David,

With respect, of course it is military spending. As an ally, the ADF has performed all of the functions you mention. One word, 'defence' is used to cover the lot. Nobody is going to kick off with, 'we are going to spend money on defending, attacking, occupying, threatening, helping, etc.'

A paragraph from The Australian says it all:

"The doctrine of massive retaliation has delivered a stable world for decades. It will continue to prevent world wars".

Self-evident.

Thank you David, I agree with your sentiments.

Realistically, if I was China the country I would be least likely to trust apart from the United States would be Australia. Can anyone give a reason why China should trust the US toady Australia? There is no chance that the US Industrial/Military Complex would accept world peace and sign its own death warrant. Mikhail Gorbachev tried to bring about total nuclear disarmament between the Soviet Union and the United States, but Ronald Reagan point blank refused the offer. Just goes to show which country is the belligerent warmonger. Australia with its track record of aggression in Asia, Korea, Vietnam, kowtowing to the US at every opportunity. As North Korea is seen by America in relation to China, Australia is viewed much the same by China in relation to America.

Many people hold the view that nuclear weapons have helped to
prevent war. Throughout the decades since these destructive
devices appeared on the scene countries have avoided outright
military conflict. Obviously, we cannot know for certain
whether the superpowers would have fought one another
had there not been a nuclear threat. There can be
little doubt, however, that the prospect of mutually
assured destruction has deterred war by making
its potential consequences utterly ghastly.

This record has encouraged the widespread view that
the best way to avoid war is for each side to hold
the other's population as hostage under nuclear threat.

The drawback to this approach is that the threat of
mutually assured destruction is an "all-or-nothing"
gamble.
As long as the threat "works" war is avoided;
but if the strategy fails - - then the result is the
obliteration of the societies that depended on it.

Moreover, a strategy of mutually assured destruction is most
likely to work if there is a balance of power between the main
superpowers or blocs.

If the contending parties are evenly
balanced, neither will be likely to strike first,
for there can be no certainty of victory.
On the other hand if one of the parties
gains or appears to be gaining superiority war becomes more
likely - either because the superior power is tempted to take
advantage of its position, or because the inferior one is
tempted to strike before its own position deteriorates
further.

Nuclear weapons do not guarantee that war
cannot happen - only that it will be calamitous
if it does. They do not so much defend
as threaten, and in threatening, they elicit still more
threats in return - as the world's growing stockpile of bombs
and missiles attests. The obsessive focus on the threats of
weapons as the ways to avoid war also blinds us to the
central question - is anything that China or the US or us
values so important that we justify risking the destruction
of our societies, the murder of hundreds of millions of people,
and the jeopardizing of our very species?

Dear ttbn,

You wrote, “The doctrine of massive retaliation has delivered a stable world for decades. It will continue to prevent world wars.

Self-evident.”

It is far from self-evident and utter nonsense. We cannot predict the future. At the beginning of 1914 many in Europe were prosperous and felt secure, and nations were armed to the teeth. Even after the fighting started in August many, including national leaders, thought the war would be over in weeks. The bloodletting lasted four horrible years.

The naïveté exhibited by military leaders is astounding. Hitler had his soldiers invade the USSR without warm winter clothing. Like the leaders in August 1914 he thought it would be over in weeks. Many froze to death.

We live in a dangerous world. It is far from stable in Syria and other places. The doctrine of massive retaliation has not delivered a stable world. The idea that military expenditures bring safety is very naïve. I am not a hairy hippy but a hairy 94 year old US army veteran of WW2. I resented all the hairy hippies who were attending the Woodstock music festival in 1969 instead of protesting the Vietnam War.

Since WWII the United States has involved itself in no less than 17 identifiable wars and conflicts, not one fought on American soil. From the Korea War 1950/53 to the present war in Syria. In those wars a minimum 5 million died in Korea, the US/Vietnam War 1965/74 accounted for 1.3 million deaths. Since the end of WWII its estimated 40 million people have died in wars. That number does not include deaths through displacement, death from disease and starvation The vast majority of those killed have been non-combatant men, women and children.

Peace is for the hippies, the flower children, the confused, the misguided, the old, the young, the mothers, the fathers, the sons, the daughters, the poor, the weak, etc, etc, I'll remember that one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2mabTnMHe8

Foxy and david f,

Maybe the US could sign up to China's Belt and Road Initiative as a good will gesture.