Yes, indeed, the article is a neat summary, Australia's 'enemies' are really America's and with earlier generations we acquired Britain's enemies---we don't need to defend ourselves from America's enemies.

The Americans defended Australia in WW2 because it suited their strategic interests, the British abandoned us for the same reasons, 60,000 dead in WW1 counted for nothing. Tying ourselves to the fortunes of a declining, debt ridden imperial power is lunacy, but that's not unprecedented is it?

Any Australian who wants to fight America's wars is welcome to volunteer for the US armed forces.

James

"realistic appraisal" usually leans toward the Curtin approach rather than the Chamberlain (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna#Influence ).

mac

It doesn't matter that "The Americans defended Australia in WW2 because it suited their strategic interests,"

they still defended us when no-one else would. And we couldn't handle Japan by ourselves. Japan bombed us and was torn between blockading or invading us.

Pete

plantagenet,

Yes, but (1) it was a war we involved ourselves in without adequate preparation, and our only effective force was in North Africa because we were fighting in someone else's war and (2) we were duped by the British into believing the "impregnable" Singapore propaganda. We should have learned the lesson of the folly of relying on powerful allies by now, they're never around when you need them.

Hi mac

Certainly we learned not to rely on allies that couldn't deliver on our defence ie. Britain.

However the US in 1942, through the decades to May 2012 and for the foreseeable future is more than well-equipped to deliver on our defence.

Even the US self interest argument is to Australia's advantage as Australia sits at the junction of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. That is at, or very near, to the junction of the Middle East to East Asia oil shipping lanes - the most valuable international sealanes and the US strategic route to South Asia and the Middle East.

The US has the majority of its offshore naval bases within Australia's areas of interest including bases at Bahrain, Diego Garcia, Singapore, Okinawa (to increasingly be shifted to Guam and Darwin) and Pearl Harbour. Add a week and there's support from San Diego and the nuclear submarine base near Seattle.

Unlike our navy US carriers and subs move at 33 knots/hour without refueling, very fast moving.

And then there's the world largest airlift capacity. I won't even mention the stealth bombers and stealth fighters that regularly transit our Northern airbases (not publicly admitted).

So the US is a very good ally to have with the weapons and the motivation.

Naturally diplomacy is the first form of defence and in that respect the US is the most persuasive country politicly. Somehow the Chinese model has found few followers. Every time we have faith in China they arrest someone, fight before they free a writer, or poison some Brit businessman.

Pete

Well said Pete

plantagenet,

I certainly agree with your comments on the military capacity and technological superiority of the US, after all it's still 'number one', unlike Britain which was about #3 in 1939. It's also worth remembering it has an enormous debt which will have to be controlled sooner or later and, if Niall Ferguson's thesis is correct, military expenditure could decline rapidly as result. What strategic decisions, the Americans might make in a financial crisis are extremely difficult to predict.