Marines Head to Australia: Still Working Toward a Full Deployment

By Andrew Shearer

Andrew Shearer is director of the Alliances and American Leadership Project and senior adviser on Asia-Pacific security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Shearer was previously national security adviser to Australian Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott.

In 2011, former President Barack Obama and then-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard signed a deal to base 2,500 U.S. Marines in Darwin, Australia in an effort to expand the United States’ sustained regional presence as part of the Obama Administration’s “pivot” to Asia. However, issues over cost sharing and logistics have delayed deployment. The Cipher Brief spoke to Andrew Shearer, the Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Alliances and American Leadership Project to learn more about the setbacks and recent progress in the arrangement.

The Cipher Brief: The deployment of U.S. Marines in Darwin began with the ultimate goal of stationing 2,500 Marines. What factors have inhibited the plan to station the full complement in Darwin?

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