Australia in 2022 is more vulnerable to capture or destruction than any Western nation in living memory, except for New Zealand. American failures of leadership and judgment are emerging as serious threats to Australia’s future because we cannot defend ourselves without them.

Spot-on analysis !

But, have no fear, the Woke Left will sweet-talk our potential enemies by inviting them to these Rainbow morning teas & our tough feminists spear-headed by Penny Wong will show them they mean business by making them watch Mardi Grass parades !
That should make any potential invader turn back !

I wonder if those who claim (no, not the real ones) Indigenous heritage would welcome being taken over by Russia or China & be rid of those terrible Europeans ?
Paul, Steele ?

REQUIRED: Trigger pullers, ammo, food and transport.
OR: White flag,

If push comes to shove, the current parliament will do a Singapore and surrender. Beg for terms etc.

Don't have the stomach to even tell the greens, GFY.

Conscription? Buy some modern weapons, build them here with our prohibitive energy costs! It's a joke, right?

This is not 1939, but we could not in any way shape or form defend ourselves against a nuclear armed foe. Particularly if that foe is led by a madman with a nuclear arsenal. A madman who needs medicating, with a little lead pill right between the peepers.

"We" decided we would have no truck with nuclear weapons, nuclear power or nuclear-powered machines of war. Because "we" were safe behind the moat. What we need and are prevented from obtaining or building is a self-imposed and extraordinarily asinine embargo on nuclear power.

Future wars will not be fought on front lines or governed by the rules of war. But by more and more autonomous machines and against civilian populations and infrastructure/manufacturing facilities.

Simply put, in any future war the front line as such will be arguably the safest if still horrific place!

Put the politicians in harm's way and hey presto, no more war! And no more self-imposed embargos on what we need to adequately defend this nation and her considerable assets and natural wealth.

Nowadays we are too busy giving away what is ours to make sense out of defending it. And the dispossessed poor living below the poverty line padding the bank balances of fat cat landlords, are going to say, conscription, GFY.

WGAFFF who owns it, we're still screwed anyway. You fight for it, we haven't anything to lose that's worth dying for! Give me a gun? And guess who I might chose to use it on?
Alan B.

Don’t vote, you only encourage the idiots.

Dan

Don't vote idiot. Why not? Because (self-described) idiot, that is the only power you/we have to change SFA. And that's too little thanks to dirty deals done in the dead of night by political power brokers, swapping preference deals.

If nobody voted, the current government would RULE forever!

If you don't like what we have? We need to vote them out!

And if we do that enough times, they will get the message and start listening to their employers', rather than this or that, powerful vested interest!
Alan B.

The article draws many deficiencies to our attention.
I wish it would give more than an inkling of suitable remedies?
Perhaps it does?

The problem is we are a large land with few people.
We have next to no chance of defending ourselves against a determined and well equipped enemy.
We rely on an alliance with the US of A, which we think has a great capacity for defence.
We hope we will be included in a list of its desirable 'assets', and that someone will come to our aid.

Humans can be aggressive and war like.
As far as we can look back in history, people have been fighting each other.
A 'reason' is usually given, and this is used to justify any violence.
Really, it is just theft, thinly disguised as something honorable.

North Korea is being taken seriously since it gained nuclear weapon capability.
Perhaps making Australia a nuclear nation would deter those who would attack us?
Must we make use of nuclear devices to discourage aggressors?
Is it a case of 'when in Rome, do as Rome does'?
It did cross my mind at one point that making Ukraine a country with nuclear capability would deter russian aggressian?

It seems the world is forever cursed with 'leaders' who have a grand plan to conquer the world.
Alexander the Great was of that ilk? Hitler followed suit. Others are milling around.
Each is blinded by the need to be seen as a shining light on a world stage?
They engineer death and destruction because it will somehow make the world a better place?
Led by them of course!

Somehow though, none of these so-called 'leaders' is long-lasting.
They vanish into the dimness of history.
Usually after reaching a very 'sticky' end.
Then we wait for the next one to rise up.

But what if the entire world or all of Earth-kind is now living in the "latter days", especially as we now live in a Quantum world where everyone and everything is now instantaneously inter-connected.
Check out two references to the work of the little known philosopher Gunter Anders on the ABC website titled
The Prophetic Vision of Gunter Anders
Gunter Anders and Humanity's Exile in Technology.

Look at the trend.
In spite of wars and famine and pestilence over a very long time, we are still here.
And increasing in numbers.
So much so that the world is overpopulated.
We all know that major geological and other change takes place all the time.
Eventually, the world as we know it will cease to exist.
And then life as we know it will also cease.
I don't think we are close to that point yet, so we can plan for tomorrow.
And the days after that.
Our 'latter days' are a very long way ahead of us?
Unless a very large chunk of rock, from some distant place, has the world in its sights.

"destroy our processing and manufacturing industry with solar/wind dreams, shut the gate on mining and exploration"
Um, builing all the wind and solar and off-river closed-loop pumped hydro we'll need to decarbonise WILL create massive mining and exploration opportunities in clean tech resource exploration.

You highlight the vulnerability of our nation to oil shocks, but scathe clean energy. Um, what happens to our military if they don't have alternatives like hydrogen to fall back on? What happens after peak oil?
You know these fossil fuels are finite, right? (Let alone the fact that climate change is the worst 'threat multiplier' on the planet!)

And guns? Give me a break! Are you even Australian? Aussie comedian Jim Jeffries has been there, done that, and got the T-shirt for destroying the Second Amendment. https://youtu.be/0rR9IaXH1M0
Your anti-climate bias shows this to be a paranoid opinion piece, and not much more.