<”Nevertheless, you are entitled to post what you wish about whom you wish. Going on your initial post, I shan't be taking any notice of you. You might offer me the same 'courtesy'.”>

That's fine Leigh, I understand the depth of your fear of rational debate and knowledge. I also understand it's an integral aspect of your ideology, no sense no reason, so you have to defend your non stance irrationally and make bizarre statements.

Mikk, your very right, but we have to understand the people leading this country and controlling our defence future, have their minds living way back in the past. They think you can approach the future with what seemed to work in the past and continue down the track of relying on overseas corporate interests to provide equipment for our forces.

Submarines are very good as a defence deterrent and because of our huge coast line we need some long range ships, but they should be very fast ones. We have the best over the horizon radar in the world, which has been hijacked by the USA for it's systems. Or entire defence plan needs to be changed to suit our future conceivable threats and not that of the northern hemisphere, which has a completely different scenario to us.

This woman's main failings are innocence and an unrealistic belief in peoples' willingness to accept the ideals of 'nice' people like her. Life is not like that, particularly with with the sort of cultures most likely to be a threat to Australia in the future. I cannot think of one reason why Australia would want to go to war (our foolish sorties too Iraq and Afghanistan aside)but there are lots of reasons why certain overcrowded and resource-hungry countries could feel a need to attack Australia.

We all hope that none of our state of the art weapons of war will be needed but, as long as warfare is a definite option, we need those weapons. People who are against having them will die as surely as the rest of us.

Unlike the the times when Quakers, for example, had the luxury of being high-minded because they had other people to fight and die for them in some one else' country, modern warfare can be brought directly to you.

Showing potential enemies that we are armed and ready is a far better way to prevent war than having cosy chats with them and making ourselves look weak and silly

Mikk,

I appreciate what you're saying about the apparent aggression of the acquisitions listed. And I agree to a certain extent that defensive purchases would be somewhat different. But what would early warning systems, surveillance aircraft, etc do other than tell us that someone is attacking? When you are under attack, you need the fighters and submarines for defence purposes. Certainly it is a case of 'everything in moderation', but I don't think we can overlook upgrades to our military equipment.

I think the real problem I had with this article is that it missed the narrow scope of the white paper. It is a defence review - not an international relations review, not a Foreign Affairs review, not a trade review. Our defence force can talk all they want about the injustice of Indonesian policy in Irian Jaya; unfortunately, they can't do anything about it except be ready to act if other government departments give them the nod. And how effective would any action be if they had outdated equipment?

What has always been immediately important about defence, or any political entity's offensive capability surrounds what they would need to face, militarily, in the immediate future.
These days the world is changing demographically.
Our traditional allies from the age of empire have other issues that do not concern us.
Our vaunted ally, the US is confronted with some considerable demographics challenges.
The US will soon be populated with a majority Hispanic population - Negro Americans, second - and a predicted collapse of nationhood in result.
Meanwhile secessionist groups toy with dividing the East from the West – of the USA in much the same way as happened to the former USSR.
Most Australians do not realize how close the West Coast of the USA is to forming political alliances with Asia Pacific Nations of that ‘Rim”.

A personal note –
It frightened me to see the collapse of the USSR.
Exactly the same forces are out there towards causing a similar calamity to the USA.
I have never overmuch appreciated the construct of the USA.
Despite that the game board is set.
When the USA folds down the middle – or at least has to devolve to isolationist policy again – then Australia has to reinforce its position as a power in the Asia-Pacific.
We will no longer be the gigantic staging point for American hegemony.
China is now the world economic power.
Meanwhile the Grand Game continues to be played through Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and into the Indian Sub-Continent.
Meanwhile we sit on our hands and publicly pretend none of this affects us.
Meanwhile our senior defence people soil their britches.
Meanwhile our propaganda agencies tell Australians to trust our politicians to handle the human refuse of this arriving on our shores.
Meanwhile most Australians cover their ears to ignore the truth.
Meanwhile up North, in Australia, various groups arm themselves in order to fight the last battle.

While there is no immediate threat, it takes years, even decades, to establish a trained, coherent defense capability. If one were to wait for a clear and present danger, it would certainly be too late.

While I personally consider military spending similar to throwing money down a rat hole, I recognise that it is a necessary evil.

As to the offensive / defensive debate, a requirement for defense is the ability to strike back. The point is not to strike back first.

As for nuclear weapons, they are the quintessential defensive weapon. As the point of a defense is to let others know that an attack would incur more pain than gain.

Dear ‘Shadow Minister’,
To address yours.
There is always an immediate threat.
Defence establishments employ people and provide them resources to keep the latest threat scenario at the top of their files.

And it does not take too long to build offensive capability towards overkill if the decision has been made to go that way.
In this regard the US has usually managed to profit from war.

A for striking back or striking first – that entirely depends upon circumstances.
Pearl Harbor was a perfect case whereby it had to be seen that a ‘Day of infamy’ had to be let happen so that the belligerent had to be proved wrong.
It was entirely in the interest of a powerful nation to appear to be the underdog.
US industry capacity had to wind up by gaining experience supplying allies in Europe before turning newly developed, qualitatively superior, equipment against Japan.

And if that nation let Japan strike first then why not let it happen again in our age with a nuclear strike?
Waging war is as much about suckering the peasantry as it is about having the capability.
Hadn’t you noticed?