TTBN - I understand you'd prefer NOT to have my support in the Forum. Nevertheless if you add an opinion, and I agree with that opinion, I will give my support come what may, okay.

The last two comments you made herein are correct in my opinion. This massive island of ours, with its thousands of kms of largely uninhabited coast lines, couldn't possible defend itself from a military attack, of any size.

Sure we have the ADF, but as good as they are, their combined strength, both permanent and reservist's I suspect, wouldn't reach 100k. Whereas the Chinese Military numbers stretch into the millions. And we shouldn't discount the strength or size of their reserves either.

Of course I have no precise figures, but given the current intimidatory appetite that seems to prevail within Beijing, you can bet your socks they've increased their numbers exponentially, including their military assets & hardware, together with their overall technology, which is far above that of our ADF., being a nuclear nation.

Before Climate change, we must be in a position to defend ourselves. Otherwise the climate itself will become inconsequential.

Fester

Western democracies are passive about everything these days. Don't put money on them doing anything. Western civilisation is on the downhill run.

Australia, for instance, can't defend itself, let alone other countries. Taiwan is more ready and able than we are.

I am sympathetic to your wishful thinking though.

OSW,

I love your support. I just didn't want to be mentioned in the same breath as Foxy and SteeleRedux. That's all. They are my exact opposites. But you see something in them that I don't. Fair enough.

On the matter of defence, I believe that most Australians don't have a clue how puny we are - if they do think about it, that is.

My reading and observations suggest that we are in a worse state than we were prior to WW11. The only one who seems to have a clue among the political class is General, now Senator, Jim Molan; and too many of the Liberal Party pansies didn't want him on the ticket. Dutton, a tough Defence Minister, is a waste of space as Opposition Leader.

Australians should be afraid; very afraid. If China runs amok, the resulting war won't be like sending a few soldiers to cop it, as happened in Vietnam and the Middle. East, while it was life as usual at home; Australian civilians will be involved, ready or not.

The pathway to peace is through diplomacy, not militarism and sabre-rattling as those living in a fantasy world of 50 years ago would have it. Albanese is trying to build bridges with China through dialog, something the Coalition under Morrison destroyed. Its not a matter of grovelling and cow tailing as we have done with America, but establishing mutual respect through partnerships.

There will be no shift in the relationship between Australia as long as Xi is the President. Xi is a second Mao, who has exhorted the Chinese to "prepare for war". If he does get to speak to Xi, Albanese, who isn't sure that he will even get a look in, will get eaten alive, the whiny little embarrassment to Australia that he is.

Albanese would be better off, short of resigning, to stay home and concentrate on preparations for war, too. That's the only thing that will make Xi think twice.

The pathway to peace is through diplomacy,
Paul1405,
When & where has Diplomacy ever produced more than a generation (33yrs)-long peaceful solution ?
Admittedly, handing over the proceeds from working people by Diplomats (foreign aid) to appease stroppy Nations occasionally holds up conflicts for a while but only for so long !
In my book squandering the money taken from excessively taxed workers & giving it to undeserving politicians in other countries does not constitute Diplomacy, there are more apt description for that !

Armchair,
>What makes a terrorist a terrorist?
>- The acts themselves, or the 'end justifies the means' mentality that leads them to do whatever they do?

Definitely the acts themselves. The attitude that the ends can justify the means is very common with humans, and on this board there was overwhelming condemnation of one person who took the view that it never did.

Fortunately most people take a different view when killing is involved, so terrorists don't get much support.

Some people may argue about where the boundaries between terrorism, sabotage and publicity stunts lie, but it's very clear that they're three very different things.

Parking cars across rail tracks definitely falls into the sabotage category, but it's not something I'd heard of. Do you have a news reference?

>If they REALLY cared about the environment, they wouldn't be letting 200k+
>people into our country every year when we already import water.

What a ridiculous claim! We, like most rich countries, import a small amount of premium branded bottled water because a few people with more money than sense like to drink it, but it's of little relevance. Money's a bigger limiting factor to what we produce than water is. And we're already well past the point where controlling population alone can ever solve the problem. But we're nowhere near the point where the population is too large to prevent the problems being solved.

We have what it take to be environmentally sustainable as a nation, but many people don't want that. Fortunately the generation most opposef are dying off.

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Fester,
You may not have noticed, but power grids across the world are already linking up. AIUI the supergrid currently stretches from Singapore to Europe (via Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, China and Russia).

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Indy,
The problem isn't questioning the results; it's people assuming they know something the experts don't that invalidates the results.

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ttbn,
Taiwan prepared for war because it has to; China has expressed a desire to annex Taiwan, but has no territorial ambitions in Australia.
No country would gain more than it loses from invading Australia.