Page 44 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2023

44 DEFENCE IN THE NORTH NORTHERN BASES
APRIL 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
A HUGE INVESTMENT IN NORTHERN DEFENCE INFRASTRUCTURE
JULIAN KERR | SYDNEY
Whatever the outcome of the Defence Strategic Review, the importance of the role to be played by the Northern Territory will certainly have been underlined, along with the numerous and substantial defence and defence-linked infrastructure projects underway across Australia’s north.
ASIGNIFICANT percentage of this project value of around $3 billion has flowed from the US Force Posture Initiatives (US- FPI), now more than 12 years old, under which significant US investment in infrastructure and training areas has followed the annual rotation of US Marine Corps during the dry sea- son under the Rotational Force - Darwin (MRF-D) concept.
Four years ago this rotation finally reached its full poten- tial of a 2,500-strong Marine air–ground task force.
Also included under the USFPI umbrella is the Enhanced Air Cooperation (EAC) agreement with the US Air Force which commenced in 2017. This aims to develop advanced air-to-air integration between Australian and US air ele- ments and is also overseeing major infrastructure work at