generalspeaking

Nationalism and Neighbourly Distrust

"If I lived in the northern approaches to the continental United States, I would probably be very happy spending one percent on defence because at the end of the day what is the worst that can happen."
"What we have to worry about is remaining serious allies of the United States to encourage them to stay committed to playing a role in our part of the world. Buying F-35s and P-8s [anti-submarine warfare] aircraft is a great way to do that."
"I think a significant mishandling of our relationship with China would carry a political cost. The only thing worse than that would be a mishandling of the strategic relationship with the United States."
"Australia's defence spending and conducting military operations are conflated with Australians' sense of identity."
Mark Thomson, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

"In a way, Canada has been a bludger [sponger]. You live off your bigger neighbour next door. [Canada gets away with it because] it is inconceivable that the U.S. would ever allow an existential threat to Canada, whereas with us it could happen."
"Canada and Australia are a lot alike, but geo-strategically they are totally different. Until Canada faces a major strategic scare you won't have a serious debate about defence spending. Even then you would need great political leadership because you have always expected the U.S. to pay for your defence."
Neil James, executive director, Australian Defence Association


"The United States is not going to buy into a fight between Australia and Indonesia. But I believe that that is not worth worrying about because these days everyone in Southeast Asia is looking north. And [should] we find ourselves in conflict with one of our neighbouring states, where the United States steps aside, we want to have the ability to comprehensively overmatch them to avoid having them come into conflict with us. These are not problems that Canada has."
Andrew Davies, Australian Strategic Policy Institute



Canada has been loathe to spend as much as NATO would prefer its members to do, to build up its military defense. NATO ideally would prefer all its member-nations to be on an alert should such a status be required to pull into swift operation to deal with crises that could arise. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union many nations of the world have felt a high alert level was no longer required, allowing their defence portfolios to require less of the national treasury.

Which has inevitably led to a NATO where the sum of its parts no longer present as being prepared by being well equipped for rapid, effective response. NATO feels its member-nations should be prepared to commit to 2% of GDP in equipping themselves militarily and with readiness in troop training to face possible situations requiring joint action. Although under Canada's Conservative government more funding has been allocated to the military it comes nowhere near NATO's ideal.

But Australia's military spending allocation does, and it has been spending, with a smaller population, twice what Canada has committed to, for its military portfolio, investing in state-of-the-art and extremely costly military technology. For one thing, Australia considers itself a regional power, among countries such as East Timor, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, considered to be less than stable: "between fragile and moribund".

And while Canada shares what is often billed as the longest undefended border in the world with the United States, Australia lies over ten thousand kilometres from the world's sheriff, and the West's global champion. Should Canada be attacked by any country for whatever reason, its proximity to the United States, the most powerful country on Earth, pretty well guarantees a response from the U.S., if only in defense of its own territory, in knocking distance.

Australia, however, despite its strong trading relationship with China, feels nervous about that most populous country in the world, coming up strong behind the U.S. in production and trade and spending enormously on upgrading its bluewater fleet in an obvious challenge to the United States' ocean-going military vessels, while flexing its muscles over presumed ownership of the South and East China Seas much to the fearful chagrin of its neighbours who feel understandably threatened.

Both countries are part of the Western-based Five-eyes intelligence community, inspired as a joint venture to aid and assist one another in the gathering and sharing of signals intelligence and threats contained therein. They are not just coincidentally all English speaking nations: New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States sharing a common heritage.

One for all and all for one, you know?

Labels: Australia, Canada, China, Conflict, Military, NATO, Threats, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, December 13, 2014