No idea. The leader of the opposition in Australia said, paraphrasing "the us couldn't win a fight with a bunch of villagers with ak47 for 10 years, so it's a bad deal"
Australia is weird.
Australia is weird.
Russia and China can’t deploy troops in their own country. The U.S. military can land 10’s of thousands of troops, with a support supply line any where in the world on less than 24 hours notice, along with all the firepower that comes with those troops.
To “win” in Afghanistan would require slaughtering about half the population of the country, something the U.S. military could easily do, but it would make the U.S. into an international pariah, and that would be bad for business.
If the U.S. sovereignty was actually threatened all but the nuclear weapons would be unleashed, including all the top secret weapons that have been developed since the Gulf War, it would probably seem like Star Wars.
I served in the Marines and we were well aware people, especially those with combat experience, were leaving hand over fist. Amos was commandant during my time, and this article tells some of the story about what happened: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/the-marines-corps-needs-to-c...
Experience at losing embarrassingly. (To guerrillas it created, no less!)
> The U.S. military can land 10’s of thousands of troops, with a support supply line any where in the world on less than 24 hours notice, along with all the firepower that comes with those troops.
You'd think that, wouldn't you? But it's a paper tiger: post-Vietnam, the US takes great (but quiet) care to ensure that the big song and dance is only deployed on some dirt-poor hellhole with no capable conventional fighting force to withstand the first few episodes of an erect Wolf Blitzer watching B1's firebomb civilians. After a little while, it either leaves in "triumph" (Panama, Grenada, Gulf War I) or it stays and gets bent over the barrel by the insurgencies that inevitably form from the remnants of the regime it invaded (Afghanistan, Gulf War II). It's only good at shooting fish in a barrel and making it look like Michael Bay movie. But after falling on its face so hilariously in Vietnam it knows it can't handle much more than that.
> To “win” in Afghanistan would require slaughtering about half the population of the country, something the U.S. military could easily do
You know I almost agree with you, but it's plain that when the US military sets its mind to something, failing miserably at that thing can't be far behind. (Unless that something is using our Nintendo pilots to remote-control-incinerate a high school graduation. So you may be right after all.)
> but it would make the U.S. into an international pariah
More than it already is, somehow?
> If the U.S. sovereignty was actually threatened all but the nuclear weapons would be unleashed, including all the top secret weapons that have been developed since the Gulf War, it would probably seem like Star Wars.
A cursory glance at the average BMI of our professional fighting forces leads me to suspect that the only similarity to Star Wars in such a scenario would be to scenes involving Jabba the Hutt.
Fast forward a few years and the Australian Government had announced one of the driving factors of this deal is nuclear power rather than diesel electric. We’re also building [reportedly] even less of the Submarine locally now. Not to mention the delivery delays this will cause & our lack of servicing capability.
Even as an Australian I can see how this would really annoy France.
I wish there was a reliable place you could go for objective analysis in cases like this, but I'll have to settle for simple confusion for now I guess.
But this is just my very limited European view of the news, and news is something that I restrict myself on.
Among governments though? That's rich. They treat their own citizens worse than this. They're happy to move industry and jobs offshore, change policies and legislation at a moments notice.
Follow the money. Christopher Pyne brokered this $50Bn deal to get re-elected (some boatbuilding would happen in SA) which blew out to $90Bn and rising.
Pyne immediately retired (got his pollie-perks-for-life golden ticket stamped) and then immediately became "employed" as a consult with the people profiting massively from this twisted deal against the public interest.
Pyne followed the same slimy playbook as Andrew Robb (4) who sneakily slipped the 99-year Darwin Port dodgy deal across the line, and then he got a free $880k "job" with them the day he left parliament shortly thereafter.
Borderline treasonous behavior is rife with our political elite (both sides stink badly)
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/04/would-you-employ-ch...
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/07/pyne-poisons-ey/
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/01/audit-office-torped...
(4) https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/06/chinese-sell-andrew...
The world has changed a lot and if the government of the day feels it needs to alter a $90 billion purchase (which was initially $40 billion by the way before cost overruns) to better protect their citizens then it is their right as elected officials.
Also don't focus on the PR sideshow of the submarines, this is about the alliance itself.
There are only a couple ways to lose a battle, but countless ways to lose a war.
It wasn’t solely a military problem but both chose a primarily military solution (as did the British before them).
How does your point support the original claim? You and I are in agreement that fighting alone can't solve the problem of Afghanistan, but I don't see how that bears any relationship to judging the fighting.
I’ll leave my comments unedited unless you’d like them gone.