Actually we are in a very geostrategic position as seen by the US decision to locate Pine Gap and other portions of their early warning/submarine communication/satellite communication system in Australia...
However with the feckless and incompetent clown obama in the whitehouse for the forseable future anything is possible and I doubt that while obama in President anyone would put any faith in any US alliance of promise they might think they have...
East Timor was not a big deal from a military point of view and I suspect that with the prospect of US as certain backers of Australia if Indonesia decided to escalate things, would have moderated the Indonesian response in any case...
Australia has some 30% of the world's uranium and a significant portion of the accessable supply of other key minerals plus the ability to build infrastructure to get the commodities out of the ground onto ships...
While the US might not necessarily decide to buy a great bulk of our commodities they would certainly want to deny control of these assets to other countries in the event of hostilities...
