreed to progress the redevelopment of northern air bases – primarily Darwin and Tindal – but to begin scoping the RAAF’s bare bases across the north of the country in the form of RAAF Curtin and Learmonth in Western Australia, and Scherger in Queensland.

“Importantly, we’ve also been enabling the pre-positioning of US Army and US Marine Corps stores and materiel, and it is a big step towards the longer-term establishment of an enduring logistics support area in Queensland,” Brigadier Say said.

“Further analysis is being undertaken with US Indo-Pacific Command on that, but it’s very much aligned with our National Defence Strategy.”

The upcoming AUSMIN 25 dialogue will further outline steps to enhance the FPI and grow the defence infrastructure footprint across the country.

“AUSMIN 25 will be crucial for us,” Brigadier Say explained.

“It will lead to a number of announcements in regard to the next steps in force posture activities within Australia.”