Posted on 11/30/2016 7:44:22 PM PST by naturalman1975
Defence experts have weighed in on what a Trump presidency will mean for the Australian Defence Force.
For 100 years, the Australian military has fought alongside or followed the United States into major conflict zones around the world.
Australian and American servicemen and women have fought and died together in the two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Former US President George Bush famously called Australia America’s sheriff in south-east Asia.
But Donald Trump has put US military allies on notice, particularly if they’re not dedicating near enough to 2 per cent of their GDP on defence spending.
Mr Trump has called out Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia and indicated he would renegotiate defence deals with them.
So does Australia have anything to worry about?
“The Americans aren't accusing us of being a strategic bludger, they're unlikely to accuse us of being a strategic bludger and as long as we don't bludge on them, we're not going to have a problem,” the Australia Defence Association’s Neil James said.
“The GDP mark is a NATO benchmark and a majority of the NATO partners aren’t reaching it.
"We’re just reaching it now. As long as we spend enough on our own defence rather than bludge on the Americans all the time, we shouldn’t have too many worries.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sbs.com.au ...
That's a bit insulting isn't it?
Not really, when you know the context in which it was said and what was actually said - the summary isn't that accurate. At the time, this came up in 2003, Australia was engaged in an election campaign, and the (Labor) Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, said something about, if Labor was elected, Australia would stop acting like America's Deputy Sheriff - so the original statement was by an Australian politician trying to disparage the (conservative) Howard government's relationship with the United States.
President George W. Bush was asked in this context whether he saw Australia as Washington's 'Deputy Sheriff' in southeast Asia and what he actually said was:
"No, we don't see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There's a difference. Equal partners, friends and allies. There's nothing deputy about this relationship."
There was nothing in the statement about Australia being any sort of deputy or assistant to the United States. In fact, he was quite explicit in not saying that.
I did not know Australia was even part of NATO.
We’re not, but many of the same standards that are applied within the NATO alliance are generally considered to apply within the ANZUS alliance and the AUSCANNZUKUS (Five Eyes) relationships. The 2% of GDP on defence as a minimum is one of those standards.
And in Afghanistan, Australian troops have pretty much operated as part of NATO for convenience.
That isn't a requirement. It's supposed to be a goal that all members should be moving towards.
Thank you for clarifying that. I distrust everything in the press. This is just one more reason for it.
Very impressive. I’ll give him that.
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