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As you know we have a very strong alliance with our Australian allies and friends. We
have worked hard together over the last few years to look ahead at the alliance and our
security relationships and to look for opportunities for us to see where our shared security interests
overlap and the places where we can work together.
One, and only one of those aspects is the periodic deployment of Marines to the north
of Australia. We have been at it about two years now. Each of those years we built on
successes, we started small, in 2014 we hope to bring that number for about 6 months of
the year in some of the training areas around Darwin, to about 1,100 Marines. And these
Marines will interact with their Australian counterparts, with regional counterparts,
they'll train together.
I think it is really an important part of the US rebalance. It's an important part,
certainly, of our bilateral relationship with Australia. And I think in the long run, it
will add peace and stability to this part of the world which is of growing importantance
to all of us that operate in the global economy. I'd give us a very high grade thus far. We
will continue dialogue with the Australians to see how much further we go, but so far
we're doing well.