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Originally Posted by Targan
Cruisers or carriers? LOL! We might have a continent all to ourselves but most of it is pretty much uninhabitable. We only have 22 million or so people, and our defence spending is a fairly modest proportion of our GST.
It is unfortunate that Australia is an Asia-Pacific nation, what with the many billions of neighbors we have. Australia is a first-world nation with a very well developed economy and strong tech base but we are few in number, us Aussies. And we don't have the centuries of tradition demanding a strong military presence like the US does.
Personally I'd love to see Australia massively increase the size of its military but, at least in the short to medium terms, it's just not going to happen.
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Well, not that I'm suggesting anything, and neither is the Australian military, but I think they are looking directly at a certain Asian/Pacific neighbor to the north/northwest that's got a massive population, massive military and is hungry for the resources that Australia has. Hint: It's not just Indonesia they're worried about...
Granted, things look fairly stable in the Pacific right now (mostly), but in another 10-20 years? I think that's a little bit more of an open question, hence why the U.S. is SLOWLY shifting more focus towards Asia and the Pacific now.