With respect, I really think that it is a bit more difficult than you make out. America is clearly getting very unstable politically & economically and, while it is fine for Ms Clinton to reiterate that America is & always will be Australia's great and good friend, I doubt whether the GOP has any interest in our country at all; the tea party collectively neither knows or care about our existence. On the other hand, nobody is going to rush out and celebrate China as our new great and good friend. In truth I think Australia is going to have to box very clever in the next decade, and our survival may well be at stake.

Walter Lohman wrote 8 November 2010:

>... the US should make the sort of investments in America’s military that are indicative of a long-term presence in the Pacific.

The US may not be able to afford the needed investments. These consist of bases in Japan and South Korea and, most importantly, the US 7th Fleet. In 1997 I spent a day on the flagship of the 7th fleet, looking at the use of the Internet for coordinating operations with the Australian Defence Force: http://www.tomw.net.au/nt/tt97.html

The fleet is a powerful, but very expensive tool. As other nations in the region develop submarine and missile forces, carrier battle groups will become increasingly vulnerable.

> The Navy running with at least 30 fewer ships than it says it needs ...

Fortunately for Australia, some of the new, more versatile US ships are Australian designed. There is the Littoral Combat Ship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Independence_%28LCS-2%29

Also the Fortitude class Joint High Speed Vessel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortitude_class_Joint_High_Speed_Vessel

Curiously while the US Navy buys these Australian designed ships built with Australian expertise, the Australian Navy is not interested in buying any.

>... a new permanent base on Australia’s northern shore at Darwin ...

US bases in Australia are not a lot of use for power projection in East Asia, as they are too far away.

> Third, if the Obama Administration’s love–hate relationship with trade is perplexing ...

The USA (and Australia) need to come to terms with the fact that as its share of world trade declines, so will US influence in the world.

> Ensuring American predominance far into the future does not mean living in denial. ...

The US military dominance of East Asia may last only a few more years. Australia will need to spend more on its own defence. This should include new submarines and replenishment vessels for them: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/11/high-speed-resupply-for-new-australian.html

As far as possible, we should avoid the need to choose.

It is not good for Australia to side with America in unprovoked imperial wars, and interminable corrupt occupations. These things are disgraceful and reflect badly on any country participating. And so far as American government is destroying America's economic base by printing money, causing the cycle of boom and bust, taking over entire industries without any basis in the Constitution or in common sense, giving billions in handouts to banks and big corporations, with troops in 135 countries, as a friend, we should be criticising the USA and naming its corruption for what it is.

The irony of the current situation is that communist China is less communist than America, and Clinton is persistently on the worse side of freedom so she has no credibility whatsoever.

Just last week in Hawaii, Secretary Clinton gave a speech in which she said emphasized “the persuasive power of our values - in particular, our steadfast belief in democracy and human rights"
Having just viewed on SBS a program entitled "Taxi to the Dark Side" last weekend, Clinton 's hypocrisy is incredible. It covered in some detail Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Cheney, Bush, the Jewish Neocons and that whole bunch of unpatriotic Americans on the public payroll and the antics they got up both to bring on two wars and still agitating for a third.

And this is the country with whom both Rudd, Gillard and Smith are prostating themselves in Melbourne, on behalf of Australia, to encourage them to invest militarily in this country with even more military bases to add to their 740 already through out the world.

What we do not need is any further subservience to a country morally and financially bankrupt and with a criminal history that would make any terrorist organisation, anywhere, green with envy. They have eroded their Constitution, reduced civil rights, are protecting and supporting the world's largest drug growing enterprise in Afghanistan and have a CIA organisation that is involved with the military and economic control of small countries throughout the world. Remember Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile and on. "Do it our way or not at all" Is that what we want?

Why would anyone want to encourage such a country into a position of influence in this region. I would rather take my chances with a growing China, a major trading partner contributing to our standard of living every day as opposed to the US and its ill-named US Free Trade Agreement, good for the US and proven hopeless for Australia. A one-way street, their way as was expected.

Where are the agitators for an independent Australia, capable of its own independent policy making, defence arrangements and untainted by an aggressive militaristic country bent on remaining the world #1 power against all the odds and knowing that China has their measure, in every way.

Don't sell Australia out to the Americans.

Tomw, you sound as if you should be in a position to know that our chances of defending ourselves are diminishing by the day.

Charging our infantry blokes with murder, for defending themselves is not a great way to ensure we will have an infantry going forward. No one should never be able to bring such charges, unless they have served is such situations themselves.

If that means we can’t have girls in the army legal core, so be it.

We have our pilots flying around in B grade aircraft, about half as capable as the 30 year old F111s we are decommissioning. In one action we have lost air supremacy.

Then, just like that fool Rudd, you want more subs. What on earth for, when we can only man one & a half of the six we have. Although these things are starting to get a bit long in the tooth, they are still effectively brand new, due to lack of use. Hard to use them you know, without someone to run rhe engines.

We’ve got Frigates sitting idly along side, because of lack of engineering crew, & we near rammed Sydney heads with one of the amphibious landing ships, because emergency drafted on engineering crew [because of shortages of engineers] had no idea of how to run the thing.

We need a crash course in Canberra & Duntroon in how to value, & then perhaps keep, the people essential to the operation of a modern defence force. We are loosing the people who know ho to run our ships, [not command them] at a rate 5 times faster than we can train them.

Then were telling our pongos that we’ll salute then, if they come home in a box, but don’t want them to defend themselves.

We had better start a course in grovelling at the military college, because that’s what we’re going to be reduced to, in the very near future.

Hasbeen,

I question just one comment you made, "Charging our infantry blokes with murder, for defending themselves is not a great way to ensure we will have an infantry going forward. No one should never be able to bring such charges, unless they have served is such situations themselves."

Respectfully and I really do not know where you are coming from on this matter, but you obviously consider that the soldiers mentioned have been wrongly charged.

I really do not know how you can say that. That assumes that the Army Prosecutor of 25 years standing would have taken this action lightly. It would be my understanding that the Brigadier, yes, 'that woman' as called by that disgraceful rabble-rouser Alan Jones, would have had to wrestle with the facts in some great detail and over a long time to even come to her conclusions, hardly taken lightly as I am sure you must realise.

Military justice has progressed somewhat over the years. They will have the opportunity to bring their case to court which will be considerably more than Breaker Morant had by way of justice in the Boer War, before he was punished, rightly or wrongly

I think we should all wait to see and hear the evidence. Surely no one considers this is a flippant action by Defence.

In the meantime, one should ask who it is you consider that we cannot defend ourselves against in 2010. We have no enemies on the horizon and if we avoid becoming a part of everything that angers the Americans, for reasons of power, trade, oil, drugs or whatever motivation they conjure up, we will certainly avoid alienating any number of other countries who would be regarded in 2010 and on as friends. Better to maintain this status quo than become a target for all the countries that the US sees fit to antagonise. There is no country better at creating enemies than the USA, mostly based on lies, false flag exercises and vested interests.

History cannot be discarded. They have proven themselves to be a dishonest and evil empire

Rexw, I suppose that USA Empire probably is evil, just not as evil as any other empire before, or concurrent with it, & that includes the one that founded us. Some, perhaps most men, when backed by great power will indulge in a little evil. I do remember a few school teachers.

As I said, an army legal officer must have served in all types of theatres of war to have the necessary judgement to promote charges for events that happened in times of great personal danger. 25 years sitting in their butt in a nice safe office is the last experience to justify the position.

I would say that if the predictions of doom we are berated with come to pass, peak oil, global warming or food shortages would very rapidly find us a few enemies.

The fact that we have a great deal of energy in our coal, gas, & probably a great deal of oil under the barrier reef, will make us quite a target. At best for a “friend” who wants access to “share” this energy, cheaply, at worst, to someone who wants to take it.

Our subs are supposed to defend us from attack, but when it is unlikely more than one of them could sail at short notice, I do wonder at their value.

Our amphibious ships are supposed to move our heavy armament to where it’s needed, but they have trouble moving themselves.

We are supposed to have 2 new, much bigger amphibious ships, being fitted out in Oz right now. That does appear to be a bit delayed. I don’t suppose it matters that much, they will require more crew than the old ones, so like the subs, they will probably stay tied to a wharf once they do make it into service.

So mate, it doesn’t matter too much who wants our energy, even a few PNG tribesmen waving spears may just stretch our capacity, in a few more years.

Nearly all Western Govts are currently oligarchies ie large corporate enterprises control our Govts.

Follow this logic.Western Govts actively empowered China by relocating all their manufacturing there.The object was to destroy the middle class in the West to give them more power & control over us.They have given China all this power and now cry foul that China wants protect itself from the most powerful by far, military force on the planet.

The corporate neo-cons in Israel and USA are looking for excuses to invade Iran and pick a fight with China.They have been caught out red handed in the biggest false flag event of all time,ie 911.War will be their escape.

Hard to disagree with your comments on the inability of our country to schedule resources for the right priorities for our country's Defence.
They are all political decisions.
I could draw your attention to the feckless nature of our current bevy of 'leaders' such as Gillard and Abbott, misfits and out of their depth and when it comes to experience and judgement, not one has worn a uniform or fired a shot at anything but a rabbit or two. Yet we allow them to make decisions on Defence, Australia's future, your future too, as well as mine.

But I really should ask you if any Judge in the Supreme Court or lower court for that matter has been to gaol, committed a murder or robbed a bank and yet we willingly accept their jurisdiction over such matters, understanding clearly their knowledge of the law, their knowledge of justice. That is what it is all about, surely.

I do respect the ability of our senior ranks to know what they are doing.

One should not confuse the military with the political climate. Can you imagine Gillard making a decision on something as contentious as this, leaning left one day and right the next, being aware of how she appears in the media, conscious of external controlling influences like the Melbourne Zionists or the party factions of Arbib and Shorten. With the military you have people who have earned their positions in the main by experience and skill and are seldom influenced by matters that are not of a military nature. Let us keep it that way, please. The jaundiced mouthpieces like Jones are all very well influencing the thoughts of the non-thinkers but trial by media is an anathema to most Australians.

The lack of confidence you display is unfortunate but I am confident that your concerns will be answered fully, in open court as it should be.

By the way I am not a lawyer and my military experiences were a long time ago, pleasantly remembered as a major contributor to my growth as a person, or so I believe.

Hasbeen wrote 8 November 2010 4:20:33 PM:

>Tomw ... our pilots flying around in B grade aircraft ...

The F/A-18F Super Hornets purchased to replace the F111s are capable aircraft to a proven design.

In 2008 I suggested also a dozen EA-18G Growler, electronic warfare variants: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/09/what-australia-buy-for-defence.html

The government is having 12 F/A-18Fs fitted with extra wiring for Growlers. I suggested Australia can add the electronics: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/01/electronic-warfare-and-radar-imaging.html

>Then, just like that fool Rudd, you want more subs. ...

No. Defence proposed 12 large, long range bespoke submarines. I suggested six smaller submarines to a proven design and six supply ships would be cheaper and more effective.

>... we can only man one & a half of the six we have. ...

New subs of proven design will require fewer crew.

>... Frigates sitting idly along side ...

The new Spanish designed Hobart class Australian Air Warfare Destroyers should be an improvement. These are smaller and take fewer resources than the US equivalent. But they still have the US AEGIS missile system, for air defence (and can be upgraded for ballistic missile defence): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart_class_destroyer

When combined with two Canberra class "Landing Helicopter Dock" (LHD) ships being constructed in Spain, Australia will have an effective naval force with few equals in the region: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/transport/amphibious.shtml

The LHDs can carry 1,000 troops, plus helicopters and landing craft to get them ashore. The LHDs are equipped with a ski-jump for VSTOL aircraft and are really aircraft carriers, although Australian has not yet ordered any F-35Bs for them: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/jsf/index.shtml

There are no nations comparably equipped in the region. India has aircraft carriers and Harrier VSTOL aircraft, but of questionable serviceability. China and India are working on carriers with Russian technology, but Russia itself was never very keen on using this technology itself.

>We need a crash course in Canberra & Duntroon ...

ADFA's courses and those at the Australian Command and Staff College are very advanced (in the past I have taken part in them): http://www.defence.gov.au/adc/centres/acsc/acsc.html

Tomw, you didn’t have to tell me you had been to Staff College, your post told me. It also told me of your brain washing at said course.

You either missed everything I said, or chose to ignore it anyway.

The navy has done a reasonable job of catching up with the real world, since the days of press gangs, but I’m afraid it is dragging the chain again. Perhaps you have not noticed that these things called ships get more technical every year, & it is not just electronic warfare that requires people with more than a little savvy, if they are to go when required.

When the mines are crying out for men with skill & savvy, & offering $140,000 a year to attract them, the navy has a problem. If you want to get away with paying them $70,000 & still keep some of them, you have to start treating them as highly valued members of the crew.

Since the bit of hanky panky, with a few boys & girls on Supply, our brilliant man managers in our navy decided to shove the crews around, all over the place. This has made quite a few senior sailers very unhappy, & lead to even more resignations than before.

You can’t run ships with POs trained on steam, & bright eyed recruits, just out of school, it just doesn’t work. Ships must have people who understand them. You can’t charge into battle, all guns blazing, if the engines won’t go, nor it would appear, can you sail out of Sydney.

Kinimbla did not suffer an engine room fire, & almost drift into Sydney Heads because of lack of seamanship of its officers, it did so because of lack of man management & training of its engineering crew, & the whole engineering section of our navy.

They do not have enough experienced people now to do the job, & it’s the experienced ones now deserting a badly managed navy.

Tomw and Hasbeen,

Obviously both well informed and experienced. I have found your comments to be interesting with possibly both of you being correct in most comments.

May I go where a non-military angel may fear to tread. There have been major errors. Yes, the submarines are not adequately crewed or trained which means they have no back up crews either. Some designs have been faulty, many others delayed. And yes, big money for miners must be a temptation for a healthy sailor.

But everything we have done here to generate some local industry has been a learning curve, our dismal industrial capability would have been negligible without such activities. But look at us now. We build things.

The general opinion is that we do have serious problems in the management of large scale projects which, when based on the US Strike Fighter, must be standard practice for defence industries, everywhere. But nothing we have experienced, of our own making, equals the timid resolve from our political 'masters' reflected in their lack of understanding of the need for the skills required in 2010 based on the technology we now use and depend on every day. Nor do their political skills stretch as far as knowing how long it takes to train such people nor the real value in money terms that they represent as skilled service men and women. As well, we seem to turn our back on the welfare of our fighting forces, challenge them as an adversary in the courts over things like Agent Orange after-effects and Gulf War syndrome disease, rather than supporting them in every way possible.

We all know that it is not the military doing these things but budget-based directions and constraints from government. The quality of our politicians is bordering on frightening.

There's your problem, ongoing in this country, making us such an easy mark for the devious manipulations of the Clintons and Gates' of this world which, when coupled to the sycophantic predisposition of Gillard, Rudd and Smith, make Australia a pushover in every way possible, as time will show.

Hasbeen wrote 9 November 2010 2:46:39 PM:

>... navy has done a reasonable job of catching up with the real world ... ships get more technical every year ...

Australian industry is helping with this. While Australian warships have mostly US sourced electronics, the antennas for the phased array radars will now be from the company CEA Technologies, based in Canberra: http://www.cea.com.au/!Global/Directory.php?Location=ProductsServices:PhasedArrayTechnologies:CEAFAR

The software engineering students at the Australian National University (some of whom I teach) produced a Radar Target Simulator for the CEA system: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/10/cea-radar-target-simulator.html

But as you point out, high paying jobs in areas such as mining are attracting skilled people away from defence jobs. There are some bonuses to encourage technically skilled people to stay in the military, but these tend to be tens of thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds of thousands needed: http://www.defence.gov.au/dpe/pac/V2_Ch3_Pt5.htm

Tomw, you are still missing the whole point. As an old navy fly boy, I saw this same problem back then. Some snotty nose kid fresh out of college would upset one, [or more] of the airframes fitters, with some BS, & we would have no Venoms flying for weeks. No good having us brilliant pilots sitting on our butts, because some idiot upset the mechanic.

Our officers are really pretty good, as fighting navy officers, perhaps the best in the world, but they still have a problem with managing sailors, [looking after the welfare, & moral of the blokes they need]. In fact the whole defence force management could be seen as designed to make the best men leave. There is a real problem in valuing people who today are critical.

Those bonuses are a point of interest. Designed to try to convince stokers, & electronics technicians to sign on for a second term, they were the typical stuff up the defence forces have perpetuated for over half a centaury.

Seamen are cheep, & quick to train, only have to sign on for 4 years & the navy has them coming out of its years.

Technical bods are expensive, & slow to train don’t become much use for 4 years, have to sign on for 6 years, & ships are sitting idle, because we don’t have enough of them. So what does the navy do? It offers a re-signing bonus, not to those it needs, but to everyone.

The seaman the navy doesn’t need get the bonus after 4 years service, & sign up. Those the navy do need are most offended that they have to serve 6 years to get the same bonus, & many quit.

Continue

A couple of years later, having re-signed many seaman, [& a few stokers], at great expense, the scheme is stopped. We now have heaps of seamen, with nothing to do, quite a few 5+ years’ service stokers, who were going to re-sign, & had plans for the $26 thousand, with their knickers really in a knot.

When they find they can earn that much extra, & more in just the first year ashore, they quit too. A scheme, designed to keep necessary skilled men, has now cost hundreds who may have stayed, if no scheme had been introduced.

This is why I say, the navy needs to learn how to treat valuable men. Once the navy was run by its Petty Officers, but it’s not today. It’s the skilled leading seaman that make the machinery go, half the POs are too out of date to know how much of the stuff works, or have been posted to ships that have machinery they have never seen.

Unless this lesson is learned, the navy will have trouble getting even a quarter of its ships off the jetty, except under tow, by a civilian tug

We've already made our choice. We happily accept increasingly arbitrary decisions made by our governments behind closed doors or on the fly, with public discussion either ignored, or hobbled by secrecy. Freedom of information is becoming more and more difficult. Our "representatives" increasingly blatantly ignore the opinions of their voters.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are changing. I see a form of political convergence developing during the next decade or so.