The A**US Treaty

[Ozzy Blizzard]

I disagree with the notion you were "saved" by the USA in WW-ll too, "who was it that said that"? If anything you were saved by a Japanese high command that failed to fight the war in a true strategic sense. Think about it? Much of Australia's forces were dispersed around the world fighting for the Empire and both the Aussie and Brit navies were heavily tasked in the Med. and Atlantic. The Australian apple was ripe for the picking in 1942 for the Japanese. And there were a few brilliant Jap generals who understood this, however for having such a propensity for taking risks the Japanese high command was also overly cautious. They showed both Yin and Yang.

They knew they were armor weak, the Aussie land mass was far away and stretched their supply chain. And yes, some thought that invading Australia would kill any chance they had of a negotiated peace with America and Britain. At the time, and before Midway, Yamamoto was the most influential voice in planning and he constantly warned that Japan would lose a prolonged war against America.

So no, I dont think we "saved" Australia. I do however think we "saved" Asia. Its true the Aussies fought well but probably 95% of the firepower that beat Japan had "made in USA" on it.

I cant see any feasable sercumstances were the Japanese could have sucsesfully invaded and ocupied Australia, apart from mass panic and quick surender, and judging the carecter of the leaders involved, and the massive fear of japanese occupation that is unlikley. An invasion of mainland Australia
could have only taken place once new guine and the dutch east indies had been secured. The major supply base rabaul had to be stocked with supplies from the japanese mainland to support such a large amphibious operation, there would be between 8 to 11 Australian divisions, one fully equiped armoured with matilda 2's and grant tanks by 42. this could not have been acomplished by at least june 42, and most of the australian forces deployed overseas would be on the mainland by that time. I just dont think it was within the japanese army/navy's logistical or tactiacal capability to defeat a large western army, with verry verry long ocean lines of communication, with inferior armoured/mobile formations, inferior small arms, inferior tactical doctorine, inferior artillary, in open unfriendly terrain, with 10 000km of ocean between factory and soldier.

I would agree that large parts of china would have fallen under japanese rule had the US not interveened diplomaticaly and economically, however as a consequence they did have to live under mau and his five year plan. Classical communists are almost as bad as fashists in my book. But Japan only attacked SEA because of the trade embargoes placed on them by the US. I'm not saying that the US was wrong to do it. i think Colin Powell said it best "no army in the history of mankind conquered so much teritory as the US in WW2 and all they asked for in return was enough ground to burry their dead", not only that but finance the reconstruction of an utterly destroyed europe. But if the US hadn't interviened, i dont think the Japanese would have driven south.


I do agree with you about the USSR, people focus on the mistakes the US has made, or their attitude toward the rest of the world, but imagine if the Soviet Union had won the cold war, the planet would be a far unhapier place to live in. That was a truely evil system of govenment, that killed over 20 million of its own people. Many forget about the true horror of our past enemies, and how lucky we are that we won peacfully.

 

[rickshaw]

RickShaw you are treading on the very edge of Lunacy here. I suspect even your countrymen, and New Zealand allies, are reading this and choking. Could you imagine of any of the enslaved Soviet satellite states would have complained about nukes, or nuke ships, entering their ports or territory?nfloorl:

You don't think that is in fact the point I am making? The Americans over-reacted. Instead of acknowledging New Zealand's sovereignity, they decided to "teach New Zealand a lesson". Instead of accepting that New Zealand was an equal partner in their alliance, they decided to treat New Zealand as a vassal state. Is it any wonder the Kiwis reacted the way they did and passed laws to prohibit the visit of nuclear powered/armed ships to their harbours?

BTW its "hegemony". And we didn't have any in New Zealand, or about as much as we did in the Philippines. And you saw there what happened when they said they didn't want us?

Yep, the US pulled out. Do you seriously believe the US though, would have pulled out if the Cold War was in still in full swing and Mt. Pinatubo hadn't blown its top and essentially destroyed Clark and Subic?

Oh I get it! They want security guarantees from a Yank public spending over 4% of GNP on defense but they dont want our ships or sailors there? Gosh, that sounds like a swell deal for us doesn't it? Especially for a Pacific navy with all those nuclear powered aircraft carriers. Gee, thats just swell.

Oh, I get it, America wants them to be a vassal state? I thought America wasn't an Empire and didn't have imperial ambitions? I thought New Zealand was a soverign state and was an equal partner in its alliance with the USA, just as Oz is (supposedly)?

And were all still waiting for your facts and figures about your standard of living compared to other regional countries.

Appears there is some dispute over that. I'll wait and see how it pans out.

 

[rickshaw]

I was a member of NATO in the '70s my young friend. Believe me we didn't need anyone else to scare us.

Why then did your nation's politicians invent the "Bomber Gap", the "Missile Gap" and the "Window of Vulnerability"? Why did your politicians feature election advertising which prey prominently on American fears of nuclear attack, in the form of feature nuclear explosions and so on? Appears to me, that your politicians, along with your Military-Industrial-Intelligence nexus were doing a damn good job of scaring the population, with outlandish and unsupported claims of Soviet military superiority which when the Wall went down, were found to be untrue.

And its remarkable to even suggest the Soviet army, which sustained massive offensives thru a worn torn theatre in 1944, wouldnt be capable of the same in 1977. I dont remember any problems rolling tanks to Hungary of Checkoslovakia.

THere is an old military adage, "amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics". While I'm awaiting for a definitive logistics history of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact to be written, there have been sufficient hints dropped at various times during the Cold War and afterwards which indicate that the Warsaw Pact was a great deal less organised about their logistics than NATO was and were not intending to fight an offensive battle, deep into Western Europe, despite what their plans may have claimed. Soviet logistics even in WWII were haphazarded. While I don't doubt they improved them afterwards, without the necessary buildup of supplies required for an offensive, there can be no offensive. When the Germanies reunified, one of the things that was found was that there was no way, sufficient supply dumps or supplies to sustain an offensive war.

Besides their plan was to forward assemble all needed units, under initial cloak of exercise, and launch the attack with successive waves of armor.

There would still be required a massive build up of supplies. Whats the point of sending units forward, into battle when their tanks will run dry and their guns stop firing after only a day or two? The "bolt from the blue" scenario was impossible for that very reason.

No problem kid. BTW everyone knows Saddam had a vast WMD capacity. Its just we didn't know what he did with the bloody things, and still dont. You do remember the 10 years of his screwing the inspectors, the U.N., and the supposed world community, dont you?

I am well aware of that. I'm also well aware that the UN Inspection reported no WMDs and no WMD capability before the US decided for its own purposes to manufacture a casis belli out of their non-existence.

They much preferred winning thru covert means, "I guess they read Sun Tzu", or thru the use of 3rd party allies. That's why they financed Cuban military action in Africa and various Arab adventures against Israel. I would also ask you to provide some instances of "ham fisted responses" by the Americans that aided the Soviets.

You mean the Cuban military action which caught even them off guard? The Cubans weren't automatons, they made their own decisions. Just as the North Vietnamese did and those decisions more often than not were not in accordance with any long-term plans the fUSSR's leadership had.

Hungary, Checkoslovakia, Afghanistan, Finland, Cuban missiles, Korea "Russian pilots", Vietnam, Chechnya, The Soviets/Russians were more then willing to use military force, the threat of force, or material assistance to spread their Ideology and national goals.

"Finland"? Errr, Finland has never had a Communist government. As for your other examples, they range across a very wide time span and geographic location and you appear to believe that this was all part of some grand plan, directed from the Kremlin. You realise that in particular, Vietnam was a consequence of what the Vietnamese did, than anything the fUSSR did. Indeed, the fUSSR's ambassador to Hanoi during the war years made the point in his memoires that he was kept cooling his heels in the corridor outside while the Vietnamese Politburo decided and then presented with a series of demands for materiale'?

Why is that in most of the Cold War conflicts, Americans appeared to believe they were fighting Moscow when in reality they were fighting indigenious liberation movements?

And I'm not even mentioning the mass Liquidations of Intelligentsia during and after WW-ll in countries they over-ran. I do understand that nowadays, in Russia and beyond, most are obsessed about the USA and the former USSR is oft remembered as kinda a cuddly thing. At least among the simple minded.

Yep, no excusing that but all regimes when they consolidate power tend to go about it in rather bloody ways. Even your's. The only difference is that your government gets local dictators to do it for them and can therefore do it at arm's length. Remember what happened after Suharto came to power? Several million dead because they were on CIA lists of Communist "sympathisers".

 

[Rich]

You don't think that is in fact the point I am making? The Americans over-reacted. Instead of acknowledging New Zealand's sovereignity, they decided to "teach New Zealand a lesson". Instead of accepting that New Zealand was an equal partner in their alliance, they decided to treat New Zealand as a vassal state. Is it any wonder the Kiwis reacted the way they did and passed laws to prohibit the visit of nuclear powered/armed ships to their harbours?

No! I dont think we "over-reacted". And since you are neither a NZ or a Yank I hope you dont take it to personal. Imagine the concept? We agree to defend a , basically helpless Island Nation state, and then one of their posturing Politicians, pandering to the mindless anti-Yank masses, tells us our ships cant visit. We have over 70 nuclear submarines and 11 nuclear carriers! What part of this cant you understand?

If we would have kissed the ass of a country we owe nothing to, gives us nothing in return, "well maybe fruit", and is meaningless as a strategic partnership, then all of a sudden every country we have porting rights to would start screaming "nukes"!!! The Yammering politicians would jump on it just to show the drones they can take a stand against the Yanks. We didnt "punish" anyone. We just moved on. "Punishment" in this world can be construed as Russian or Chinese tanks rolling over civilians.

Yep, the US pulled out. Do you seriously believe the US though, would have pulled out if the Cold War was in still in full swing and Mt. Pinatubo hadn't blown its top and essentially destroyed Clark and Subic?

No, we would have landed 50,000 marines and turned the place into a shopping center. Your quite mad aren't you?

Oh, I get it, America wants them to be a vassal state? I thought America wasn't an Empire and didn't have imperial ambitions? I thought New Zealand was a soverign state and was an equal partner in its alliance with the USA, just as Oz is (supposedly)?

Now your babbling. We just wanted our ships to be allowed into port as any strategic alliance would allow. Why in hell would we care about New Zealand?

Kid I'm leaving this, Not only have you been defeated in debate but now you are tottering on the edge of absurdity. Dont feel bad, I wouldn't want to debate me either. But do let me give you a bit of advice before leaving. Your watching to many Hollywood movies. Get out and walk around the block on occasion , yaknow, broaden your mind. Your suffering from "American-itus" which is an obsessive/compulsive disorder.

Anyway, its been fun. "Oh, and use a spell checker" "Your spelling sucks".

 

[Sea Toby]

As Rick said, the United States hasn't punished New Zealand, America simply left. At that time the New Zealand defence forces included 4 frigates, and an air combat wing. Since that time New Zealand has ligquidated its air combat wing to pay for its army's upgrade, and halved its small navy to 2 frigates. The Project Protector ships that have been acquired are ships the New Zealand navy should have had in the past. If New Zealand didn't provide much defence forces then, New Zealand offers much less now.

Frankly, as far as New Zealand achieving a free trade alliance with the United States similar to Australia, New Zealand will have to rethink its foreign policy.

 

[old faithful]

Rich, pharse like "the mindless masses" and the"drone" are terms that really make you seem a complete meglomaniac. I once saw an American Doco where they asks normal? Americans things like Where does milk come from? tha answers were scarey to say the least.A bottle,a carton,the milk factory etc. These are the same idiots who elect ex Hollywood actors as state and national leaders,so dont hit us with "drones",and mindless masses crap...dickhead!

 

[Gibbo]

No! I dont think we "over-reacted". And since you are neither a NZ or a Yank I hope you dont take it to personal. Imagine the concept? We agree to defend a , basically helpless Island Nation state, and then one of their posturing Politicians, pandering to the mindless anti-Yank masses, tells us our ships cant visit. We have over 70 nuclear submarines and 11 nuclear carriers! What part of this cant you understand?
....

Can the mudslinging please STOP - I'm a kiwi & I'd like to see a rational debate on this topic!!! Firstly - if anyone thinks NZ is full of anti-yank masses, then they know precious little about our country. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Yeah I know the media on both sides like to play it up - that's what their often pea-sized brains are best at!

In the 80's Lange DID try to water down the whole anti-nuke thing. At the time (we) NZer's quite naively believed that being anti-nuke wouldn't create a backlash. Obviously it did, & many NZer's still feel USA did over-react - but that doesn't mean we turned anti-USA. Many here also understand the USA getting pissed-off, but think cutting all exercise contacts, even those hosted by 3rd parties, was a little over the top.

The anti-nuke thing actually was a GENUINE anti-nuke thing - it was in no way aimed at any one country - esp. USA. Yes it was originally conceived around issues of safety - but it got railroaded by a 'lefties' within Labour who wanted to make it an international statement. Many of those people had been anti-vietnam war protestors and I beleieve they did have an anti-USA bias, but certaily the country as a whole did (and does) NOT.

That 'leftie' element also forced Lange's hand and capitalised on the significant unease with the Govt's fairly radical economic policies at the time. Faced with potential leadership issues Lange basically got bullied into the full-monty anti-nuke legislation. Guess what - those holding the knife were the very people NOW running this country.

The anti-nuke laws are here to stay now & there is still a reluctance for either country to send warships to each other's ports. There is an awful amount of baggage as the result of the whole thing but things are slowly thawing.

The 'leftie' bunch in power have matured somewhat & having realised what international politices is really about have been at pains to show USA they're prepared to help. The NZDF operational tempo is the bigest now since the Vietnam war - in fact substantially more so!

The NZ public now are finally working out the role our forces have to play in the world and are accepting that money needs to be put into the NZDF. While this same 'leftie' bunch are in power there will always be a limited 'peace-keeping' focus, but they are spending what are for NZ historically high sums on re-equipping the NZDF.

However complicating this is the average NZer's generally fairly lassez-faire view of the world. I will be the first to admit we bludge of the Aussies - and yes shame on us that we might expect USA to help but won't let your vessels in. I still believe we have the right to keep nukes out - but I for one want to see our forces back working together.

Another complication is that the NZDF was so horrendously rundown by the National Govt's huge dfence budget cuts in the 1990's that the NZDF started to implode. Again that was our own stupdity in rushing to cash in the 'cold war peace dividend'. However NZ was literally facing bankruptcy at the time & something had to give!

The NZDF is STILL suffering as a result of those cuts - the rebuilding is in full swing but still has required some hard & unpopular decisions. Axing the air-combat force was NOT a popluar call in NZ but it was again railroaded thru by those same 'lefties'.

I also cringe to think that now our Govt is making huge surpluses it is still only making token defence purchases - that's due to our naive view of the world - it certainly ain't anti-USA, or anti-Aussie.

Don't forget we have a damned small population (4M) spread over a land mass bigger than the UK - but yeah that ain't an excuse!

I think both sides need to stop the b#$%@#t & agree to disagree & get on with it!...bloody politicians eh!

 

[Tasman]

Can the mudslinging please STOP - I'm a kiwi & I'd like to see a rational debate on this topic!!! Firstly - if anyone thinks NZ is full of anti-yank masses, then they know precious little about our country. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Yeah I know the media on both sides like to play it up - that's what their often pea-sized brains are best at!

In the 80's Lange DID try to water down the whole anti-nuke thing. At the time (we) NZer's quite naively believed that being anti-nuke wouldn't create a backlash. Obviously it did, & many NZer's still feel USA did over-react - but that doesn't mean we turned anti-USA. Many here also understand the USA getting pissed-off, but think cutting all exercise contacts, even those hosted by 3rd parties, was a little over the top.

The anti-nuke thing actually was a GENUINE anti-nuke thing - it was in no way aimed at any one country - esp. USA. Yes it was originally conceived around issues of safety - but it got railroaded by a 'lefties' within Labour who wanted to make it an international statement. Many of those people had been anti-vietnam war protestors and I beleieve they did have an anti-USA bias, but certaily the country as a whole did (and does) NOT.

That 'leftie' element also forced Lange's hand and capitalised on the significant unease with the Govt's fairly radical economic policies at the time. Faced with potential leadership issues Lange basically got bullied into the full-monty anti-nuke legislation. Guess what - those holding the knife were the very people NOW running this country.

The anti-nuke laws are here to stay now & there is still a reluctance for either country to send warships to each other's ports. There is an awful amount of baggage as the result of the whole thing but things are slowly thawing.

The 'leftie' bunch in power have matured somewhat & having realised what international politices is really about have been at pains to show USA they're prepared to help. The NZDF operational tempo is the bigest now since the Vietnam war - in fact substantially more so!

The NZ public now are finally working out the role our forces have to play in the world and are accepting that money needs to be put into the NZDF. While this same 'leftie' bunch are in power there will always be a limited 'peace-keeping' focus, but they are spending what are for NZ historically high sums on re-equipping the NZDF.

However complicating this is the average NZer's generally fairly lassez-faire view of the world. I will be the first to admit we bludge of the Aussies - and yes shame on us that we might expect USA to help but won't let your vessels in. I still believe we have the right to keep nukes out - but I for one want to see our forces back working together.

Another complication is that the NZDF was so horrendously rundown by the National Govt's huge dfence budget cuts in the 1990's that the NZDF started to implode. Again that was our own stupdity in rushing to cash in the 'cold war peace dividend'. However NZ was literally facing bankruptcy at the time & something had to give!

The NZDF is STILL suffering as a result of those cuts - the rebuilding is in full swing but still has required some hard & unpopular decisions. Axing the air-combat force was NOT a popluar call in NZ but it was again railroaded thru by those same 'lefties'.

I also cringe to think that now our Govt is making huge surpluses it is still only making token defence purchases - that's due to our naive view of the world - it certainly ain't anti-USA, or anti-Aussie.

Don't forget we have a damned small population (4M) spread over a land mass bigger than the UK - but yeah that ain't an excuse!

I think both sides need to stop the b#$%@#t & agree to disagree & get on with it!...bloody politicians eh!

Well said Gibbo. I think this is an excellent summary of the situation. It's now in everyone's interests to move forward with this and get the three countries working together for their mutual wellbeing.

It is probably difficult for people in countries with nuclear weapons, or those with just nuclear power stations for civilian purposes, to understand the anti nuclear stance in NZ and also, to a large extent, in Australia, where the nuclear power debate is only now re-opening.

I think it will take a long time for relations to completely heal but, as you say, there are signs of thawing. As a starter it would be good for the three countries to again join each other in military exercises, perhaps organised by Australia.

Anyway, it would be good to stop looking for blame and start coming up with positive ideas.

Cheers

 

[old faithful]

Right you are Gibbo,my appologies to all...well nearly all!

 

[ssmoore]

I dont wanna get to involved in this but will say this. I can't think of many circumstances where it would be tolerated by the USA to have another country make war on Australia or NZ for that matter, Treaty or not. Atleast thats how I feel as a american. As long as you remain a free country that is and theres no reason to think that would ever change.

 

[ren0312]

Could Australia survive and prosper without the A**US Treaty? Could the USA? Should we put the NZ back into the treaty?

I don’t think there is any doubt that the sense of security felt by successive Australian governments enabled Australia to get away with low spending on defence for many decades. As a consequence the country thrived economically. This is similar to the situation in Japan where an even lower percentage of GDP has been spent on defence since WW2. The downside of this reliance has been, IMO, that Australia has sometimes been too reliant on the alliance. It has been suggested (with a fair amount of evidence) that Australia actually requested to be asked to be involved in Vietnam in order to gain favour so that the USA would feel obligated to help Australia if it was in trouble in future conflicts. This was at a time when Australia was worried about the rapid growth of the Indonesian armed forces, especially their navy and air force and Indonesia was involved in confrontation with Malaysia with whom Australia had defence ties. Whatever the truth of the Vietnam claim, the fact is, IMO, that Australia’s forces were too weak for it not to pursue every way possible to bolster the alliance with the US, even at the expense of its independence in foreign policy. To have avoided this Australia could have built up much stronger forces. The basis was certainly there after WW2 when the RAAF was one of the world’s strongest air forces. But that would have resulted in slower economic growth. I believe that Australia needs to develop a balance between defence self reliance and being overly dependent on the alliance. This means spending enough on the armed forces and spending it wisely so that money is not wasted on things that are unnecessary. IMO, this means ensuring air supremacy within the region, developing a navy that (with the air force) can dominate the sea approaches to Australia, protect our trade and combine with the air force to ensure that the army can deploy rapidly and in sufficient force to protect Australia’s interests. The alliance would still be important, both to help directly in the event of an attack by a major power and/or to provide material assistance in the event of Australia being involved in a regional conflict.

The US also gains much from the alliance. It has valuable intelligence gathering bases in Australia and Australia’s participation in conflicts well outside the ANZUS Treaty is helpful politically even if the forces provided are sometimes so small that they make little difference in the military sense. Let me add here that I am in no way belittling the performance of the ADF and its personnel in these conflicts, just commenting that the size of the forces is often insignificant in the overall scheme of things. Overall though I think the US would survive without Australia far better than the other way around.

It would be great to see NZ back as a full member of the alliance. The US and NZ governments do seem to be patching up differences. I think NZ had every right to take a stance on ships entering their ports when the US would not confirm they were not carrying nuclear weapons (the argument wasn’t just about nuclear powered vessels). I guess it’s hard for people in countries who have lived with nuclear weapons for decades to understand the determination of countries in the Southern hemisphere to be nuclear free. In Australia, for example, there is a huge debate about whether even nuclear power stations should be allowed to be built, and even the transport of radioactive waste from hospitals alarms many people. It is just a different mind set. But I also accept that the USA had the right to react the way it did and as Sea Toby suggests in his post, the same action is seen very differently depending on which country you are in and "good will runs both ways". The US was also able to take the action it did because it still had access to Australian ports. Australia still has very close defence ties with New Zealand but these are complicated by the US position. I believe it would be very much in Australia’s interests to try to broker an agreement that would fully restore the NZ/US relationship and turn A**US back into ANZUS.

Cheers

Well I would disagree that a higher level of defense spending actually slows down economic growth, unless of course, the country is spending on defense like North Korea, or the USSR in the late 1980's, in fact, it has been argued that Australia's policy of sheltering its economy before the economic reforms in the 1980's did more to hamper its economic growth than a moderately higher level of defense spending ever would.

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

Well I would disagree that a higher level of defense spending actually slows down economic growth, unless of course, the country is spending on defense like North Korea, or the USSR in the late 1980's, in fact, it has been argued that Australia's policy of sheltering its economy before the economic reforms in the 1980's did more to hamper its economic growth than a moderately higher level of defense spending ever would.

I agree, especially if money is being spent on indigenous projects rather than international purchases. The % of GDP spent on defence is to a large extent a stimulous, and can indirectly result in inflation and accelerated growth.

 

[Tasman]

I agree, especially if money is being spent on indigenous projects rather than international purchases. The % of GDP spent on defence is to a large extent a stimulous, and can indirectly result in inflation and accelerated growth.

You ren0312 have made a good point Ozzy.

I agree that spending on local industry and investing in indigenous technology will stimulate the economy. This is an area where I think Australia performed rather poorly in the 1950s. With the philosophy of the government at that time, however (i.e. that Australia's future lay in primary industries like wool), I suspect that increased defence spending in Australia would have meant more money being spent overseas. Maybe, however, some of it would have found its way into increased aircraft production and shipbuilding.

Cheers

 

[Todjaeger]

Additional points to touch on about the A**US Treaty

As I've posted before, the A**US Treaty offers some reassurance that the US will come to Australia's aid, should a war break out between Australia and another country. I'd also like to get the NZ back into the treaty as well.

Even though there are circumstances where the US might not come to Australia's aid, I realised there are few reasons the US would be interested in Australia's security, treaty or no treaty.

Currently the US makes use of facilities in Australia that are of strategic value to the US. There is a joint communications facility in the north that allows communications with both the RAN and USN submarines. Without that facility, the US would have a choice of not operating subs in an area, or being out of communications with subs that move into the area. Perhaps more importantly, there are tracking, relay and receiving stations in Australia that are part of the US space program. Without those facilities in Australia, the US space program would be blind, deaf and dumb for large parts of the southern hemisphere. Granted, the US might have tried to reach an agreement with NZ, Chile, Argentina or South Africa, those nations weren't necessarily in the proper spot in the world, and/or the countries weren't considered stable enough, either politically or geologically, or both.

Imagine how well the US would react if suddenly they lost contact with half of the spy satellite constellation, because another nation attacked Australia.
Something else to consider at least.

-Cheers

 

[old faithful]

Yep Tod,they are a bit of an insurance policy! I have served at one these bases that was threatend by protesters. The intell we got was incredible! One group of protesters were even going to try to infiltrate by parachute insertion! We got our warning order about 6 months prior to the protests, which occured around easter 94 I think. We knew what they had planned long before the majority of the protesters did. Was also a very interesting place,unfortunatley i cant really say which one it was or what it does.

 

[Gibbo]

In that case there IS also most likely a similar US interest in NZ's security...they have benefitted from this information source in the past!

http://www.gcsb.govt.nz/aboutus/dscu.html

 

[Smythstar]

"Hubaris preceeds a fall"

"Hubaris preceeds a fall"

I remember this from school, some philosopher or historian from over a thousand years ago reffering to the downfall and destruction of the Roman Empire.

A dangerouse assumption is currently being presumed by American policy makers and indeed some on this board, that America is invincible and always will be.

It is not.

I remember as a child my father telling me of his experiences in the Vietnam war and him telling me of the fundamental differences between Australian and American troops, to quote dad "They are told they are the biggest and best from the day they are born and thats why when they get hit hard they fall to pieces".

America has as much to fear as we do if not more so.

America is not invincable and is in fact in slow decline and other more energetic forces/empires are struggeling forth and a major clash is a matter of when not if.
America has severe internal divisions both racially and political/religiouse that future oponents will seek to exploit, it doesnt matter how powerfull your army is or where it deployed if its source nation has divided into 4 or 5 waring factions especially when you consider the make up of the US armed forces.

A Pan Arab Superstate lead by the Shia looks like it could now be on the cards since the Sunni tyrant who was preventing this from occuring has now been removed.

Russia (pop 160 mil) is posturing into a mini version of what the soviet union used to be.

Europe is begining to cut its own path and will in time Europes 650 million people wil rival and exceed America's 260 million.

China (pop 1.2 billion) will undoubtedly be if it isnt already a fully fledged superpower and if its actions so far are an indication of its future actions the local area and indeed the world looks as it it may have a challenge on its hands certainly at the very least as far as control of resources is concerned.

If indeed this is the world in 20 years time with global population growth, environmental decay and oceans rising and billions of starving people on the move id suggest its going to be a very interesting time and we are going to be as important to America as it is to us.

The future is going to be enough of a challange for the US and Australia even with a better thought out, realistic and well considered policy/action, let alone the bull in a china shop blinkers on arrogance factor 9 being led around by the nose by pro Israeli zionist financial interests and big oil as is the present case.

The only thing we can be certain of is that things will change, plotting the trends and picking our mark is the trick and I think ill-considered not in the national interest bull in a china shop adventuring will shorten anyones hedgemony and prosperity not increase it.
Arrogance is counter productive it is always best to look at a situation realisticly no matter how daunting anything else is setting you up for a fall!

 

[Gibbo]

Someone having a bad day?

 

[Whiskyjack]

Someone having a bad day?

And I'm just learning the American culture!!