Miscellaneous News

Gatekeeper said:

Yes it all coincide with announcement on prime time TV news in the U.K. at 22.00 hour with great fanfare.

That Biden really don't take being jilted. I read somewhere he holds grudges. Well here we have it folks. But they forgot to mention Morrison's role in all this. Apparently, it was all his idea! So we can expect Australian's economy to take a nose dive this year then. I'm sorry for all our Chinese members down under.

The saving grace of this is that the Canadians and kiwis don't want any part of this alliance.

So 120 years ago was the 8 nations alliance that confront China, 120 years later, 3 nations still harboured the same mind set. Somehow I feel the ending is not going to end well for the aggressors this time around.

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NZ would not have been invited because of its anti nuclear policy. I cant figure out why they would leave Canada out.

I think China needs to drive the price of Iron ore into the floor, basically by stopping making steel for a few months. This might change the Australian government policies or the party in power.

Overbom said:

This is true. China is not the US which will enrich its enemies.

Anyone else gets the feeling that this program will economically drain Australian Defence budget?

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It will get cancelled .... I am sure

BoraTas said:

Some nations attach themselves way more importance than they have. What kind of deterrence can Australia be against China? China literally adds an ADF to the PLA every two years.

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A more capable AU Navy is "a problem for the PRC", no matter how we put it. The idea is not for AU to be capable to take on China on a one vs one fight but to defend its interests in peacetime and during a war in which it would not be involved directly, and to be a credible coalition partner if that was needed at some point. US has lifted missile restrictions on South Korea, ending range and warhead limits
There is talk in SK about the development of an indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, and it would now be no shock to see Japan take the same course.
Biden’s China strategy is taking shape, and that the nonsense about peaceful competition being discarded is to be welcomed lol.
CN need to make its own counter move but have limited options...

Andy1974 said:

I think China needs to drive the price of Iron ore into the floor, basically by stopping making steel for a few months. This might change the Australian government policies or the party in power.

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why?, just get the Aussies "wasting" their resource ..... remember what Napoleon said " do not interrupt the enemy when making a mistake/blunder"

escobar said:

CN need to make its own counter move...

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China should create a glorious big bingo card and write down in boxes various advanced military tech.
It will have "submarines, nuclear submarines, 4th gen, 5th gen aircraft, stealth coatings, radar systems, anti-air defences, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, satellites, torpedos, mines, advanced corvettes, frigates, propulsion etc"

It should then go to the Middle East, look at each one of them at the eye and tell them to get closer to China's side otherwise it will start throwing darts on the bingo card. Whatever box each dart will hit, thats a new technology that will go to Iran.

Repeat with Eastern Europe/Russia, repeat with S.Korea+Japan/N.Korea

China should openly go and tell them to either get closer to China or push the US to stop its aggressive and destabilizing actions.

/s

antiterror13 said:

why?, just get the Aussies "wasting" their resource ..... remember what Napoleon said " do not interrupt the enemy when making a mistake/blunder"

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Weakening your opponent while strengthen yourself is even better.

A stop in steel production in the lead up to and during the Winter Olympics will be great for Chinas air quality and emissions while giving mills time to upgrade.

Skywatcher said:

Try more like $200+ billion (apparently Australia wants to build a lot of the subs in country).

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Oh, yeah, that means they'll be ready in the year twenty fifty never.

escobar said:

CN need to make its own counter move but have limited options...

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Counter move to what? The only "counter move" China needs to make is grow stronger. This piece of news is ultimately meaningless, just another drop in the bucket. The battle lines were drawn centuries ago.

ZeEa5KPul said:

The funny thing is if they had just kept their mouths shut they would have been fine; China would have forgotten they even existed. But now they're perfectly committed to making their nightmares a reality.

It doesn't mean much positively or negatively. The only determinant of geopolitics is the balance of power, and Indonesia and other ASEAN countries will ally with China when they see the balance of power shift decisively in its favour. It has nothing to do with "new" alliances or other such fluff.

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Conventionally, balance of power theory suggests the opposite, that ASEAN would rather band together more closely to counter both China and the Western alliance in the region. If I remember correctly, Waltz himself wrote that balance of power theory is only really apparent and applicable in a multipolar world order.

There are many lenses through which to analyze international relations, but one of the fundamentals of this field is that it is NOT an exact science and it is not possible to be predictive in any way, shape, or form. Analysts have spent the better part of the last century trying and failing.

ASEAN will do what it must to ensure its survival. Its actions will not necessarily be rational. Countries like Indonesia may buy Chinese equipment to bolster its own military security or it may decide the best security is to just not buy anything and stay out of attention. Maybe they would prefer to focus on economic rather than military security as a way to "balance" the changing dynamics of the region. And then you have to consider the people in charge, and their personal motivations for this decision. If they are corrupt, how corrupt?

The questions are few but the answers are infinite and there is no conclusive answer to any of them.

Source: Have a degree in IR.

The 12 conventional Attack-class submarines are supposed to cost a cool 66 Billion USD to purchase. That works out as 5.5 Billion USD each.

That is an insane amount. Even the Virginia SSNs are only $3.4 Billion.

For the cost of a single Attack-class submarine, you could buy 8 Soryu-class submarines.

Standing up a nuclear submarine industry in Australia is going to be far more expensive.