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| 0 users currently in World Affairs/Debate. |
| User | Post |
| Ziff Posts: 1779/1800 |
Hell. Even I've read it. |
| Arwon Posts: 627/631 |
As if to underscore the point about the assymetry of the Australian-American alliance, the US Ambassador today said he has never read the 840 word ANZUS treaty document, theoretically our equivalent of NATO treaty, on which the alliance is supposedly based.
Ooops! |
| Ziff Posts: 1776/1800 |
Well, I agree. He wasn't all bad, really. he just had a lot of weird policy aims that I couldn't stand beside if I were a British citizen holding Labour membership. |
| Arwon Posts: 626/631 |
Maybe so, but he primarily jumped into the war out of some misguided hope of guiding the Americans in wise directions and generally exercising a moderating influence. I kinda feel for the guy, actually. |
| Ziff Posts: 1775/1800 |
Labour may be a historically centre-left social democrat party in Britain. Under Blair I would content that it is a primarily centrist party with a strong Law and Order agenda with a relatively liberal approach to economics. Blair has led a large right-ward drift within the party into a strange state of managing to displace the Conservatives on a whole range of issues. |
| Arwon Posts: 625/631 |
Blair as a Labor man is an exception to that, of course. |
| Ziff Posts: 1772/1800 |
Actually, your last point - that the relationship is a political union - is an interesting one. A lot of Canadian media actually made note of that and drew parallels to John Howard and our PM Stephen Harper. Likewise, it showed the toadying that ours does to the current White House administration. It is actually an interesting aspect of this war, that it really was orchestrated by a group of mostly conservatively administrated nations that were drawn into Iraq: Spain, Australia, Great Britain, Romania, Denmark, Japan, etc. There are, of course, anamolous nations on the list with regards to entering Iraq like Poland and Hungary. Hungary, at the time, had a now besieged centre-left party in power. But the point stands. Entrance into Iraq was primarily a political ticket that wasn't necessarily based on ideological stakeholding in the War on Terror, but rather a convenient way to drum up friendships with what appeared to be the beginning of the New American Century. Likewise, it also was directly related to governments that could potentially be hawkish and it also showed a tighter binding among E. European nations that were trying to show off their shiny, new NATO status. For those that weren't in NATO, but interested - like Ukraine, Georgia - it showed that they may be good partners in the organization.
This is an interesting aspect of the Howard-Obama row. Obama's criticism isn't necessarily of Obama as a candidate, per se. It is his opinion that Obama, or if he would've the time any Democrat, would be insufficient in standing for the War on Terror (which is of course part of Aussie ideological stakeholding) and that would perhaps ruin his delusion that Australia is suddenly a bit more than a geographically isolated middle power. I had something more important to say, but I really just forgot it. |
| Arwon Posts: 624/631 |
Ziff's right population-wise, our population is 20 million to America's 300 million, so roughly one 15th of the US. However our military is much smaller than one 15th of the US... the Australian Defence Force has a bit over 60 000 personnel split between the Army, Navy and Air Force versus about 2.2 million for the US. We have 20 000 reservists but we don't have an equivalent to the National Guard, and there hasn't been any form of draft or conscription since Vietnam. Australia is very much oriented towards a small and very professional armed forces. At any rate, by my maths, America has 1/15th of its armed forces in Iraq versus Australia having 1/40th. Spending-wise, we'd be fronting a LOT less, proportionately.
Ignoring the numbers game, Obama's point that the Australian contribution is symbolic is essentially valid. Australia doesn't start its own wars and it doesn't fight alone anywhere outside of the little islands to our north and east. There's a reason we don't get listed beside the UK as a significant player in Iraq. Howard likes to act like he's personally fighting the terrorists and like we're more important than we are, and he'll usually use the excuse that we have other engagements (East Timor, Bouganville, Solomon Islands) as to why we don't have more forces over there, but Australia is very much a middle power, not a major player. Our economy is about 17th biggest in the world and our defence spendingis 12th, between India and Turkey. It's worth noting that we haven't had a single fatality in Iraq from combat save for an SAS soldier killed by a mine and a soldier called Private Kovco who died from a firearms accident last year. Australia's ground contingent during the invasion Iraq was primarily SAS special forces, who undertook covert pre-war operations. Now, our SAS are absolutely world-class, some of the best soldiers in the world, but speical forces can only do so much. Our contingent now consists mostly of forces in non-combat roles (my dad was in the Green Zone in an intelligence capacity for a while) and embassy security (for some reason, the Australian embassy was/is outside the Green Zone. Now, Australia's forces are, pound-for-pound, almost certainly of a higher quality than the average US unit (particularly in peace-enforcement, guerilla, and counter-insurgency type roles, to the extent that American forces are now seeking Australian advice and expertise on these things) based on what I know of ADF and US military training and operations, but still, 1400 is nothing even if they're the best dang 1400 soldiers in the world. To put it simply, Howard was not ever going to risk copping flak over Australian combat-deaths in Iraq and wasn't going to mount a hugely expensive deployment. It's a token force and that's why the Obama retort was such an OOOOH SNAP moment. The deployment, as always, was more about the American alliance than anything to do with Iraq--we've been involved in every American war since WW2. The American alliance is the major cornerstone of Australian defence strategy and traditionally this has been treated as FOLLOW THE AMERICANS AT ALL COSTS rather than pursuing a more independent approach, although we almost certainly wouldn't get involved in an American-Chinese dispute over Taiwan even if we don't say so publically. This Alliance is held sacrosanct even as we try to "enter Asia" (mostly in trade terms, security is an afterthought), it's sacrosanct even though there's not really any military threats to this country at all. I mean, Indonesia and China are often cited, but they're long-term trading partners and simply not a concievable military threat... Indonesia has no force projection and China is a long way away, geographically, plus we've got innate geographical advantages to rival Russia's (attacking our half-dozen largest cities is the logistical equivalent of attacking, say, London, Lisbon, Rome, Moscow and Athens at the same time), in the incredibly unlikely event of actual full-scale war. But I guess the thinking is an insurance policy can't hurt. In some ways the close relationship is just habit... the UK was the "Great and Powerful Friend" until that fell through in WW2, then the US saved us from the Japanese and so they became our new best friend. It's also worth noting that the relationship is decidedly assymetrical, in that most Americans barely know we exist, much less that this country sees itself as having a British-style "special relationship" with America. Whereas we tend to obsess over the relationship with the US. Howard is actually being criticised now for putting the alliance at risk in the long term by treating the relationship like it's between two political parties (the Liberals and the Republicans) rather than between two countries. |
| Ziff Posts: 1770/1800 |
14'000, roughly. |
| SamuraiX Posts: 269/302 |
Originally posted by Arwon My sincerest apologies. What would be a proportionate number of Australian people in Iraq to match that of the US? |
| Arwon Posts: 623/631 |
It was during an interview, actually. |
| emcee Posts: 849/867 |
Originally posted by Rom Manic Yeah they do, that's exactly what politics is. |
| SamuraiX Posts: 248/302 |
Originally posted by Rom Manic I believe Arwon mentioned that the prime minister talked about Obama in a speech. |
| Rom Manic Posts: 551/557 |
Since when does an island full of criminals have a problem with politics? 
Jokes aside, I'm wondering if this was instigated by anything. Prejudice, maybe, but important people don't go about running their mouth about other important people. |
| Ziff Posts: 1766/1800 |
Originally posted by Arwon Well, all things considered what happens in Australia should fucking stay in Australia. Like those damned exchange students that drink my beer. |
| Arwon Posts: 622/631 |
Right-on, Texas Republican John Cornyn! |
| Ziff Posts: 1765/1800 |
Osama is, after all, for Obama (good ol Johnny boy) |
| Arwon Posts: 621/631 |
Fuck I hope so. |
| SamuraiX Posts: 244/302 |
Originally posted by Ziff I believe it was on NPR too. O= I believe that this is going to backfire on a certain prime minister. |
| Ziff Posts: 1764/1800 |
Douche and a quarter, really.
Hardly breaking news. Oooooh, it is on the BBC on right now. 
edit:: AT LEAST HE DIDN't SMOKE THE DEVIL PLANT! http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,,2010625,00.html |
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