The U.S. still plans to send 2,500 Marines to Australia each year — but that large of a rotation won’t happen until at least 2020.
American and Australian officials are still slogging through the details of sending a full Marine air-ground task force Down Under some five years after President Obama announced plans to send 2,500 Marines there annually starting in 2016.
The task force, known as Marine Rotational Force-Darwin, spends about six months of each year deployed to Australia's Northern Territory. The Marines began deploying there soon after the Obama administration announced its Pacific pivot, a policy that reoriented resources after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter China's rise.
Australian defense officials declined to say exactly why the timeline was pushed back, but confirmed they’re working with the U.S. to bring a full MAGTF through Darwin "by around 2020."
"Each year the U.S. and Australia work closely together to determine the exact size and composition of each rotation in addition to the activities that the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin will undertake during their six-month deployment to the region," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
There are currently 1,250 Marines in Australia. The rotations have expanded to a battalion landing team since the first company-size deployment — about 200 Marines — in April 2012.
Since then, there have been about six rounds of negotiations between the countries as officials hammer out how costs should be shared and facilities used, said Andrew Shearer, a former Australian national security adviser who's now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
“What seems to have happened is basically those negotiations have bogged down pretty badly,” he said. “I think that’s quite unfortunate.”
While another 1,250 more Marines in Australia aren't likely to tip the strategic balance in the western Pacific, Shearer said delaying the plan sends the wrong signal at a time when tensions are growing in the South China Sea.

Sharing the costs

The U.S. and Australian have invested millions to boost the size of the Marine rotations — but both militaries are facing budget crunches, and that has created some friction.
As the Marine Corps ramps up rotations to Japan, Australia and eventually Guam, the service has allocated billions of dollars to fund those moves. And the Aussies spent $11 million upgrading army and air force bases to accommodate more U.S. Marines in the Northern Territory.
But Shearer said the two countries need to focus on the long-term benefits to the agreement instead of getting bogged down in budget negotiations.
“From my understanding, the difference between the two sides is a few tens of millions of dollars annually,” he said. “Both sides need to get back to focusing on the big picture ... rather than this sort of unseemly haggling.”
The agreement benefits both sides, he said. Rotating more Marines through Australia is just one piece of the Marine Corps' plans to base roughly 15 percent of its force in Hawaii and beyond in coming years. And the Aussies are in the process of standing up their first-ever marine amphibious force, according to a white paper released this spring that completely revamped Australia's defense strategy.
“Australia will operate at extended ranges and be able to shape and influence out into maritime Southeast Asia,” he said. “What’s laid out in the white paper is really the biggest modernization of the Royal Australian Navy since the Second World War.”
That strategy calls for a greater emphasis on a more aggressive maritime strategy. Its marine amphibious force will be built around two new Canberra-class landing helicopter dock assault ships. The plan also includes a $90 billion investment in shipbuilding over the next decade.

The 1,250 Marines currently deployed to Australia will train with local soldiers through October. Most are housed at the Australian army's Robertson Barracks, with some staying at the nearby Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin.