On 6 Aug 2003 11:19:24 GMT, Drewe Manton wrote:

(Marcus Andersson) waxed lyrical
. com:

Please give me one single reason why Indonesia would want to attack
Australia in any way?


This is to miss the point. Indonesia is a large, very populous and not
altogether friendly country immediately to Australia's north. It's very
proximity and different culture makes it a potential threat, regardless
of potential for real world conflict.
If I had a country with more than ten times my population and
significant internal problems in close proximity I'd want to maintain a
strong deterrent in that direction.



We also have to take into account the fact that no war for 15 years is
almost an impossible prediction to back up, ever. 15 years ago we
were still massively supporting the one party, fascist (but
anti-commie), ethnic cleansing/genocidal dictatorship in Jakarta. Face
it we still were 5-6 years ago. Now we are the primary target of not
insignificant numbers of radical terrorists. Their more moderate
political arms could grab substantial parliamentary representation
next year and some have Australia listed as an obvious area for Asian
Muslim Resettlement and expansion in their ideology. 15 years from now
Indonesia could literraly not exist (with 3-4 break away regions) or
it could be a radicalised pan islamic state that threatens australian
sovereignty. Of course it could also contnue as now. Trying to make
long term security decisions in such a fluid environment is silly. If
we need a higher defence budget then raise the tax back up to where it
was 6 weeks back, most people would not notice.

My preference would be to keep them running until we can actually get
hold of some numbers of some extreme range ACAV's. That will be around
2010-15. In old German parlance we need a 4000 kg over 4000 Km at 1000
Kmh airframe. Buy 30+ as bomb trucks and use manned aircraft for the
fighter/attack role. ( Not sure about JSF for that but we'll see. )

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Regards
Drewe
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity