"Unaligned, non-nuclear nations with small conventional forces are easily pushed around.". .. and we are certainly one which is on the border between the Pacific Island states and the United States. we may be a relatively wealthy country, more affluent than the Mighty US, but we have a small govt budget.
when we engage in such massively expensive deals such as AUKUS and transitioning to a low(er) emissions energy sector, particularly with one party wanting to spend many $bns on nuclear energy (which I support though not necessarily in line with Dud's thought bubble), surely our govts should be honest and tell us our national income, federal govt revenue, is too poor to afford these dreams and explain why we need to increase our taxes back to where they were before thought bubblers decided to cut taxes for voting (or ideological) reasons.
moreover, imo, AUKUS ties us into a contract that will extend to 50+ years. and very likely, if we're lucky, we'll only get a few nuke subs for the massive bill. we would be far better off investing half that money into drone tech instead of nuke subs. a swarm of underwater, on-water and air attack drones would be more effective at def3ence that subs designed fort attack mode.
you make excellent points squidd. the last para is especially important. from my reading they too want access to the US/UK interlocking technology. as far as I've read they don't want the subs.
on alliances, imo we might be better served doing deals with our local neighbours, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Japan and the Pacific Islands + PNG.
great stimulating post squidd.
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