Australia really needs to get its act together if it wishes to enjoy the aegis of America, while we faff around the way we are. Donald Trump is reported as being sceptical of the AUKUS deal.

Here's just one reason:

While America can, and is, buying 10 frigates for $18 billion, Australia has committed to buying 3 frigates for $27 billion.

What sort of d..k heads are running our apology for defence!

Apparently the US is reluctant to sell military high technology even to friendly allied nations for fear that it will end up in the hands of their enemies. So the sale of military equipment is a fairly subtle affair.

"Apparently the US is reluctant to sell military high technology even to friendly allied nations.."

That isn't the problem here. After all, via the '5 Eyes' process, the US already shares much of its intelligence with Australia.

The US is a little reticent about selling the subs because they think they might need them for themselves. They have limited building capacity and any sub sold to us is potentially one they don't get for their own use.

Under Trump, building capacity might expand significantly but that's not yet clear.

Of course, the fact that the US is concerned that Aussie subs may not be available for US needs puts the kibosh on idiotic claims that we will just act as their surrogates.

So in one of mhaze's posts, he's generally giving the impression that he reckons the world's militaries would be aware of the potential of using cheap, small, high-tech weapons.

Well when is comes to quadcopter aerial drones a couple of years ago (ie: the common off-the-shelf drone that you can buy at tech stores like JB-HiFi for a few hundred bucks) they weren't. We have the evidence right in front of us with the Ukraine war. Before the start of the war, no army in the world had much in the way of stockpiles of these drones nor much interest in them. They did have interest in large expensive UAVs (basically small planes without pilots) and some really small specialised drones (I saw one that was developed and sold a few years ago by some US military company that was about the size of a grasshopper. It was *extremely* expensive- I think about $100,000US from memory so probably $250,000AUD in today's money).

Then along come the Ukraine War, and guess what- the Ukrainians needed a cheaper and better way of killing and destroying things from just behind the front lines. So they innovated and tried using commercial quadcopter drones. And when I say the Ukrainians did it- it really was the Ukrainians- NOT the Ukrainian army. The army for a very long time didn't supply many of the drones nor offer much support for their use- it was done and paid for by citizens with some funding assistance from overseas private donations raised by unorthodox methods like popular Ukrainian You-Tubers asking for money from their viewers. And it's proven to be a very successful weapon- Russians soldiers and also Ukraine's (because the Russian are copying them) are living in constant fear of the buzzing noise of a drone above them.

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So hopefully now, after quadcopters proving very effective on the battlefield, the our armies (ie: our armies = western countries + our other friends) have finally realised that we're living in the 21century. Hopefully they have started to seriously investigate the use of small, cheap machines (regardless whether they operate either on land, in/on the sea or the air), to fight wars. Because if we don't our enemies certainly will. And with the current rate of improvement in AI, very soon they will be capable of being fully autonomous. The general level of the capability of AI required to operate these machines will be common in the pubic sector well before a single one of the subs is launched. In fact, we're probably already are at the required level since we currently have autonomous cars that are driving around on public roads in the USA.

Perhaps it'd be worthwhile remembering that Ukraine is a land war and we are talking about naval issues. Sure, Ukraine took out the odd Russian vessel but almost always using land based missiles against vessels in port. Now if we can just convince our enemy to keep their navy in port for a while, we'll be okey-dokey.

There's a massive difference between dropping a hand-grenade on some hapless bloke hiding in a foxhole to dropping 200kg of munitions on a heavily armoured vessel. Again the Ukrainian drones have taken out some Russian heavy vehicles but that not the same as frigate or even a merchant vessel.

Land based drones, being a new and novel armament have been successful. Flying short distances with small explosives through wooded or hilly terrain is advantageous. Flying 1000km across open water isn't quite the same thing.

And if you think militaries all around the world aren't currently working on anti-drone strategies, then I'd like to talk to you about this bridge I have for sale.

Drones have and will have their place in the militaries of the mid-century. They will get bigger and able to travel further and more autonomously than now. And navies will react to counter that. But there remains the issue of getting them to where the action is. Flying a coupla hundred drones from Darwin to Malacca undetected is a fantasy. And they don't offer force projection.

There's a reason why navies the world over are still anxious to have subs. They know that they remain an integral part of a nation's naval preparedness. We will have drones and we will have land based missile systems. But we must also have the ability to project force into dangerous regions and stealthily keep sealanes open.