What are your national delusions?

We have a bi-lateral support of policy re the ANZUS alliance.

As I see it this is because we know we can't defend ourselves if somebody really big attacks us.

This means that our federal governments know that the US expects to see support for their foreign policy....up to and including our weeny quota of boots on the ground in wars which many, sometimes a majority, of Australians, including many of our non conservative politicians, deplore. The US has made it clear that governments publicly criticizing US policy are in trouble.

This is the price successive federal governments of both stamps have been willing to pay for hoped for military protection.

More left inclined governments squeak more vigorously about some of the support.

Lots of Australians hate this, but both ruling parties support it, whether for good or I'll.

Good or ill, damn auto-correct.

By the way, we are now in a strikingly similar situation economically with China.

One of the reasons we have weathered the GFC reasonably well so far is because China still wants our rocks.

Given our historical penchant for spinelessness we will likely be pretty quiet about anything they do....hell, we recognized Indonesia's right to East Timor because we didn't want to offend Indonesia.

Ok, that does make some more sense to me now (and a lot of nonsense too, because it sounds like a bit of a cold-war relic compared to the actual threats Australia faces these days).

Sigh. Yeah.

I don't think its a cold war relic so much...though I guess some of it is. It's certainly a WW II thing.....but I understand the medium term risk is seen as coming from Indonesia....and the longer term risks being possibly China and a renascent military Japan.


I honestly don't know whether these risks are really real risks.....China is doing pretty well I'd have thought using similar tactics the US did re economic dominance and hegemony...however, the US and other countries have been pretty willing to fight things out very bloodily as long as its's on foreign soil and the historical wheel is very hard to predict and doesn't seem to rely a lot on rational analysis.

I guess we're worried medium term about Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia....they have historically been a pretty tolerant country religiously, if not ethnically....and we have actually physically skirmished with them a few times in my lifetime. Notably in the Confrontation with Malaysia in the sixties.

I think the biggest thing is our historical sense of ourselves as a lonely little onion in a petunia patch in our region ethnically and culturally speaking....but we've been petunia-ising at a fairly brisk pace over the last few decades.

I think the rent is too high, morally speaking....but I don't think it unreasonable for the US to expect rent, if it intends to honour the treaty.

I think one of our national delusions, or at least how others view us as being polite. We can be just as rude as anyone else. Having traveled a bit, I'd say the Thai are the politest people I've ever met.

Well, you guys sure SEEM polite when one reaches Canadia!

I have not been to Thailand.

Maybe it's not politeness but a kind of softness and warmth and co-operation one feels after being in harsher cultures.

I remember arriving in Canada after being in the US and sort of relaxing and stretching and feeling at rest. It was a strong feeling...but perhaps it's is just a similarity of culture? (Like...you guys can SPELL!!!!! )

I'm guessing you didn't drive.
I understand the softness thing though. I've found people from some places like the middle east or india rather abrupt. Not towards me per-se, but I have seen places where people are fiercer, harsher. I remember hiking with my Aunt in n. ireland, with both of us saying hello to everyone we passed, and making it a game seeing how many responded and how...

I hear ya, but I do see a clear trend against such likelihood. And it's supported by some science, I can't recall the name of the study or the authors (which is embarrassing because I read this in the last month) but these are statistically the safest times in history. Though the news bringing the war theater closer to home may not make it as clear as it should be this is pretty much the time in human history that you are least likely to die from violence.

To me there are pretty obvious reasons why this is likely to continue: the cost has gone up as war weariness is now acute (pictures of the results back at home more readily etc, Vietnam was the inflection point for this) and the growing economic contagion makes "hard" power less valuable and the clear trend is towards "soft" power. To me that means I find it ridiculously unlikely that any military with the actual means to threaten Australia (or any country with a comparable military) would find that worthwhile.

The trend towards Democracy is also something that will make war less likely as management of war weariness is a lot easier in totalitarian societies. I'm pretty optimistic in that the world really is trending towards less war and more peace, but yeah, **** happens. Tomorrow we could wake up and I could be completely wrong (if that does happen this is just a coincidence, I am not involved) and folks like my brother will be able to say that their extreme hawkishness was right all along.



If that is the danger I think aligning yourselves with the US is pretty much the worst thing you could possibly do. But I guess by the time that's clear you are already seen as aligned with the US anyway?



I get a strong impression of that in Australian culture. Today I was wondering if Australia had had some kind of Japan-like period of isolationism or some such. Or if there's some kind of "island syndrome" (as I was calling it in my head earlier) thing I thought might make sense but whatever it is it's something I want to understand better. I imagine the complete incongruity of the culture in its location is at least a part of it.



As you know, I really think the moral cost of nukes is less than what you guys are paying and could work about as well as a deterrent. I know that your government has considered it, but have no idea what the citizenry generally think about it. Do you know what national opinion on that is?

One of the big delusions in the UK is that the service in shops, restaurants and hotels is absolutely awful compared to say, the USA.
Personally, I would much prefer to shop in the UK where staff routinely ignore me and have such stock phrases as "if it ain't on the shelf, we ain't got it", or the wonderful "you're the tenth person to ask for that today, but we don't stock it 'cos there's no demand".
Where's the fun in being greeted by a doting sales assistant who wishes that one has a nice day, and then runs their self ragged trying to find what you are looking for?

That I'll ever be employed again.

Rap

Nukes? Again I think that is a bi-lateral agreement for no. Not sure what the populace in general think...perhaps a pretty wide spread, but I honestly do not know. I haven't ever seen anyone calling out for nukes. and my sense is we're pretty firmly against them.

As a matter of foreign and domestic policy Australia seeks to reduce nuclear and biological weapons (we're ok with cluster mines though cos we make them, or help to, or some such.)

My state has the most uranium, I think....and we've only recently decided to exploit the hell out of that because a lot of people had a moral and environmental position against mining and selling the stuff.

Money talked in the end.

Interestingly, we were happy to let the UK develop them back in the fifties (in the desert in my state) and I suspect the physical and moral fall-out from that policy (irradiated soldiers from the British and Australian armies, who were used as non-aware test dummies.....(compensation still being ought for); the slow deaths of a number of Aboriginal people who were not found and removed from the test zone; the terrible fall-out from the forced moving of desert Indigenous people into artificial encampments; the wind blowing the "wrong" way and sending a fall our cloud over Adelaide; the fact that the Brits left the site an appalling mess which continued to emit plutonium for many years....(they were finally forced into doing a semi-cleanup a few years ago) is part of the resistance?

Hmmm...looking around it seems there has recently been some debate about it...but the debate generally is more about whether nuclear energy is an environmental nightmare or salvation.

Given that no state wants any nuclear by-products buried or stored anywhere near it this remains moot. My state took the feds to court and won when they wanted to force us to store radio-active waste in our desert.....and it looks as though they may force the Northern territory to have it, only because it isn't legally a full state yet and doesn't have full constitutional rights.

Oh....just to be clear, I think the main reason policy reason Oz is anti-nuke for us (apart from a general dislike of folk being able to annihilate the planet) is that if we got them, we'd cause an arms race in the region and likely soon be surrounded by military regimes and rather unstable governments bristling with them.

A lot of the countries round us were over-run by white people of various nationalities, had their wealth stripped, got treated like **** in their own countries and only got rid of them fairly recently.

We are still there.

Interesting, I knew about Australia's efforts against various WMDs (and yes, it would require withdrawing from several treaties) and knew the UK had done tests there but did not know about the fallout from the testing.

My impression was that the Howard government had moved the country a bit closer to breakout capacity but I think I may just be remembering the expanded uranium enrichment programs.

You're being a bit snide there Robert, I said that in response to Finnbar putting them down. I remember your President was pretty keen to have them on board in Afghanistan.




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-105335/US-salutes-SAS-heroes.html

BTW Having the best iced tea is like having the best boiling ice-cream.

The major Brit millitary delusion has nothing to do with the SAS--it's that they still have a navy worth mentioning.

I don't think anyone is under any delusions about the state of the RN. There's been a lot of talk about how we couldn't do a Falklands again, and we're currently without a carrier.

I see you're all too shocked and awed to challenge us on marsupials and monotremes.

But how was that in any way "snide"?



I mean no slight to the SAS, if that is how you've taken it. They are a very fine fighting force and all.