I know some people would think I am mad for even raising the possibility but have we really thought about the question that much?
Open up a map and look at the size of Australia and how much of that land is uninhabitable. Realise we have only 53 odd thousand military personal to defend all that land and 20-25 odd million people living here. Now let your eyes drift upwards, to those innocent looking island chains a fraction of our nations size. Realise there is more then a hundred million people on those islands, with more then enough weapons stock piled and laws allowing them to conscript an armed force larger then the number of people we have in our entire nation.
Geologically and number wise, we are screwed. Geologically because we have put road and infrastructures in place to overcome the harshness of our environment. We can't rely on mountain ranges to stop an enemy advance any more, our rainforests all have paths cut through them and there is more then enough airfields, sea ports, power stations and the likes that would just be handed over to an invading force as we don't have enough personal to prevent that from happening.
Now politically we have made the problem worse! Over the Howard administrations reign the people of these island nations where used as a whipping boy to focus racism into a political policy. Those fleeing oppression are treated as criminals and locked up, sometimes for longer then we actually hold real criminals. The hatred to those the north of us, the distrust for their religious beliefs and different culture, has been turned into a frenzy by the media and government. To the point people now bash Muslims and Asians openly and don't feel ashamed if they yell racist comments to people who could very well have ancestors living here longer then their own.
That can't be generating a very good image in the minds and hearts of the people still over there.
On top of that we interfere in their local affairs as if we where America or something! Using our political might and more organised military force to shoulder our way to getting what we want. East Timor surely pissed off the Indonesian to no end and considering how we have treated the Timorese, or whatever they are called, afterwards we probably pissed a great deal of them off too. Howard put a puppet government in play that signed away their oil and natural gas reserves, for example. Which has made a lot of people, myself included, believe that we went over there with nothing but a plan to steal their natural reserves.
Now we are entering into a era of turmoil, where the world economy is shaky and nations might start having to focus on problems in their own borders if things get worse. All it would take is one serious event, financial or political, and many of our stronger allies may be too busy to come to our aid. The fact we are a commonwealth nation ensures as a measure of defence, but what if those other nations no longer have the means to come to our rescue?
Nuclear weapons: The ultimate deterrent to invasion.
So should we build a few?
Open up a map and look at the size of Australia and how much of that land is uninhabitable. Realise we have only 53 odd thousand military personal to defend all that land and 20-25 odd million people living here. Now let your eyes drift upwards, to those innocent looking island chains a fraction of our nations size. Realise there is more then a hundred million people on those islands, with more then enough weapons stock piled and laws allowing them to conscript an armed force larger then the number of people we have in our entire nation.
Geologically and number wise, we are screwed. Geologically because we have put road and infrastructures in place to overcome the harshness of our environment. We can't rely on mountain ranges to stop an enemy advance any more, our rainforests all have paths cut through them and there is more then enough airfields, sea ports, power stations and the likes that would just be handed over to an invading force as we don't have enough personal to prevent that from happening.
Now politically we have made the problem worse! Over the Howard administrations reign the people of these island nations where used as a whipping boy to focus racism into a political policy. Those fleeing oppression are treated as criminals and locked up, sometimes for longer then we actually hold real criminals. The hatred to those the north of us, the distrust for their religious beliefs and different culture, has been turned into a frenzy by the media and government. To the point people now bash Muslims and Asians openly and don't feel ashamed if they yell racist comments to people who could very well have ancestors living here longer then their own.
That can't be generating a very good image in the minds and hearts of the people still over there.
On top of that we interfere in their local affairs as if we where America or something! Using our political might and more organised military force to shoulder our way to getting what we want. East Timor surely pissed off the Indonesian to no end and considering how we have treated the Timorese, or whatever they are called, afterwards we probably pissed a great deal of them off too. Howard put a puppet government in play that signed away their oil and natural gas reserves, for example. Which has made a lot of people, myself included, believe that we went over there with nothing but a plan to steal their natural reserves.
Now we are entering into a era of turmoil, where the world economy is shaky and nations might start having to focus on problems in their own borders if things get worse. All it would take is one serious event, financial or political, and many of our stronger allies may be too busy to come to our aid. The fact we are a commonwealth nation ensures as a measure of defence, but what if those other nations no longer have the means to come to our rescue?
Nuclear weapons: The ultimate deterrent to invasion.
So should we build a few?
