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Originally Posted by RN7
In regards to a war in Korea I would say Australia would contribute military forces,
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As far as I can find, Australia doesn't have any direct defence treaties with South Korea, we are not bound by any agreement to assist them except through UN committments - if the UN declared it, then Australia would oblige.
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Originally Posted by RN7
but maybe not the same type of forces it contributed in the 1st Korean War or in Vietnam. I don't think they would send infantry as they would only be a small fraction of what the US would send, and they would be under US command. But they would probably send some fighters, warships and support forces and maybe the Australian SAS.
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In fact, that's probably the only type of force we'd be able to send as our ground forces are nowhere near the size they were in the 1950s-70s period
However, they would not be under US command. If memory serves me correctly, after the Gallipoli campaign and some other battles in WW1, the Australian government declared that no Australia force would be under foreign command again and instead would always be under Australian command. There are plenty of examples of Australian forces working with foreign forces and being under the command umbrella of those forces but the Australian forces still retain their own command structure and will refer back to Australian HQ/government if they have any issues with tasks given by the allied command.
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Originally Posted by RN7
The Aussie Army is small; equivalent to a US infantry division with the reserve adding another light infantry division. But they use good equipment and they have a sizeable airmobile capability, and their special forces is large for the size of the army. The RAAF is also a good force, new Super Hornets, AEW's, tankers and 28 C-17/C-130H/J transport mix, with the F-35A and the P-8 in the pipeline. The RAN has two helicopter carriers and three Aegis destroyers building, and 12 new submarines and other ships are planned. The carriers are big and can carry 18 helicopters and an infantry battalion, and are fitted with ski-jump ramps which means they can carry US Marine or British F-35B's.
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The Australian military (particularly the Army) operates under a philosophy of retaining "core" forces in peacetime to maintain skills and equipment but committing to rapid expansion during wartime - e.g. WW2 and Vietnam.
Many of the current expansion projects support this purpose even though they were purchased under the banner of the Global War on Terrorism e.g the NH90 helicopters, the Canberra class LHDs, enlargement of the SASR. We haven't expanded actual regular force manpower by much particularly in regards to Infantry, Artillery or Armoured units.
In the last decade, the government has held numerous recruiting drives to increase regular forces but so far has not invoked the expansion to the extent seen during Vietnam (and there won't be any conscription unless it's life or death - conscription is a career killer for any political party these days).
At the present time, although the government would like to deploy 12 submarines, there aren't enough volunteers who want to serve in them. It's possible we might have seven or eight fully manned but so far there just aren't enough people willing to be submariners to man all 12.
Unfortunately with the per unit cost of new combat aircraft and the lack of long-term career potential in the RAAF, we don't have many options to increase the size of the air force. We have been progressively buying fewer and fewer fighter aircraft with each replacement e.g. we went from three full squadrons (of Mirage III) to two squadrons when we bought the F/A-18. Same thing has happened with 1st Amroured Regiment with the purchase of the Abrams to replace the Leopard AS1 - 59 Abrams (including variants) to replace 101 Leopards (including variants).
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Originally Posted by RN7
If a commonwealth force was sent to Korea I could see Australia sending some land forces as part of a joint British, Anzac, Canadian and maybe Indian force.
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I don't think this is particularly likely. If the UN declared support of South Korea in a war against the North and Australia committed forces to the conflict they would certainly work alongside and with any friendly forces and a joint Commonwealth force under that situation is not outside the realms of possibility but again, Australian forces would retain their own command structure and not be beholden to any other.
Irrespective of whether Commonwealth/former Commonwealth nations decided to assist South Korea, there is no current obligation for Australia to commit military forces.
If the US asked for it and it could be justified under some treaty/defence pact, then Australia would likely send forces but the government would not necessarily join a South Korean operation because other Commonwealth nations had.