John Quiggin sharpens the argument about Stephen Barton’s entry into the History Wars disputing the significance of the Kokoda Track. John argues, rightly in my view, that the logical endpoint of Barton’s position is that the defence of Australia’s national territory should take second place to the needs of our “great and powerful friends”. There’s probably a lot more in this sort of argument than Barton realises. Our defence forces are being restructured to facilitate force projection rather than homeland defence. And we’re increasingly entangled in some sort of armed enforcement of good governance in the Pacific. Is this the 21st century equivalent of an Imperial Defence Policy in which we only have a small say? Would the Bartons of the world acquiesce in Churchill’s re-assignation of Australian troops to the Middle East without consulting the Australian government under the aegis of the exigencies of war? What are the History Warriors really getting at with the reinvention of the Brisbane Line?
41 Responses to “Border protection: the Brisbane Line redux”
Leave a Reply
Please read the comments policy. If you would like an icon beside your comment, please register a Gravatar.
There is a Comments Preview function below the typing box which activates when you start typing.
Indeed. One thing that has been learnt (or re-learnt if Vietnam is considered) is that trying to pacify and occupy a country after an invasion, on the other side of the world, even if your military is the most powerful on earth, is doomed to failure if there is a determined insurgency derived from relatively insignificant populations.
For pure military action to defend this nation, leaving aside nuclear weapons, consider that Australia is one enormous aircraft carrier spanning two oceans from where potential threats could come, with aircraft (sadly missing the F111s soon) able to interdict any naval attacks a long way off. That takes care of the regional threats. (Don’t know if Jindalee over the horizon radar works well or not, I suspect it does and they’re keeping quiet about it.)
If planners insist, and as it is testosterone driven government policy to have a capacity to be a deputy sheriff in other parts of the world, for the “force projection,” all that is really necessary is to arm the Collins class submarines with cruise missiles, and instead of big blue water vessels, go with the Beazer’s plans to build a “coast guard” which would be capable of swarming any regional hot spots in the north and north-east (ie the “arc of instability”) where likely opposition consists of ragtag groups armed with worn out AK47s and rusted water-pipe shotguns, and at the other end, West Papuans fleeing on wooden boats.
What is the purpose of the building those large ships (ie destroyer size and up) given the defensive ability of the anti-ship missiles now available? To my way of thinking, those missiles represent an even graver threat to today’s ships than a swarm of piston engined aircraft did to WW2 aircraft carriers.
As with the UK, our best natural defence happens to be the oceans around us and WW2 situations for example having the 9th division at El Alamein are not going to be repeated, because land battles are so ruinously expensive eg.Iran/Iraq war. Are our long term planners considering buying more second hand tanks for joining the US in land battles in mainland China in a Taiwan stoush? If they are, they’re insane. In any event, the capacity of the USA to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is rapidly dwindling as the Chinese are massively building mainland missiles systems and a blue water fleet. China’s trump card weapon IMHO is economic actually, by its central bank dumping the US dollar which will prevent the USA from funding wars as it is now doing on borrowed money.
Woldwide economic interdependency is ultimately our greatest defence to a world war (barring madmen of course) and testosterone fuelled “force projection” has become a sick, unnecessary, counterproductive, useless and expensive joke.
Is Peter Kemp the cover name for Paul Dibb?
Foreign Policy/Naval history are merely amateur interests, Razor. An old family friend of my father’s vintage flew Avenger’s off aircraft carriers in WW2 and I got the interest from him. Best naval book ever IMO “Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck” by Ludovic Kennedy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovic_Kennedy
By your reasoning we shouldn’t have projected force into East Timor or the Solomon Islands.
How can you justify that.
The UK shouldn’t have had a force projection capability that allowed them to take back the Falkalands - how can you justify that?
What’s the point of our intervention in the Solomon Islands?
What was the point of the Falklands War?
I’m not saying I’m opposed to them - but I’d like to tease out why people think these are legitimate military interventions.
And Razor, if you read Mark’s post, it says “force projection rather than national defence”. The two aren’t incompatible, and he doesn’t say he opposes the former, but if the former is emphasised too much, we tend to lose the capacity to do the latter effectively. Which goes back to Barton’s argument.
Peter — whilst I lack the expertise to discuss with you the details of an Australia-specific defense strategy, I think you view the interests of your “great and powerful friends” on a wee bit too small a scale.
If the US strategic experience of 1945-1989 teaches us anything useful, it may be that the best way to win a world war is to not let it happen in the first place — something our more ’sophisticated’ European mentors failed to manage, twice. Vietnam, for instance, was not in the end an exercise in ‘pacifying’ a hostile country; it was part of a larger global exercise in not getting flanked by a hostile global power that controlled a substantial amount of the world’s population and real estate, and was actively seeking to dominate the rest.
One of the more useful ways to think of history, I feel, is to think of the history that *didn’t* happen. Nobody to my knowledge was ever paraded through the streets of Melbourne in a dunce-cap because their writings did not sufficiently support Mao Zedong Thought; no one in France or Italy was ever ‘re-educated’ by Soviet psychiatrists. Part of the reason for this, say, was that long-term resistance to encroachment was successful, in a dozen obvious theatres, and in two-dozen non-obvious ones.
Let us hope that Australia never *has* to transform itself into a giant aircraft carrier (though tactically, I suppose that’s a useful skill-set to have!). One way to achieve this would be for the events that would necessitate it never have the opportunity to transpire. Some people, thankfully, spend their time thinking long and hard about how that could be.
“(Don’t know if Jindalee over the horizon radar works well or not, I suspect it does and they’re keeping quiet about it.)”
Quiet, but not too quiet. Jindalee has long been my personal favourite piece of defence infrastructure not just because it was a visionary piece of technology that took 50 years to build but also because of my deep and abiding fondness for enormous arrays of identical objects. (see http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/page/3984/ and http://defence-data.com/features/fpage37.htm for examples)
The DSTO says Jindalee (or JORN, the Jindalee Operational Radar Network) “provides 24-hour military surveillance of Australia’s northern approaches, but also serves cililian (sic) purposes such as weather forecasting and the prevention of illegal entry, smuggling and unlicensed fishing.”
Weather forecasting is an interesting use, because it suggests JORN can measure things like wave height and wind direction.
The DMO says “JORN radars are capable of all weather detection of air and surface targets inside an arc of up to 3,000 km range extending from Geraldton in the west around to Cairns in the east.”
So the conspirator in me says “that’s what they publically admit JORN can do. What can it actually do?”
Agree with the Barton and the ‘great and powerful friends’. As I contended earlier http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/04/25/the-kokoda-trail-and-the-history-wars/#comment-68294 (hmm , is it poor form to link to your own comments? - Lord knows I do it all the time in my professional life!) I believe this symbolic consonance also helps in part to explain the Howardian revival of Gallipoli, over Keating’s Kokoda….
As for “And we’re increasingly entangled in some sort of armed enforcement of good governance in the Pacific”, yes, and bloody hell, we’re getting a bit sloppy with it. This last intervention in Honiara was a general balls-up from where I sit. Tear gassing at the drop of a hat, causing a riot (even the former NZ ambassador says we muffed it) and then interning opposiiton parliamentarians, using the military?
Great lesson for emerging democracies!
Hmm, that first line makes no sense. I meant - what Mark said about Barton re: ‘Great and Powerful friends’.
Kim - our intervention in the Solomons is to prevent a failed state in the SW Pacific. If you can connect the dots on what having a failed state in the SW Pacific would mean then I over-estimate your intellectual capacity.
The Falklands Islands were UK territory. Argentinia invaded, probably calculating the UK either wouldn’t or couldn’t take them back. The UK went and took them back and rightfully so - the only opponents were pacifists who reject even a just war theory.
Kim you also said “force projection rather than national defenceâ€?. . . .if the former is emphasised too much, we tend to lose the capacity to do the latter effectively.” that is a load of hogwash if ever I’ve read it. I’ve clearly sated my position at JQ’s thread on this. Please can you explain how emphasising force projection leads to a reduction in the capacity for national defence.
Now, this is more like it http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1624548.htm
I am in rare agreement with Downer here. One of the issues not fully explored in the media is that it is in fact quite true that Taiwan (in particular) is using financial clout to buy influence all over the micro-state Pacific. Ive seen it first hand in Timor.
The problem is that resesntment is then taken out on the ethnic Chinese who, in most cases, have been there for over 100 years, and form the backbone of local commerce.
Whoops - missed a t there - if you cant connect the dots. . .
Razor, I said I was asking the question, not stating opposition. But you’d have to also reflect on whether a failed state of 600 000 people has that much potential to spread mischief. A cynic might think we’re worried about refugees.
It’s obvious that if we train our military and configure our materiel with a view to small and rapid interventions in the Middle East, we are making a choice not to emphasise defence of our borders (for instance through the sorts of naval capacity we develop). And lots of defence boffins agree that we’re very close to being overstretched at the moment - not just the Hugh Whites of the world, but also the Neil James (if I’m remembering correctly the name of the Defence Association bloke). What happens if something dire happens on our doorstep? What capacity do we have? How quickly can we redeploy forces half way across the world?
We’re constantly warned of the threat of a terrorist attack on Australian soil. Do we have the military capacity to deal?
I’m not asking these questions to be partisan. I’m reacting to Barton’s argument which is partisan, and uses historical analogy poorly.
Razor
1)That’s not force projection, that’s jumping coastal puddles. That’s what a coastguard and high speed commercially available catamaran ferries can do (and the catamarans did with ET I believe in conjunction with Hercules aircraft.)
2)We are not the UK, and that was ages ago.
BTW in relation to your question to Kim, “how emphasising force projection leads to a reduction in the capacity for national defence.” –one way would be in acquiring tanks and associated heavy lift ships when an insurgency was being fought in Mt Hagen PNG, where very light APCs (armoured personnel carriers) were required but unavailable because the budget was exausted on the former.
j_p_z re
Vietnam I agree was a geo-political battle, what I’m saying is that the capacity to fight such a war now is much reduced if not economically improbable given that on the numbers of US troops in Vietnam (500,000 at max.) it would make it roughly 3 times more expensive than Iraq (170,000).
Daryn Rosyn, thanks for that insight. One thing I do know is that because the ionosphere changes all the time in its height (which the radio waves bounce off) calibration is (or was) the bugbear.
Kim - firstly, is it wrong to be concerned about how to deal appropriately with refugees? Of course not! However the bigger issue is the law and order impacts both locally and regionally that a failed state implies and that includes the potential for terrorist organisations to exploit this.
We aren’t developing the military capacity purely for Middle East deployments - you may not be aware but we are in the market for two amphibious operations ships. See JQ for my overall position on this.
On the over-stretch issue - operational tempo is an issue for Commanders at all levels to manage and advise the Government on.
What do you define as something dire happening? I don’t think I’m disclosing anything earth shattering by telling you that we have forces always ready to deploy, as shown by the Solomons and could do something up to the size of East Timor at a stretch.
With your terrorist scenario you need to be more specific -what sort of incident and what type of reaction do you want? In terms of door kickers for hostage type situations all levels of law enforcement have door kickers with SASR and 4th Battalion RAR Commandos all ready to pile in as requested. We also have bomb disposal and NBC capabilities.
Anybody arguing that our current overseas deployments are reducing the current defence of Australia either has access to intelligence that the Government doesn’t or are speaking out their bottom.
I thought Barton’s piece was very poor and would have benefited from peer review and some editorial discretion from the paper as well.
Peter - the problem with what you called jumping pudddles was that it stretched our capability to the limit - it sholdn’t have. We are now in the market for teo amphib ships. We were lucky that the militias didn’t have more balls and the indons didn’t want to get into push and shove. The Int reports of the forces they massed on the ET border worried the bejeezus out of the INTERFET forces.
MT Hagen???? Aren’t the 700 M113s and 100 ASLAVs enough? Or, aren’t you a fan of the armoured Winnebago the Infantry have acquired??
Jesus - check the typos in that one!!!
It’s not wrong to deal appropriately with refugees, Razor. I was again just trying to tease out what dire consequences the Solomons becoming a failed state would have for us. I’m interested in how tightly that commitment is justifiable in terms of our national interest.
On the other stuff, you obviously have a lot more technical knowledge than I do in this area, so I’ll post a link from the Australian Defence Association:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18881883-29277,00.html
Something dire might be serious civil unrest in PNG, for instance.
Kim, I don’t disagree with the ADA - the Army is too small and the overall Defence Budget is underfunded. If the scenario described occurred then it would be a Government Policy decision to reassign troops as required. I have no problem with that. Note that we have an Army Reserve that is there to be used as required also, and from direct experience they are extremely keen to be used.
Razor, my idea of force protection is garnered from the government’s plan (per fearless leader getting a large dose of testosterone from Dick Cheney perhaps) to integrate our forces with the US and project our forces beyond John Howard’s testicles and our region. Tanks, heavy lift ships and the like.
Now if we do that it will soak up a lot of the budget in the years to come and will inevitably degrade the other stuff (APCs etc) that may not be replaced, leaving us with a dubious capacity to project force anywhere in the world AND a dubious capacity to operate in our region. It also involves two very different forms of warfare, desert against regional jungle warfare. Different training costs money—arguably only the SAS at a given point in time can do both desert and jungle warefare.
We have to make a decision, we cannot do both efficiently—if we go force projection, budgetary constraints mean what we get is SFA anyway, (China quaking in its boots—here comes Johnny Howard with his 50 second hand tanks) and the probable chances of using it in another part of the world SFA because for example the increasing defensive capabilities of insurgents and nations is rapidly becoming the new reality, meaning the only usable technology is to destroy from a distance (my suggested Collins sub with cruise) cos we can’t afford to occupy other nations any more, not even the US.
Invading the middle east, invading China is screwed. For Australia, national defence should be only regional capacity and jungle warefare training, and an airforce that can interdict naval forces in our region. National defence should not be about growing big balls so fearless leader gets a one minute photo op/blow job at the White House, and when the USA becomes isolationist again from its post Iraq/Iran clusterfuck, what use will all that heavy lift stuff be to us then?
Peter Kemp - it is not an either or equation. Force projection capability gives us an enhanced capability to defend continental Australia in both a strategic and tactical sense. I explained why this is so on JQ’s thread.
I’ve trained for operations in jungle, savanah, wheat belts, grass land, urban and litoral waters. I think about the only terrain I’ve missed is Mountain and Artic Warfare. Arguably you don’t know what the capability of the Army is.
Should our defence capability be dependent upon Australian troops shooting Iraqis?
Thanks John C, Razor doesn’t seem to get the political dimension that shooting up Iraqis has nothing to do with Australia’s national defence.
Razor you missed saying you trained in the desert, with heavy tanks. When the 9th Division was pulled out of North Africa, after the battle of El-Alamein, where did they go, straight to PNG or into jungle training camps?
And it is either/or variable, when you buy tanks and heavy lift ships to fight in the middle east at the expense of enlarging regional capacity rapid deployment, with catamarans and 4WD vehicles (that are not clapped out Landrovers.)
I’m not up to date on the models of Landrovers being used these days but in the late 70’s I repaired a C40 generator on one which was part of a convoy of the saddest lot of vehicles that ever passed through St George Qld, with the possible exception of a vintage car rally. (I wrote its commanding officer I’d sue the GG when they didn’t pay me after 4 months as well)
(Always wondered why they never junked the Landrover shitbox petrol engines and put in Holden red motors with a stumpjump camshaft to handle the Tonka Toy rear axle half-shafts–guess that would have been showing initiative.)
Razor, I was wrong it’s 59 tanks:
$550 million, 68 tonnes, refurbished 20 year old design: just the ticket to frighten some Melanesians in grass skirts behind Mount Hagen stealing election boxes eh Razor?
A dysfunctional Solomons has two problems - firstly, the ethical issue of a nation created out of an almost comedic withdrawal by its colonial master, the British. Who apparently took even the toilet paper from Govt House. & left NO civil structure or resources behind. That the Solomons have limped along for the last 25 years is close to miraculous. I would think there is an ethical responsibility to support the development of a civic society consummate with the needs and wishes of the Solomon peoples.
Secondly, this dysfunctionalism leaves the state and peoples open to exploitation. Its forests are under threat - 50% earmarked for wholesale clearing by Malaysian interests. It becomes a suitable base for organsied crime. Not to mention organised child sex - the world hot spots for such are currently Rwanda, Congo & Cambodia. A society in free-fall can do nothing to protect its most vunerable. Horrifying rates of HIV transmission are also emerging. & as regards Australia? A near neighbour who becomes a base for drug, people and contraband smuggling will have policing implications here in Oz. As well as quarantine.
Peter - I have trained in the desert in tanks. The first major exercise I ever did was a deployment to Woomera - absolutely outstanding armoured warfare country. We trialed in-vehicle GPS out there - best thing since canned piss.
The tanks that we are buying are the best in the world.
The biggest problem with the purchase is that we aren’t buying enough of them and we should be buying an entire Armoured Brigade worth of equipment - not just the tanks to equip an under-weight Armoured Regiment and a few for the school.
In terms of your snide remarks about Papua - WWII and Vietnam both proved that tanks can be employed in jungle and mountainous terrain. Ask any infantry man from Vietnam who saw combat with tanks and they will swear by them. War game modelling points to significantly lower casualties when tanks are employed in all types of warfare.
I was intimately involved in the mid and late ’90s in developing the tactics for the employment of tanks in low-intensity conflict.
The positives of having heavy armoured units far out-weighs the negatives.
As my Commanding Officer used to say - “A Tank Regiment is like a Dinner Suit - when you need one, nothing else will do.”
Razor, I’m happy you’re happy and proud with tanks. I fail to see nonetheless in our region of a jungle environment, in predictable low intensity conflicts, how a 68 tonne monster makes any sense for cost effectiveness and long suffering taxpayers. There’s a good article here on use of tanks by all sides in Vietnam
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/vietnam/armor/
which supports your agument on use of tanks in jungle areas, but I think I’m correct that most were mediums with many more APCs than otherwise.
My argument is that the government wants the Abrams for joining the US in global conflicts, and use of them in our region while possible, in non monsoonal conditions, would be overkill and a waste of resources. Vietnam is most unlikely to be repeated, a political victory by the NVLA in any case trumped all the tanks, but even if it was repeated, if China was prepared to give these PF 89s
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/2006322234833.asp
to insurgents in a jungle context, I must say I’d rather be outside the tank camouflaged, and lying flat on the ground.
I don’t mean to be offensive, but an old saying “The only difference between the men and the boys…” springs to mind.
Peter, tell us everything you know about mortar fire, which can’t be much.
Razor, if you could identify the threat in our region, I could be inclined to agree to the necessity of heavy tanks and we wouldn’t be arguing at cross purposes. At the moment I see only Indonesia as a possible threat but even then, the scenario for using even a whole brigade there seems fanciful.
I had the misfortune of serving in the Australian Army during the “Defending Australia� period that commenced with the 1986 Dibb Report. This report was basically a way making excuses for not funding the military adequately. Since East Timor the funding of Defence has improved but it is still, IMHO, grossly inadequate. A major focus of the strategy during this period was the defence of the air-sea gap to the North of the continent. Using this logic emphasis was placed on Airforce and Naval assets to project force into this area. The Army was foolishly ignored in having any significant role to play in this kind of battle.
Having forces capable of expeditionary operations and actually deploying them is the best form of defence.
The “Defending Australia� Strategy focused on lightly equipped forces and emphasised low-level/low-intensity conflict. The logic of this was flawed. While the possibility of three men and a dog running around Northern Australia was arguable - the argument that wholesale invasion as a threat should have been ignored because it wasn’t foreseeable in the next ten years was flawed because it takes more than 10 years to build (in peace time and with today’s technology) a force capable of defending the Australian Continent from this threat. At the same time an Expeditionary force and can fight a low-intensity conflict but a Dibb style ADF can’t fight heavy. The Tank is still the predominant land warfare capability.
The US Marines call modern war the “three block war” - and they have focused their training on that capability. From what I have read the Marine units in Iraq have been the most successful in both the shooting war and the hearts and minds war.
Thanks Razor, that was most informative. I can see where you’re coming from much more clearly, and respect your right to hold those views. In respect of
we have a clear difference in opinion, that’s why you asked if I was a Dibb-ist
One thing we probably could agree on is the rapidly changing cost of military technology which means, for example the new US Stryker vehicles having a 50% cost over-run to USD $3.3 each (in March 2004)
http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/001064.html
and questionable armour overweight problems for C130 transport, which makes the cost of offense, as against defence, more aysmmetrical than arguably it has ever been before.
It’s difficult to comprehend sometimes, that the whole effort of the North Vietnamese in supporting the campaign in the South, relied on just 60 tonnes of material carried over the Ho Chi Minh trail on bloody bicycles! (With whole teams repairing sector by sector the trails/roads bombed out by high level aircraft) Compare that with what the US threw at them, probably 60 tonnes of M60 ammo before sparrowfart.
That’s why I view offensive action in similiar circumstances as highly questionable, and horrendously expensive if an equivilant insurgency is waiting or is formed by our actions.
Can’t help thinking, the Abrams we have will never serve overseas, and you can hold be to that if they do.
That was 60 tonnes per day over the trail.
( per “The 10,000 Day War: Vietnam” book and TV series, arguably the best documentary accounts of the whole Vietnam war)
Razor, you still haven’t answered the fundamental question: who, exactly, is likely to be a threat to the Australian continent capable of an actual invasion?
Indonesia needs its army to quell unrest in its more restive provinces, was previously under military sanctions for decades, and anyway, why would they invade in the first place? What’s worth risking the ire of the USA for? China isn’t likely to do anything that would provoke America, seeing as such a large part of their trade rests with them. Aside from that, who else? The Kiwis?
It all comes down to reason. Most of these invasion scenarios concern Indonesia; in that case, we can presume they invade in the north. But how exactly do they sustain that? They’ve got a rusty navy of East German ships, with no capability to keep supply lines open from themselves to their army on the Australian continent in the face of far superior Australian air power, and even if they did keep their supply lines open there’s no way they’d be able to pose any threat to the major Australian cities; the continent is too big for that.
I appreciate your knowledge and expertise on this topic, but I don’t see how any threat in the region could in any way post a serious threat.
I just want to respond to Peter Kemps first post.
Anti-ship missile technology is not as good as is frequently made out. Yes the air force can sink an old hulk with no propulsion or manuever, no hatches shut, no counter-measures, no damage control, and no armaments. The Argentinians managed to sink a couple of ships with good old iron bombs, Skyhawks, and old-fashioned seat-of-your-pants flying skills (not Exocets), striking it lucky because of geography that afforded good radar cover and also limited R.N. maneuver severely. As the equipment ads said in the defence magazines the years after Falklands, “Battle Proven!”.
Second; China’s ability to project force across the Taiwan Strait is not as natural as people seem to make out. Amphibious landings are dangerous. The USA has a carrier battle group which can easily interdict and control the strait with a few short hours of hostilities. Its not enough to merely possess a weapon like a modern Navy. You have to have experience in knowing how to operate it effectively. For China, this is a 20 year exercise at best.
Also their economic system, much like Japans in the 80s, is full of bad, bad debts, and its fuelled by selling containers-load of stuff to American consumers on the hour 24 hours a day. Consider that a war would not only stop the influx of Chinese get-rich-quick scheme money into the American bond market (that’s how Bush runs hid ridiculous overspending) but would also stop the influx of wide-screen-teevees, and be disastrous for both economies.
However, to maintain adequate defence capability of our nation, and to maintain the potentially worst cases that may come against our national interest in our immediate region, I believe its best to ensure we have a modern, highly capable Air Force and Navy. That means middle-power level force projection to our immediate neighbors without any serious US help.
So this lefty is fully in favour of F-22 air superiority & strike fighters and three blue-water Aegis destroyers (with their fan-bloody-tastic battlespace information and sensor systems) (three meaning one of them is always available operationally). Submarines are all well and good, but they only work effectively if the enemy doesn’t know they’re there (they are first-class surveillence platforms) and sometimes, effective diplomacy requires that you know the enemy knows your force projection is there, just so you can actually, you know, avoid having to kill anybody with it. If you’re only options are: call in the Ambassador to Protest In The Strongest Of Terms, or launch the Cruise Missile strike from your hidden and highly secret Submarine Force, then your diplomatic and military options are extremely limited.
Douglas,
Threat identification is always hypothetical. I cannot answer the - “who, exactly,” is a threat, just as nobody thought Germany would cause not one but two world wars, nobody thought Islamic Fundamentalists would fly aircraft into skyscrapers in the US. History is littered with examples of wars from threats that were unidentified threats before they occurred. I clearly explained why we need to be prepared above - threat lead times are much shorter than capability development lead times.
I have both health and life insurance. I am fit and active, maybe a few kilos above what I’d like, but don’t expect to die soon or get really sick, but I have the insurance. I don’t recall which US President said it but I subscribe to the walk softly and carry a big stick approach to international relations.
My question to you is can you absolutely 100% guarantee that China won’t attempt to invade Taiwan or take control of our Pilbara and NW shelf region because they need the resources, North Korea and South Korea won’t resume the big shooting match, India won’t be taken over by radical Hindus and invade SE Asia, Indonesia says a f&^% it - we want East Timor back and we’ll have the NW Shelf and the Kimberleys and Pilbara, too. Or Iran decides to go postal on Israel and the whole Arab world piles in at the same time. Give me a guarantee that none of these will happen in the next 20 to thirty years and I will agree that we don’t need to maintain a heavy armoured capability.
Tyro Rex:
Don’t underestimate China’s ability to switch from trading to trashing in 10 seconds or less. What you have said about the reasons for avoiding war are logical …. but their strategic needs follow a very different logic.
Razor:
Agree with much of what you said. We do need a hard-hitting weapons system …. but is that a heavy, vulnerable tank …. or is that something completely different?
“I don’t recall which US President said it but I subscribe to the walk softly and carry a big stick approach to international relations.”
Theodore Roosevelt. But give his association with US imperialism, it’s an unfortunate phrase to use nowadays.
Re China, their leaders have consistently made it clear that national integrity, defined to include Taiwan, takes priority over eco growth. You won’t find many western experts who doubt that China will use force if it comes to it.
As for the US, their policy has never been to defend Taiwan under any circumstances, notwithstanding GW’s gaffe back in 2001.
I yield to none as a swivel chair strategist.
A bloke from the ADF’s Land Warfare Development Centre at Puckapunyal (any bells rung here Razor?) made the interesting observation to me that having heavy armour a al the Abrams is bit like having Collins subs.
You may never deploy them but the fact you’ve got ‘em immediately shrinks the options of any potential enemy.
Which leads me to:
“Submarines are all well and good, but they only work effectively if the enemy doesn’t know they’re there.”
Sometimes they work even better when your enemy thinks they might be there, doesn’t know for certain and is not willing to risk it.
Strategic use of subs, especially really stealthy Collins subs (yes, they got over the teething problems and these things are very very quiet now), is like laying minefields. Blowing up the enemy is a bonus but the real objective is to deny them one space and channel them into another. So you control their advance - and so can respond accordingly.
Or to put it another way, one artfully leaked bit of radio traffic and no invasion fleet is gonna take the gamble that HMAS Collins could be lurking nearby, with its crew painting “We come from a land downunder” on their torpedoes while eyeing up the target buffet.
Also what the yellow rubbery fuck is this crap about Aus having F-22s. Yes, they are magnificent hi-tech flying machines I agree. Aside from the odd stuck canopy hiccoup.
But they cost US$340 million a pop, have to be pampered like champion racehorses when they’re not in the air and stealth technology is actually pretty pointless for air superiority hot rods. What? Think about it for a minute. The USAF certainly is with an increasingly cold sinking feeling in its gut.
I reckon we should go the Indian route and get tried and tested sturdy airframe/powerplant combos and just keep upgrading the avionics and weapons systems.
And UAVs A-OK. A bunch of Global Hawks continually cruising in our stratosphere, dripping with short, medium and long range missiles, and on an open chat line to JORN, could take out anything from the Indon Air Force to Eddie McGuire in a Lear jet - if we get lucky.
Not as glamorous as a few squadrons of Raptors I agree, but solid and sturdy weapons in the hands of well-trained people who know how to use them do tend to beat expensive smartypants unproven tech most of the time.
And it’d be a better use of my taxes as well. Especially the Eddie MacGuire in freak air defence accident bit.
Nabakov …. and Razor too:
===“Submarines are all well and good, but they only work effectively if the enemy doesn’t know they’re there.�
Sometimes they work even better when your enemy thinks they might be there, doesn’t know for certain and is not willing to risk it”.
Same goes for tanks, VTOL strike aircraft (such as the “old” Harrier) and attack helicopters …. but couldn’t we do with lighter, cheaper, more durable, more easily hid and harder hitting weapons systems as more credible deterrents? Solid-gold aircraft? Well, there’s always Russia ….
Who said that! Stop that man!!!