Is Indonesia our biggest regional threat?, page-11

While I have no doubt there would be maps on Indo office walls showing the wide brown land as South Irian -

IMHO the greatest regional threat to Oz is the bungling, incompetence and colossal waste of our Defence Dept over a few decades.
Mega $Billions spent yet we have laughable Collins Class subs,
Then the French "vapour-ware" subs where no prototype ever existed and we wanted a decent nuc sub reverse engineered into century old diesel-electric technology???????
helicopters that have been proven not fit for tasks,
F35's that could be destroyed by dedicated dogfighters costing a fraction,
Our new "helicopter dock landing ships" so called "warships" have had defective stupid propulsion systems for years since they were sourced,
as witness the recent debacle where one had its electric generation system broke down at/near Tonga.
Defence has a disease of "not buying best hardware" off the production line,
always wanting something specially tailor-made for "Oz Conditions" - and also ticks huge box if a case can be made that it might be possible assembled in Adelaide.
Now the AUKUS nuc subs thought bubble - what we need NOW is UK and or US nuc subs sortieing from Oz - agreements to start including some RAN pers in crews - training RAN pers for nuc subs.