I usually agree with Babette, but on this occasion In think she is being naive. But, of course, pacifism is the ultimate naivety. It is also dishonourable in my view, because pacifists know that they will be protected by non-pacifists.

Ms Francis is long on applaudable sentiment but short on any actual knowledge of the area. Take the EF88 assault rifle now being adopted by the Australian military. It is being manufactured at the Lithgow Arms factory, near Lithgow, but that factory is owned by the giant European arms manufacturer Thales (pronounced Talis, I think) and the rifle is an adaptation/update of a long standing Austrian design. Lithgow is now competing for a major Indian army contract. Does Ms Francis want to block this sale? To what purpose? So the Indian army buys its assault rifles somewhere else - even another Thales owned factory? Most of the rest of Aus exports in this area really count as defence equipment (bullet proof jackets, land-mine proof vehicles, medical kits ect), rather than arms as such.
The real problem in defence spending is where Australia insists on trying to build the big-ticket items here - air warfare destroyers and submarines, for example, rather than buy them off the shelf from other countries for vastly less money and hassle - and then look for export markets. That doesn't work at all.

As you've pointed out, you're no expert! And as a self declared pacifist, lacking any military expertise.

Our security is not dependant on numbers and with each technological innovation, even less so!

What will ensure our security is a robust and innovative high tech manufacturing sector and self sufficient fuel supplies! And the coal you want to export to a shrinking less and less profitable market could ensure that!

Particularly if we but used the brains we were born with and adopt nuclear technology as nuclear waste burning MSR's. And given they are powered by other folk's nuclear waste, who will pay us annual billions to store/dispose of, we could have power that cost us nothing and for centuries. And that power could convert coal to fuel, plus resuscitate a robust steel and metals smelting industry!

Both equally essential to our security! As for weapons sales, if they don't get them from us, they'll get them from those opposed to us, our way of life and belief system.

And or, possible future adversaries only made economically stronger with our foregone export dollars.

This classic pacifist claptrap/errant, waste of time nonsense, has nothing whatsoever to recommend it! Imagine if CHINA INVADED INDIA, would a few gurus and civil disobedience stop them.

As a few pacifists demonstrated so ably in Tiananmen Square or Tibet!
Nor as appeasers, any more successful in haling the tide of Nazi aggression!

Ghandi's civil disobedience campaign only succeeded because the British were all but bankrupt and war weary. Moreover, inherently decent and fair. And governed by their own self imposed rule of law.

Can't imagine civil disobedience or street marches or outspoken dissidents, stopping a completely ruthless China from taking what and who she wants! India is in China's crosshairs given her location, population numbers, current wealth and democratic institutions!
Alan B.

If I am going to have to fight someone, I would prefer it was someone who was using arms we supplied.

In such a case we will know in advance all the weaknesses in the weapon, & perhaps how best to defend against it.

During WW11 the yanks were getting shot out of the sky in large numbers by the Jap Zero. It was only after they captured a zero in repairable condition, & flew the thing they found it's strengths & weaknesses. They then worked out ways to overcome it's strengths, exploit its weaknesses, & build a superior aircraft.

Knowing your enemy is a great advantage.

"... I grew up in India idealizing the tenets of Mahatma Gandhi, the latter-day apostle of non-violence and of non-violent means to end British colonial rule in India".

The author starts off with a common misconception; the Mahatma preached non-violence but he used the violence that he knew that he would provoke to his own ends, without violence he would have achieved little; provoking violence in others to put them in a bad light is condoning violence.

On arms, the few rifles etc. that Australia can produce and sell are but a drop in the bucket compared to what is available on the legitimate International market let alone what is available on the 'black'.

The author ought to brew up a cup of 'Vegemite' and have a good lie down.

//The author ought to brew up a cup of 'Vegemite' and have a good lie down.//

Vegemite by the cup? Jesus, that'd put hairs on your chest.

Toni,

It makes a beaut drink, a well heaped teaspoon (over heaped in fact) in a cup of water is my favourite.
I just checked the current bottle but the drink details are not on it; they used to recommend adding it to hot milk, but I've never tried it that way.

TToni,

Found this on Faceache,

" I enjoy Vegemite as a drink but dissolving it can be a nuisance, try spreading a couple of teaspoons of it over the insides of the cup, this increases the area in contact with the BOILING water, allow to stand for a minute or two then stir vigorously."

Hi Babette. Pacifism sucks.

The history of the world reveals a very simple plan.
He takes who has the power, he holds, who can.

You may be interested to know, Babette, that your concerns about arms sales by western governments to less-than-loyal "friendly regimes" has been a serious concern among senior western military officers for decades. Britain never lived down providing the Russian MIG 15 fighter plane with the best jet engine in existence, and that jet shot down British and American aircraft during the Korean War. In 1981, the RAN faced off against the Argentine Navy equipped with an ex British aircraft carrier, and two very modern, British built "Sheffield" class destroyers.

The sight of Arabs parading around in M1A2 Main Battle Tanks is enough to give any US armoured force commander red faced apoplexy. Not just because our potential enemies have now got the world's best tank that was made in the USA, but because you can bet that the Arabs are selling or giving the technology away to the Russkies and the Chinese. The Chinese in particular now have a Humvee clone as well several other pieces of cloned US military equipment, including the latest version of the US M-16 rifle.

It is the height of stupidity to sell Turkey F-35 stealth fighters when the President for Life of that country has declared that he wishes to re-establish the Turkish Empire. Since he is sucking up to the Arabs at the moment, you can bet he does not mean that he intends to re-establish the Caliphate in the Middle East. Not with the limp wristed Europeans too frightened to even tell the boatloads of Muslim invaders landing on their coasts to far cough. No wonder Edrogan recently told a mass gathering of "German" Turks in Germany to remember that they are Turks, not Germans.

But I would not worry, Babette, of Australia ever being even a minor arms exporter. Our equipment is just too expensive to build and there are many other arms exporters who can underprice us every time.