By AFP | 2026-06-22

SYDNEY -- The U.S. military is planning a permanent war-ready weapon stockpile for its Marine Corps on Australia's southeast coast beyond the range of most Chinese missiles, tender documents show and officials confirmed to AFP.

The development of the stockpile, a first for the Marine Corps in Australia, comes as the United States is keen to leverage the continent's strategic location in the South Pacific to counter China's rapid military buildup, analysts said.

The U.S. Marine Corps began global prepositioning of military supplies during the Cold War, using floating stores on ships and caves in Norway where it keeps weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

The first land stockpile in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to open this year in the Philippines, near potential flashpoints in the South China Sea.

The growing U.S. presence is "very important for Australia's national security," Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said last week. He cited the ""very significant military buildup" by China as cause for concern.

Inside the buildout

Documents published by the U.S. Navy in June show advanced planning for an even larger Australian stockpile, with $30 million allocated to build warehouses and offices in Victoria state for "critical forward provisioning."

The Australian stockpile, expected to reach full capacity by 2028, will sit in Melbourne before workers move it to U.S. warehouses to be constructed in 2027 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 U.S. forces on rotation at Australian defense bases.

The U.S. Navy is engaging a global defense contractor to employ about 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 U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific spokesperson told AFP.

The spokesperson declined to comment on contract details or force planning assumptions but said Marine Corps 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 Defense.

"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.

U.S. Army trucks were left at the Bandiana base in 2023 after an Australian war game involving U.S. 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 missile range

The Pentagon has asked Congress for $500 million next year to improve prepositioning of equipment and fuel across the Asia-Pacific to deter China.

About 2,000 U.S. Marines conduct exercises for six months of the year on the opposite coast of Australia in the northern city of Darwin.

China has the capability to strike northern Australia with ballistic missiles deployed from its South China Sea outposts, the Lowy Institute think-tank said in a report in June.

The vulnerability of northern Australia is likely a "relevant consideration" in placing a stockpile in the southeast, the Lowy Institute director of international security, Sam Roggeveen, told AFP.

The growth of U.S. 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.

Guam's shadow

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 security of the U.S. 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 U.S. Marines might look to Australia to enable such storage," he said.

"Barring a massive increase in Australian defense expenditure, for which there is little political appetite, facilitating greater U.S. investment in Australian real estate is widely considered to be the most prudent approach to take."

Australia's Department of Defense 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.