There's just no way Australia would send troops to the middle east, certainly not in those numbers, and certainly not with a hostile Indonesia knocking on the door. MAY send a small training unit of perhaps 100 personnel, but that's about it.
As for oil, we have a bit of untapped reserves here ourselves. With the Soviets backing Iran, etc, and of course Indonesia and our Korean obligations, a third front is just plain unthinkable.
We have approximately the same population as Greece, which has conscription, a much smaller land area, and an army of 90,000 on active duty (plus 180,000 extra recalled conscripts in time of war). Australia has 45,000 including reservists.
In WWII, the military was rapidly expanded primarily because there was nothing left to stop the Japanese. The British which had been the main ally was tied down in Europe and Africa, and the US were nowhere to be seen. Virtually everyone we had sent to Africa and the middle east were hurriedly recalled after the fall of Singapore - the door was wide open and nobody else was around to close it. Those conscripted troops we did have were extremely poorly trained and very badly equipped. It's a miracle those thrown into the fire did as well as they did (I'm thinking the 39th Battalion and their role in stopping the Japanese in New Guinea).
Come WWIII you can bet the lessons learnt from WWII would not be forgotten. Australia would not over extend itself again.
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