David G,the deception continues.Both Malcolm Fraser and Pauling Keating have warned our Govts about the folly of trying to contain China.Invading Afghanistan was all about resources and energy as well as strategic positioning close to China.

China creates 80% of new money for growth from Govt banks.The West is enslaved by the private debt money creation system and so China's growth will continue even with ghost cities,corruption and serious inefficiencies.

I've read that China will be the number one economy within 5 yrs.

The Council On Foreign Relations and the Builderberg Group are re-thinking their Global Strategies.Their objectives are the same ie New World Order of a Global Government.Even Bob Brown backed this Global Governance concept,denied it later then resigned.

The elites in the West like the totalitarian Chinese model,but they want to own and control China and Russia.

Had Romney won the election,he would have done Israel's bidding and we'd be at war with Syria and Iran.I think they are taking a more cautious approach to their imperialistic endeavours.

Read John Perkins Book 'The Confessions of an Economic Hitman'.He reaveals how Western powers infiltrate and corrupt Govts,put them in enormous debt from which they cannot escape and take their energy/resources for a song.

The general public is ignorant and keep believing the BS eminating from mainstream media.

Managing the peace means maintaining traditional alliances, which have not just served us well in the past, but saved our bacon, literally.
And yes, defence alliances come with mutual responsibility Outcomes! It also means developing new common interest alliances, with much more populous countries, like India and Indonesia.
Mainly because they're both developing democracies, with common cause interests and forward defence posture needs.
The past and the present are two different places.
We were once at war with Turkey, now they are part of the NATO alliance.
Japan was our WW1 ally, and our WW11 enemy.
Now they are once again our ally!
It would make much more sense to maintain some form of defence cooperation with Indonesia, than to enter into a mindless and costly regional arms race with them.
We do need to focus on self reliance, given in any real war, that's what carries you well beyond just the first few days.
One doesn't see future war as conventional war, but rather as a conflict between remote controlled technology, stealth, intell gathering and missile launching platforms.
The so-called front line any any future hot war, could conceivably be the safest place.
I agree with most of the article, except how much of our GNP we need to commit to defence.
Which should be around 3%, with a further 2% minimum, committed to R+D.
To have and maintain alliances, you also need to be a reliable ally!
Our defence strategy, must lean further and further toward total self reliance.
I've often heard it said, we don't build Jumbo jets here, because that'ed be too expensive!
I guess that's because we have higher professional wages than the US, which does build them? No?
Well, perhaps our energy cost are higher? Maybe?
But only because we have locked away our most promising potential reserves of conventional energy, possibly large enough to rival or eclipse the entire and currently, increasingly volatile Middle East?
Lest we forget, we would be completely defenceless without substantial oil/energy reserves!
Rhrosty.

An ANT doesn't have to choose between humans or big animals.

Either way in the end the ant WILL get stepped on. Having GROWLERs will only delay the inevitable UNLESS that little ant goes to nuclear science school and builds itself some plutonium breeder reactors and makes a BOMB.

That will keep it safe from hegemonious gerfingerpokers I can tell You!

As it stands, you may as well put a bullseye on your back and wait for the US shooters party to descend from the sky.

Why Howard got a medal for removing the right to guns from everyone but criminals and Labor party lobbyists is beyond me!

Dibb and Cooke present salient assessment and suggest we "re-tool" our relationships with neighbours; Indonesia, PNG, and the Pacific islands. I agree but HOW do we re-tool?

I suggest returning to UN principles which abandoned in September 1962 at the suggestion of U Thant who slipped in a motion for the UN to colonize 5% of the Australian continent, a colony called West New Guinea. This was the final progress towards secrecy of questionable UN decisions; the creation of Israel before there was consensus with the locals was a tragic public mistake the UN endorsed in 1949, but the failure of the United States of Indonesia in 1950 as it was crushed by Sukarno and his Republic military was a tragic mistake which newspapers rarely noted. So in 1962 the UN concealed the UN trusteeship of West Papua from the newspapers and public.

I have no doubt that Indonesia and the trusteeship of West Papua were orchestrated by businessmen with colonial business interests, lead by the Ford Foundation and Robert Lovett. But only because the UN was being mis-used.

It is against Australia's interests to be silent about issues that harm our region, Sukarno was a Axis leader who should have been arrested and his militia disbanded in 1946, the UN colonisation of West Papua was MEANT to protect West Papua's human rights under article 76 of the UN Charter but Australia allowed the colonization under article 85 of the Charter to be kept secret from the public and newspapers.

Australia has blinded itself to the truth. The Pacific islands were not starving nor failed societies when Europeans came here. The mess in PNG and other Pacific islands is our legacy, created by foreign cultures dictating the structure of government and laws (environment design to support our remaining mining or other interests) which these nations were allowed to have. Over thousands of years Melanesian cultures had developed consensus making skills, which we should not have displaced with our primitive adversarial legal & government forms.

The United Nations is a good idea and we should make honest use of it.

Actually KAEP, we can build nuclear bombs here now to day! And here we are not talking about the A Bomb or Fission bombs, but rather fusion bombs, and something the size of a grapefruit. [Albeit, we also possess the technology to build the former!]
We also have the missile technology to deliver dozens, should that ever become our only remaining pre annihilation option.
Scram jets developed here and capable of mark ten or more, could deliver them to London or even further, in under an hour.
The only problem with a fusion reaction, it continues until all the locally available hydrogen is exhausted!
And should we want to, we could turn our little blue green planet, into a small yellow sun for a few hours!
There would be no bunker deep enough, no mountain high enough and no ocean deep enough to be safe.
If ever enough of these were deployed, an unstoppable fusion could be started.
I don't see it ever happening, except if another stark raving mad dictator developed them and had an itchy twitchy trigger finger, and no imagination beyond destroying a perceived more powerful enemy.
Be very careful what you wish for!
Rhrosty.

KAEP,The fight for freedom will happen in the USA.Recent survey shows 29% of US citizens believe there will have to be a public uprising to stop the loss of freedoms enacted by Bush and Obama's signing orders.

So the imperialists in the USA/Europe will have to concentrate on disarming the US population before they can continue to expand their empire.

In the meanwhile Russia and China are arming themelsves to the teeth with lots of new weapons and gold, to shield themselves from the currency wars.

160,000 tonnes of gold is in private hands on this planet,while the central banks have less than 25% of this.They continue to print money and inflate the derivative market and starve our real economies of cash.When the second bubble bursts,precious metals will more than double in value.