"We don't seem to know what the right policy should be…".

The right policy is to dump China as soon as possible. We are only dealing with this horrible Communist dictatorship because of already wealthy people wanting more money and cheaper labour. We did alright without China before our politicians sold out; we could do it again, but we won't.

"I do not think that China has any plans to invade Australia". They don't need to. The war they are waging against us started with the Covid virus which has wrecked our economy, and it continues with spying and cyber activity.

As one American military man said, all weapons don't go 'bang'.

We don't have an interest in the South China Sea? For heaven's sake, man! At least 60% of our trade is conducted via the SCS.

Save us from theorists well past their use-by date. This is as naive and useless as it was 50 years ago. Nobody listened then, and they are not listening now. Australian politicians are lurching from one crisis to another: a bandaid here, a patch there.

Australia is rooted.

Australia's defence position, Don Aidkin, is to fight to the last American. It has been that since 1945 and it is still the policy today. To claim we should be neutral is preposterous. Even Sweden is no longer neutral. Sweden sent combat troops to Afghanistan with NATO. Swedish fighter jets provided escort for a damaged
US SR-71 spy plane over the Baltic when the Soviets tried to shoot it down.

Australians spend more on gambling and feeding pets than defence. Our shambolic "submarine" program was never anything more than a submersible pork barrel. We bought the badly performing FA-18 instead of the fabulous F-15,which was cheaper. We could not contribute to Desert Shield because our "army" consists of a single, badly armed infantry division. We once had 220 Centurion tanks, reduced to 106 Leopard tanks, reduced to 50 M1A1 tanks with a 105 mm gun. Every other modern army (including China) has tanks with 120 mm guns. Most of our defence money goes to the Air Force and Navy while our Army, which has taken nearly all the casualties in to last 70 years of fighting, is at the back of the queue for money. We almost scrapped our Chinook helicopters before we discovered they were essential in Afghanistan. We bought the execrable Eurocoptor Tiger helicopter gunship which we could not field in Afghanistan because it was so problem ridden, instead of the fabulous Apache which was significantly cheaper. Somebody should have been shot for that, and I mean that literally.

In ww2, our unions actively sought to sabotage our war effort, even when Australia was fighting for it's survival against a barbaric enemy. And I doubt if we can trust them now to put any national interest above the self interest of their own members.

We are now a culturally divided society where you can bet that a significant proportion of our population now has sympathises with any enemy we may fight. And we have an academic caste determined to undermine our democracy and weaken us as much as they can.

So, no, we do need the Americans.

LEGO,

You say:

"We are now a culturally divided society where you can bet that a significant proportion of our population now has sympathises with any enemy we may fight. And we have an academic caste determined to undermine our democracy and weaken us as much as they can."

Very true. Mass immigration and multiculturalism will eventually finish us off. Not satisfied with kowtowing to China, we have allowed our truly awful politicians to import increasing numbers of people who do not have anything in common with the host population by way of values, culture, language. Some are downright hostile towards us, and many could be actively working against us in accordance with China's expectations of it's overseas diaspora.

We are as helpless as a sitting duck as long as we are importing almost all of our petrol & diesel fuels. This is even worse when it all cones from the one source. Just a couple of months interdiction of those supplies, in the south China sea, & we are broken, with most of the population starving with no food getting to the supermarkets.

Of course we don't need WW11 technology subs, & we do need a full nuclear armed range of missiles, cruise & ICBM, but they wouldn't be much use if we can't get to them to service them.

We need to start right now harvesting some of our large deposits of shale oil, & refining it here in Oz. If that doesn't suit international oil company business plans, we have to do it ourselves. Without fuel we are a sitting duck waiting to be plucked, no matter what arms we have.

Don. We need to be far more self-reliant and we need to be nuclear powered and nuclear-armed! Also, we need a robust manufacturing sector!

We need to Automate! So as to be able to manufacture massively if our defence requires that of us, were we stood alone and dependant on our own resources! And we need to jettison the idealogical idiocy of the past that emasculated and put our self-reliant defence in a straight jacket!

Automation requires the cheapest possible energy supply and cheaper than coal, thorium, fits that bill!

And given recent trends and perceived threats, time is of the essence and a luxury we can no longer afford! And defence manufacture needs an independent ultra-reliable energy supply as does our military bases.

Thorium powered microgrids doable in around 12 months! And need to be protected from cyber attack!

The only thing missing is the political will/nouse
Alan B.

Hasbeen. Cheap nuclear power (thorium) allows, via proven science, to turn seawater into all the fuel types we need for any purpose, be it jet fuel, diesel or petrol as fit for purpose, hydrocarbon alternatives. And from an inexhaustible local supply!
Cheers, Alan B.

I agree with the comments here. We are very vulnerable to having our
supplies of oil & petrol cut off.
They come almost entirely from Sth Korea and Singapore refineries.
It is just not the hazard of the Sth China Sea that threatens those
supplies but China is preparing to establish Naval ports in Iran.
They are setting up to dominate the Middle East.
A naval base and other bases in the Middle East would also compromise
direct deliveries from the Middle East.
Sydney alone usually has two oil tankers EVERY day !
The total number of oil tankers at sea on their way to Australia must
be around 100 at a guess. They would be at risk of attack or better
the purchase of their cargoes while at sea. I can just imagine an
email from Peking, "Sell your cargo to us or be sunk ! "

It gets worse, I made a proposal to our Local Emergency Management
Committee that we prepare a Displan for a fuel shortage.
I was told very clearly that the Minister had issued an order that
local fuel displans were not to be prepared as it is a Commonwealth
decision that the Commonwealth plan will be used.
The problem there is it is only involved with decisions on allocation
to the states.
My plan would empower the Police to seize supplies in local garages.
My plan envisaged the use of suburban electric trains to move food
from the ends of the electrification into the cities.
The diesel could be reserved for harvesting and food delivery.

If it got to this, then China would not invade as they would starve with us.

As far as electricity generation is concerned we have left it too late.
We should have continued with the Jervis Bay Nuclear station.
However we should make it a matter of real emergency to build while
we can get the support from overseas.
Also while we have the money/credit.
The alternatives are not alternatives.
We just do not have the money to build the renewables.
I know some will have a stroke on reading that, good, get them out of
the way. This is more important.
A single wind turbine produces the cheapest electricity BUT !
It is the required duplication and the spread around the country to
chase the wind that kills the whole solar & wind idea.
The cost duplication would appear to be between 5 & 12 times depending
on the size of the country and its wind systems. Despite what CSIRO
says they have not done a real time model, just looking at average
wind from BOM data.

Depending on BOM wind speed forecasts would be pretty disastrous for anyone planing a wind farm. Todays forecast for SE Queensland is the usual as far as accuracy goes.

"Southeast Coast area

Mostly sunny. Winds westerly 20 to 30 km/h. Daytime maximum temperatures between 18 and 21."

Well it is sunny & cool, but at 2.15PM we have not seen anything above 7km/h so far, & it is now unlikely to blow harder, unless we get an unforecast thunder storm.

That is exactly why wind is unreliable Hasbeen.
My proposal would be to install wx stations all around Australia in
the most likely places and connect them to a central computer and
knowing what the real output would be from one turbine then summing it
all up in the computer they could play at increasing the number of
virtual turbines on each site until they got 100% of the current load
on the real grid 100% of every day.
If a site was a dud they could move the wx station to a more promising site.

They could even install wx stations in virtual solar farms located
along the best parallel for the sun and adjust the number of virtual
panels in each to match the real grids daytime load.
It would cost a lot of money but nowhere near the amount they are
planning to spend to do the same thing with real turbines & solar panels.
As it is not their idea, I cannot see it being done.

Oh, I forgot to cover myself from the lovies, they would say "but
batteries will change all that !"
They will, but it is more complicated than that !
You have to allocate more wind turbines and solar to enable recharging
these very costly and hungry batteries at the most inconvenient times
like during several overcast and still days in a row.

Those determined to go ahead with wind & solar seem to bet on every
day being windy and sunny. Trouble is they are betting with our money !

You will have to burn an awful lot of fossil fuel to mine enough copper to connect all those far flung assets Bazz, as well as all the rare earth minerals required, probably expending more energy doing so that the assets will produce in their life time.

Add in the transmission losses, & it is probably more economic & less polluting to simply use the fuel to do what it does best, rather than waste it on building & installing unreliables.

Hi ttbn, Correct Australia is rooted. The ruling, left wing elitists sold us out to Communist China decades ago.

Hi LEGO, yes we need the Americans.

But should also be attempting to be more independent by increasing our defense budget. Taiwan actually has a smaller population than Australia & 5 times our military strength.

Hi Hasbeen, So true. We need fuel independence.

Hi Alan B, Quite correct & as long as women are voting, NONE of that will happen.

Hi Bazz, Some of that sounds reasonable, but again as long as women are voting NONE of that will ever happen.

Hello again Hasbeen, Correct & not forgetting that 90% of all lithium batteries are made in Communist China.

BTW:- ANYBODY who thinks Communist China doesn't want to colonise the entire planet is extremely mentally ill.

INTERNATIONAL socialism is exactly that INTERNATIONAL, or World Government.

imacentristmoderate;
You misunderstand the Central Kingdom already owns the world, just
ask them, they will tell you that China is the only sovereign country
and all others are vassal states. Xi Jing Pong already said so.

Hi Bazz, No, i know Communist China is already thinking & acting that way.

Communist China produces 90% of the batteries leftists want us to use with the Communist Chinese made windmills & solar panels.

Communist China has it's own central bank, thanks to advice from "Australians" like Comrades Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke & Paul Keating.

Taiwan has 5 times our defense forces with a smaller population.

Does anybody get that?

In the not to distant future younger, more attractive Australian women will be on their knees worshipping at the altar of a communist chinese soldier, or a fascist indonesian soldier, or both, or they will be on their hands & knees with one each end, being spit roasted.

Does anybody get that?

Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times creates middle class egalitarianism, feminism & wokeness.
Egalitarianism, feminism & wokeness ALWAYS degenerates into marxist matriarchy.
Marxist matriarchy ALWAYS creates hard times.

Hard times create strong men from other cultures who walk in & take over, easily.

Don
Thank you for making some good points. Incidentally, I liked your story about Denmark's defence strategy.

However, restricting this comment to foreign policy rather than defence planning. I believe that you forget that democracies, imperfect though they may be, need to work together to contain totalitarian regimes that do not play by the international rules, imperfect as they are. The recent G7 + 4 guests made this point strongly. We must never waiver in defence of Taiwan.

Ditching Taiwan for PRC China was based on economic and political considerations And the hope that a prosperous Chinese population might influence its authoritarian and cruel ruling party. This has not happened.

Neutrality is not an option today.

LEGO. Comrade , if you are going to quote so called 'facts' at least get them correct .

From the Australian Army Site re armament of our Tanks

120 millimetre M256 Smooth Bore Cannon, 12.7 millimetre M2HB QCB Machine Gun, 2 x 7.62 millimetre MAG58 Machine Gun

NOT 105 mm as you stated .

Very sloppy research !