Lack of power: The point that our trade with Asia is really big is a really strong. We need to strengthen our value adding and add more depth to our exports. This is where the current Liberal government has been poor. In the long run it looks like Australia will become a real Asian country. Hopefully we can get the best of both worlds.
The FTA with the US may be a good thing. The DMCA thing may not be that great. Enforcing the DMCA in Australia might be very difficult. We\'ll have to wait a while to see what happens and even then it will be hard to work it out. Even 10 years after NAFTA there is still a lot of debate about it\'s effects.
What point is there these days in having a military capable of occupation against real hostility? The US - with an approximately half trillion dollar defense budget is being humbled by tens of thousands of guys with explosives, AK-47s and RPGs.
We have sufficient projection, as you say, to cause anyone within a reasonable range pain. That\'s enough. It also makes them feel safe. If we have a carier fleet and marines the Indonesians may feel threatened, and with reason.
Australia can carry out heavy-policing duties as shown by the East Timor stabilisation.
We are certainly pandering to the US. But we are also trying to maintain good relations with everyone else as much as possible.
That\'s fine most of the time. It only really comes to a head when there are things like the current business with China\'s diplomats defecting and in the Middle East where US policy is significantly different to the rest of the world.
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