Asian arms race - news.com.au story

[StingrayOZ]

A new arms race is exploding into Asia, with an expensive and extensive shopping list of new weapons. Who’s buying what, and where does Australia stand? | News.com.au

An interesting article, with plenty of flaws. From what I can see the statistics are all over the place, 149 MBT for Australia? 96 combat aircraft for indonesia? 106 for Australia?

Its interesting to see how the class amphibious ships and aircraft carriers.
Seems to do a lot of numbers v numbers ignoring capability and systems.

I think there is several interesting stories about defence in asia, declining us influence in this region, rising chinese influence. But this story seems to muddle them up and play it like a board game with some sensationalist overtones.

 

[STURM]

But this story seems to muddle them up and play it like a board game with some sensationalist overtones.

Indeed, With Indonesia's case she has a lot of catching up to do and the TNI has very large oprational commitments on account of Indonesia being a large country, stretching from the Indian Ocean all the way westwards to the fringes of the Pacific. For me, there is a key difference between a country developing sustainable power projection capabilities and a country pursuing a long delay modenisation programme to better enable its armed forces to defend the country and its core interests.

I get very wary and cringe when I hear the term 'arms race'.

 

[Volkodav]

Yes just read the story myself, definitely leaves a lot to be desired in terms of research and accuracy, but and this is a small but, it is bringing the issue to a more public level.

If you look at the story, in a nut shell its laying out everything the Rudd / Fitzgibbon white paper high lighted but was subsequently ignored by Gillard and now Abbott.

As I see it we will never be able to compete on numbers but we can on capability and combat power. That means seriously look at Virginia Class SSNs, 6 or 8 instead of the 12 conventionals I can never see happening and look to spend the money saved on a number of STOVL carriers and F-35B. Beef up the numbers and capability of the surface combatant fleet.

Scrap any concept of minor combatants i.e. patrol boats. In a nut shell the designs adopted are incapable of patrolling our EEZ as intended, are being broken in their current deployment within BPC and lack any useful war fighting capability what so ever. Give the PBs to the department of immigration and let them crew and pay for then and give the RAN crews the warships and missions they deserve. I am talking corvettes or light frigates with a reasonable baseline self defence capability and helicopter (think updated ANZAC level in a smaller better designed platform). Fit them with a multi mission deck / compartments for US LCS mission modules.

RAAF, steady as it goes. get the full 100 F-35A into service, retain the Growlers as an ISR asset, buy additional P-8s, tankers and Wedgetails. Also ditch the C-130J in favor of additional C-17 and C-27J.

Army, SPGs, MRLS, get LAND 400 up and running and look toward additional aviation capability, i.e. tilt rotors.

Oh a must, ABM!

Not really that much more than were are currently aiming for, pretty much a case of putting the money upfront and just doing it.

 

[Volkodav]

Indeed, With Indonesia's case she has a lot of catching up to do and the TNI has very large oprational commitments on account of Indonesia being a large country, stretching from the Indian Ocean all the way westwards to the fringes of the Pacific. For me, there is a key difference between a country developing sustainable power projection capabilities and a country pursuing a long delay modenisation programme to better enable its armed forces to defend the country and its core interests.

I get very wary and cringe when I hear the term 'arms race'.

I am not concerned about Indonesia or other regional nations, as to be honest, apart from our PMs current posturing for the red neck constituency, Indonesia is our friend ad pretty much has been since Suharto came to power in the late 60s. As a stable and effective democracy Indonesia is probably more of a friend now than they have ever been.

What worries me is China and what happens when they start behaving in the way that made so many other powers so unpopular in the past, will Australia be able to step up to support our friends or will we be forced to sit back and hope we don't get caught in the cross fire?

 

[STURM]

I am not concerned about Indonesia or other regional nations, as to be honest, apart from our PMs current posturing for the red neck constituency, Indonesia is our friend ad pretty much has been since Suharto came to power in the late 60s. As a stable and effective democracy Indonesia is probably more of a friend now than they have ever been.

Agreed! For the life of me I don't get why some Aussies get so worked up when Indonesia gets new gear and why they see Indonesia as a threat, when China is the only country that has - on paper - the ability to actually threaten Australia. The way some see it, when certain countries modernise, it's all fine as there is a legitimate need but when others do so, it's a 'threat' and has the potential to disrupt regional stability.

 

[Volkodav]

Agreed! For the life of me I don't get why some Aussies get so worked up when Indonesia gets new gear and why they see Indonesia as a threat, when China is the only country that has - on paper - the ability to actually threaten Australia. The way some see it, when certain countries modernise, it's all fine as there is a legitimate need but when others do so, it's a 'threat' and has the potential to disrupt regional stability.

Because to be brutally honest some Aussies are dumb, drunk and stupid, not to mention probably stoned. There are educated productive members of society who are capable of and do measure up the internal political options and make a decision for their own reasons, be they selfish, pragmatic or even altruistic, and then there are the people that every country has that are not very deep thinkers who are swayed by nationalistic clap trap, fear campaigns, xenophobia etc. who can be bought or convinced with posturing, spin and out right lies. You just need to look at the equivalent elements in any country to see what I mean.

 

[STURM]

Apart from xenophobia, ignorance and a host of other reasons, part of the reason why some Australians feel that way I think is because of events that took place in the 1960's during the Confrontation or what Sukarno called the 'Dwikora' campaign, which saw Aussie troops deployed to Borneo on ops [substantial Aussie naval and air assets were also involved]. There was also East Timor in 1975 and 1999 and a number of diplomatic spats that took place during the 1980's; but off course times have changed and Indonesia now is security and trade partner.