Potential Australian/New Zealand/East Timor/Indonesia conflict (was Red Dawn Remake

[Targan]

Well I still get freaked out a little every time I think about Indonesia. People have told me time and again that the Indonesian military is qualitatively no match for Australia and New Zealand's armed forces but as an Australian I can't help but feel a bit threatened by Indonesia. Not so much as an immediate threat but a potential future threat. I mean there are what, around 21 million Australians. And our closest neighbour is the largest Muslim nation in the world with somewhere in the vicinity of 230 million people! All crowded on an archipelago in not particularly fantastic living conditions.

I don't think it takes a great leap of imagination to envisage a day where world conditions have deteriorated, rising sea levels eat away more and more of Indonesia's land mass, the military regain some of the power they have lost in the past 15 years and a more militant or (heaven forbid) radical Islamist government takes power. Right now Australia has powerful friends that would tend to scare off any conceivable military threat to Australia but that might not last forever. One of my big regrets is that if Australia and Indonesia ever enter into a serious stoush I'll be too old to do my part for my country in the manner my warrior spirit would want me to. I'll just have to find a sneakier way to have a go at the enemy.

I'm sure that most Indonesians are really nice people but take a look at what the Indonesian military and military-backed militias did in places like East Timor. That was only a few years ago and it was really, really nasty. The Indonesian military clearly has few qualms about engaging in activities that most western militaries would find abhorrent.