Australia a world Power??
October 9th 2006 09:57
The awfully big plane contract
It May surprise most of everyone to know that Australia is a world power. What is meant by this is that, in disproportion to its size and totally out of keeping with its geography, Australia exerts more influence in the scheme of things than China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India or Pakistan.
It is Australia’s job in the local area to police the pacific powers, tell New Zealand what they should do with their miserable excuse for armed forces and also bankroll New Guinea, The Solomans, Fiji, Tonga and just about everyone else in the Melanesian Pacific region so that they will vote in the UN as they are expected to vote, en cue and whenever Australia (and its friends) require it. They are even expected to house refugees if Australia asks them. Not that Melanesia counts for much else geopolitically. What is much more important is how often Australia can front up in Afghanistan, the number of times it abstains from voting in the UN and concepts like the Coalition of the Willing or the Coalition of whatever the English Speaking powers call it at the time.
It seems to have escaped the attention of military analysts that there is a theoretical triangle that can be drawn across the planet and at each of the apices of the triangle is an English speaking nation, The United Kingdom, The United States of America and Australia. Australia would no more tell the United States of America what stance it should take with Guatemala than The United States would tell us what should be done in New Guinea. This is that way the world works.
As usual military analysts are hung up on the following:
The size of Australia’s air force and whether it should buy Raptors or F16/18s
The side of its army and the number of Abraham Tanks it intends to acquire,
Australia’s Gross Domestic Product,
Whether Australia should have conscription or not,
Submarines,
ASIO and ASIS.
What they really should be concentrating on is:
Who the first two people George W. Bush phones up when he is thinking of going to war.
The size and influence of Australia’s Jewish Population.
The fact that Australia speaks English.
How good Australia is at looking after and keeping Pine Gap.
Comments in Parliament about George Bush (what happened to Mark Latham?)
How often John Howard has tea at Checkers and Camp David.
Military analysts bother themselves with Australia’s decision to acquire the US Abraham’s Tank. Australia will never use those tanks in anger. It is useful to acquire them so that Australia’s armed forces are familiar with what their friends are using in the Middle East. The ones that will be acquired will spend their time rolling around the Simpson Desert being attacked by the odd goanna.
It hardly matters that Australia is not a participant in ASEAN, nor does it matter that Indonesia happens not to like Australia for an afternoon or two withdrawing its Ambassador just for show, so long as they come crawling back. What, after all, would Australia do with a place like Irian Jia?
In a world where the only nation that has the capacity to invade Australia is its closest ally, concerns about number and disposition of military resources is totally meaningless.
While in the world of blind men the one-eyed man is king in the world of non-english speaking peoples Australia is King.
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Comment by PokerPro
Great piece. I have often wondered what America's (or indeed the UK's) response would be in the event that we were invaded. At the end of the day I guess I am a pragmatist. For example, the US was always going to invade Iraq, we may as well send our paltry 400 troops and stay tight with our big angry brother Amercia. Hopefully they will look after us return.