The head of the US Navy says the first group of American marines to arrive in Darwin will act as a test run for future US marine deployments.
About 200 marines will arrive in the Top End in the coming days as part of a six-month rotation.
By 2017, the size of the deployments will increase to about 2,500 US marines.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says the increase in numbers will have little impact on Darwin residents.
"It's a very small footprint operation," he said.
"There are about 200 in a marine rifle company (coming to Darwin).
"These marines, this company is coming from Hawaii.
"It's Fox Company, 2nd Battalion 3rd Marines."
Mr Mabus says any problems the first batch of marines have, or cause, will be dealt with before extra troops are deployed in the coming years.
"The whole notion of putting a company in first is to see what issues there will be," he said.
"To see how this operates, to see how the marines and the Australian forces can do operations together
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