Carefull... you nearly turned me into a picture there.
"Our only perceived threat of a "push & shove" would come from Indonesia."
We would seem pretty naked and quite vulnerable without The US cloak of protection and therefore rather more attractive to a whole range undesirable and aspirational regions. As we know it is very easy to conjure up reasons to justify expansion under the guise of national interest and perceived threats.
"The US has proved that it looks after US interests first & foremost. And since the US is now involved militarily with Indonesia, we couldnt necessarily expect help there"
I don't think I'm overstating our case here by saying that any attack on Australian soil would almost be seen as a direct attack on the US. The relationship is that close.
"And unless we had a nuclear deterent, we could not resist China however much we spent on defence."
It would be a shame to have go down this path but obviously we would have to.
To think that our world is more civilised or safer because we have not been involved in a major all out conflict (with all due respect to those involved in Korea, Vietnam etc etc) for over 60 years would be a mistake.
