This part of the planet is starting to head towards real defence issues with Australia and The States disagreeing on where the future lays with combat and how to prepare. Australia wants to equip the military for more conventional warfare and The States is heading in the direction of more unconventional warfare like with what you're seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Already the Pentagon has announced cuts.

The reason this is coming about is due to the massive arms build up China is going through right now and the potential of India with Pakistan heading towards HUGE dramas. That sucker is a nuclear powered locomotive without brakes. Dramas there isn't 'if', but 'when'.

It seems to me that resource defence is going to be a huge thing in the future with a glimpse of it happening in Iraq at the mo. Obviously it would be unpopular for Australia to take an offensive role in SECURING resources so defence of current resources - (whether they be owned by Au, or others, but accessed by Au) - is going to be the future role. Pre-emptive strikes aren't out of the question though.

China being what it is - (communist, big, not all that concerned about human rights) - are going to begin to look for more resources to feed the mammoth thing it is. It's just inevitable.

The question is, do we prepare now, or when they're securing the sub-continent?.

A bit paranoid isnt it?

Neither China nor India has acted with anything but friendliness towards us why would you defame them like this?

Australia, being so large, inhospitable and isolated would be an almost impossible country to conquer and especially since I believe (as did the Japanese during WWII) that every man woman and child here would fight to the death to stop an invasion of our homeland. Al Queda would pale in comparison with us Aussies if we were occupied.

the fiji thing is about international globalists stealing the natives land[i recall keating involved with the scam to steal the best lands[re an abc report last year]

all the rest is re israel intrests and globalists, taking control[georgia was sponsered by the usa[read israel] giving arms and training to the bolcvhovist president,to boxin[read control russia oil/gas from the eu

#the somalia thing was usa [via israel] getting rid of some arab orders, then egypt[the israelie stooge]fishing out the somalie food

iraq well we know a million iraquies died so israel has a nice conveniant attack point to take out iran, the media well who runs that [and the wrathchild run banking cartel well guess who]

seems the best regional defense is clear..[stop fighting other peoples wars]but no we are ordering heaps more usa arms[to keep our low parity with the yanki dollar so the israelies can get their trillion us subsidy in euro's]

seems there is a war race runjing the planet for ever more defense spending[but invasion only affects who is raping you this time[see indonesia, was run by the dutch cartel,..then the japs then the yanks then the java-nese,..but it was the same bankers who banked the spoil into swiss and chinese banks...lol..regardless of who stole it from them..lol

remember the richest guys are those in charge of bying the weopenry of war, lets make our own arms industry[we invented the metal storm, now supressed teqnology ,that fires a million rounds a minute,..

#[not a missprint]..its a thousand ballels electicly detonated with each barrel packed, with hundreds of rounds,looks much like a condenser tube array[lets just put one of them on each corner, next to the vidio cameras]then let preople know they are there.

look the thing is NO ONE can hold australia[except the people who live here[give me back the guns the police stole...and no one will be tempted to invade an armed nation..just like the japs didnt

peace eh

StG,
You have it all wrong, you need re-educating. We now live in a 'global villiage' where there will be no future conflicts about resourses, race, religion or anything else. So cut the defence spending and use the savings on 'humanities', like feeding those that have famine so they can breed more and more. Do nothing to reduce populations in starving countries.

According to some we should completely open our borders because 'people have a basic right to move at will'. No visas required. Let them come here as we have plenty of room and a good social security programme. Centrelink and Medicare cards issued on arrival to all.

On another thread here and now, there is an academic advocating that we let non-citizens vote in OUR elections. Now that is a good idea, worthy of a Uni education, why did I not think of that?

I expect you to present yourself to the next intake for re-education so you may then be free of the stupid ideas that we need to consider our countries defence.

I'm not sure that China needs to bother threatening us with force.

Get hold of a copy of Peter Wilkinson's "The Howard Legacy" and the story of that Government's refusal to train Australians, preferring the import of skills from China. Universities have been used for this. They claim to be selling degrees to overseas students - mainly Chinese - when, in reality, they are selling resident visas to Chinese who have paid for their studies, had help when they have failed and when their 'iffy' degrees are gained, they stay here to become part of a Chinese elite in the professions and commerce - just as they have throughout SE Asia. All at the expense of Australians.

The Rudd Government is continuing to do this, of course. Rudd will probably do it much better than Howard, being a Sinophile.

Add to a Chinese cognitive elite in Australia the $500,000,000 or so per week Labor is borrowing from China, and we will be for ever beholden to the Chinese. And, lets not forget their buy up of our natural resourcess.

China does not have to use military force against us; it already has us firmly in its grip.

I agree with mikk, beating the 'yellow peril' drum like this is driven more by paranoia than by any rational assessment of the situation.

The best way for Australia to build self defence capacity, if that's what you see as important, is to engage fairly in the region and beyond and to act as a good neighbour to others. This in turn will foster good relations and minimise the chances of resentment building to the point of any contemplation of a forceful takeover of our resources.

There are many and varied ways to do this. To begin with, we can do far more to assist island nations in our region already experiencing the effects of global warming and rising sea levels. We need to share resources fairly and avoid exploiting those rightfully belonging to others, as with East Timor's oil and gas deposits, for example. We must also do our share to protect the region's refugees rather than spending millions every year keeping them out.

We should share our expertise and assist developing nations on their own soil, rather than creaming off their best and brightest for ourselves, as we often tend to do. We need to be good neighbours to all and not align ourselves exclusively to one nation as we have. Military bases on our soil not only make us a target, but make a loud and unhelpful statement about our national bipartisanship. Our trade deals also must be fair, open and inclusive and avoid cutting countries out of the loop, as bilateral trade agreements motivated more by self interest than regional cooperation tend to do.

Reaching out to our neighbours and engaging with them is the key to our security. We can't afford to keep pouring money into the bottomless pit of building up military capacity. Not only do we have more urgent needs for the money, but it's counter-productive anyway. Building walls will only breed suspicion and resentment among our neighbours. It's making friends that will keep us safe.

Its really got nothing to do with the 'Yellow Peril' rubbish. It's a fact.

For your perusal:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25340312-2702,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25306305-31477,00.html

I used The Australian for the convenience of the articles.

That made me laugh.
International Politics is played like a school-yard, it's a notorious observation. And have you ever tried to escape bullying by being nice to the bully, and giving him/her whatever they want? That's called "appeasement", and always fails.
We DO need a military force, but the details and size are open to debate, we are too heavily enmeshed with the yanks for my comfort.
As for China, I fear the Yellow Peril fear is still with us, and it's as silly as ever, really. We won't win any friends with money, we're not even in the race compared to others, nor will we by sticking our heads in the sand-box of Idealism, we need to be realistic and engage locally as best we can, without surrendering our souls or principles.

Maximillion

"That made me laugh."

Glad you've had a laugh at my expense. Feel free any time. I said nothing about appeasement. I was talking about fairness and cooperation.

Bullies don't change by being bullied by a bigger bully either, by the way. They just ramp up and rebuild their efforts to dominate, and feed into a dangerous and pointless cycle of oneupmanship.

Cooperation and negotiation are the keys to national security. This is realism, not 'sandbox idealism' as you so derisively coin it. We can all see where being the bully took us under George Bush's presidency, and fortunately we're now going to witness things being done differently.

Just today, we've had Hiliary Clinton showing real world leadership in stating that the Somali piracy problems will only be solved through tackling the reasons that have driven these people to take up piracy in the first place. What would you or George Bush have done? Announce a 'War on Piracy' no doubt. None of these wars on anything bring about the desired solutions. They just exacerbate the problems and create a whole set of new ones.

I state again, nothing will be achieved by sinking huge amounts of money we don't have into building up state of the art defence forces, especially when there are so many more pressing priorities. Look at America's astronomical defence spending. How many friends has that ever won for it? What has it ever done to create world peace?

You talk of being realistic and engaging locally as best we can, which is exactly what I said too by the way. How about you begin by engaging civilly on this very local forum. Laughing at others whose views are different to your own is an example of small time bullying, and creates wasteful tension rather than productive dialogue.

Well said Bronwyn
I have always held that having our neighbors like and care about us will make us way way safer than having neighbors that hate and distrust us.

Ive got to say there is a serious amount of racism underlying this discussion. Please stop.

There is always someone who has to drag out 'racism' when there is a discussion about anyone not Western.

The truth is that the Chinese don't get het up about race: they just know that they are better than everyone else.

They also play on Westerners' hang ups about being called racist in this absurdly politically correct society by calling Westerners racists to gain an advantage. Politicians know this, and when they want to have a go at a Chinese poltician in an opposing party (there are quite a few in Australian politics now) they get their own Chinese member to have a go at the target. That way, the Chinense politician to be lambasted can hardly say his attacker was racist.

It's rather like getting a woman MP to have a go at another woman MP so that the sexism label can't be hung on a man.

The poster 'mikk' is obviously still wet behind the ears.

Australia, being so large, inhospitable and isolated would be an almost impossible country to conquer and especially since I believe (as did the Japanese during WWII) that every man woman and child here would fight to the death to stop an invasion of our homeland. Al Queda would pale in comparison with us Aussies if we were occupied.
Posted by mikk,

mikk. You dont believe that do you?

Have a look at what happened in Vic recently and on Ash Wednesday. Pick the right day any summer and, with a few light aircraft, someone could bring this country to its knees with, virtually, a box of matches, then walk in and take over. So a lot of people would die and towns destroyed but the mineral resourses would still be there and the land for agriculture. Any enemy would not care if Aussies died, their interest would be in what they can gain.

Without weapons how could there be a civilian uprising against any invading force. Just as in WW11 we would have to rely on the US to protect us. That is why we are in alliance with the Yanks and it is in our interests for them to have some bases here.

Sure we are friendly to all and give assistance to many of the small island neighbors, and some larger ones, but relative to those a bit further away our military resourses are miniscule.

I would not speculate on where, or when, a specific threat may come from. that is best left to our intelligence and military services to keep tabs on, but adequate consideration has to be given to defence.

Bronwyn,
I can tell you why the pirates in Somalia act as they do. Money and greed, nothing more. They are not forced to be pirates.
Appeasement did not work in WW11 against invaders and the British and Yanks used force to put an end to the Barbary pirates and the Chinese beheaded many pirates to put a stop to their activities in the 1900s

So force has been known to work.

Banjo

"Bronwyn, I can tell you why the pirates in Somalia act as they do. Money and greed, nothing more. They are not forced to be pirates."

No, they are not forced to be pirates and I don't condone what they're doing, but I do understand why they're doing it.

Perhaps this excerpt from a report by Johann Hari, columnist for the London Independent, will make it a little clearer to you too.

"In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: 'Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it.' Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to 'dispose' of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: 'Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.'

Continued

"At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: 'If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters.'

This is the context in which the men we are calling 'pirates' have emerged."

'http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/13-6

Yes, Banjo, greed is the root of the problem, but whose greed are we talking here?

Leigh...
Do you even know what the word racism means? Are you saying your last post was not racist?
Lets look shall we.
"the Chinese don't get het up about race
they just know that they are better than everyone else.
by calling Westerners racists to gain an advantage."
So you have met all 3.9 billion of them and have asked them and they all answered the same way did they? Remarkably homogeneous society.

I might be "wet behind the ears" but you sir are a racist.

Banjo
That is just insane. As horrendous as the fires in Vic were if you remember most of QLD and Nthn NSW was experiencing floods at the same time. Did you know that 75% (15.1 million) of Australias population lives in urban areas which hardly ever get burned in bushfires. Did you also know that a lot of our mineral resources are in arid and desert areas also not prone to much burning?

We are not under threat and it is not likely to happen in the near future. We have the best and most efficient armed forces in the world and they have been trained in our conditions and know the ground unlike any invaders. We have nothing to be afraid of and if we dont go airing stupid, racist suspicions and offending our neighbors it will stay that way.

We need defense forces but only focused on defending Australia. Not invading and attacking other peoples countries.

It's racist to discuss the military build up in China?.

hahahaha Yeah ok, and you sing "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep" too?.

One thing's for sure, time will tell. Obviously they aren't a direct physical threat to Australia. They just don't have those sort of capabilities. It would take a sustained war from Indonesia - (as in the land) - to be able to do it. We'd know WAY before it happened that it was going to.

What you will see is nations out-growing their resources. China is picked out because they are the biggest, most aggressive, and ACTUALLY expanding their military. Why?. Why would they need to expand their military when no one is a direct physical threat to them as a land mass?. Do you see China in a starring role in Afghanistan or Iraq.

An article from YESTERDAY

"Beijing, Apr 16 (PTI) China today unfolded a massive naval expansion plan to give its warships longer reach capabilities, announcing that it will build new generation of seacraft including stealth submarines, supersonic cruise aircrafts and longer range missiles."

and

"China has developed a wide array of naval ordinance and may be discussing licensed production of Russian 53-65KE wave-homing anti-ship torpedoes. The navy operates about 400 aircraft, mainly 40-year-old Russian designs, but also about two dozen cutting-edge Sukhoi SU30MKK fighter bombers.
Such expansion has been made possible by two decades of near-annual double digit increases in defense spending. Earlier this year, China announced a 14.9 percent rise in military spending in its 2009 budget, to 480.68 billion yuan ($70.36 billion)."

It is not racist to discuss China or anything about China including military spending. It is racist to make generalisations about the Chinese people and say things like they ALL do this or that or all the Chinese think this or that. There are 3.9 billion of them. They are not all slanty eyed warmongers you know. Someone mentioned the fact that many Chinese who live here are wealthy as if that was somehow evil or dangerous to us. This is racism. Once again I ask you to stop it.

StG Maybe the Chinese are upgrading more than expanding their military. You yourself posted about their minuscule and outdated airforce. $70.3 billion? What about the US and its $711 billion in military spending? 10 times more. Maybe the Chinese are scared of the Americans.

Calling for Australia to increase/change its defense forces in response to increases from China is called an arms race. A race we cannot win and should try our hardest to avoid.

Mikk,

It is natural for you to want to defend your position, no matter how ridiculous that position is.

No. I do not know all Chinese; but, unlike you, I do read a lot written by people who are experts in Chinese culture. Many of these experts are, themselves, Chinese.

I suggest that you are the one who does not "know what the word racism means". If you did you would not use it so loosely and uselessly. You are typical of ignorant people who use the word to put down people with whom you don't agree. You try to stop debate.

Well, feel free to call me a racist if it makes you feel that you are achieving something. But, be assured, I am one of those people who doesn't care what uneducated people call him, and I will not be stopped from saying what I think.

I notice, with some amusement, that you refer to Chinese as not all being "slant eyed war mongers". Perhaps that was a Freudian slip. Nobody in this thread has referred to Chinese as such.

Far from critcising anyone else, you should be explaining how it is that you feel able to dub people you know nothing about as 'racists'.

You won't look inward, of course; you are a naive fool who thinks that racism is the domain of white people only. It is to be hoped that you are never exposed to black or yellow racism and have your pathetic delusions ruined.

My apologies Bronwyn, I wasn't clear enough. I was responding to the opening of this thread, NOT your post, and I feel we actually aren't too far apart philosophically.

Maximillion

Apology accepted! :)

I obviously haven't read enough of your posts yet to know your philosophical position. If I had, I would never have jumped in like that.

But, you're right, your post was not clear. Maybe I'm super sensitive too. My views on defence and foreign policy issues have in the past attracted derision and accusations of appeasement, so I guess I was anticipating it more than I should have, which probably clouded my judgement somewhat.

I did think your post was rather contradictory in parts, but it all makes sense now. :)

Leigh, wouldn't be easier just to restrict your posts to the Stormfront forums, where your views are appreciated? People on OLO tend to read and think, instead of sitting around loading their guns in anticipation of the yellow invasion, or blaming their personal failures on the Jews.

Or feel free to join us in 2009, where reluctance to lynch Asians on sight isn't considered political correctness.

This phenomena of how the abused become the abusers is a curious one to me. One of the few positive things I can say about the han regime is that they were badly abused by the japs.

However, this does not excuse their treatment of their own or the Tibetans.

And consider their mates. burma? The n.korean despot? The situation in darfur? Their arms killing our troops in afghanistan?

Clearly some members here have never attended a Human Rights conference where the chinese don't have the australian media and some vile politicians to give them a glossy shine because they profit from it.

My view, Human Rights must not be divorced from trade.

Encourage regime change.

Provide AEGIS and RAPTORS to Taiwan and be prepared to defend them.