Australian Politics

There are parts I agree with. We shouldn't be putting all our eggs in the US technology basket, homegrown industry is best a diversified mix is second. Tying ourselves to the US technology pipe might work out, but it also might end like Keating says.

But his brainfart of an armada getting picked off before they reached our shores is fanciful. Last i checked we couldn't afford to send a warship to the red sea because we don't have enough sailors, and working frigates (was it 3?). Our submarines are rusting and going in and out of repairs. We have a few planes, but is that enough to pick off an armada? So whats to stop a serious attempt to lop off a nice section of the Pilbara? Lets be sensible, our military is functional but small, if we want to take our own defence seriously, then the current civic understanding and arrangements would need to change.

But the stuff on Taiwan especially. He is so wrong about. We as a nation should always defend the right of a peoples self determination. Not that we live up to that ideal very often, but he is from the side of politics that speaks in those terms more often, so his lack of concern is surprising. The Taiwanese very clearly want a separate identity to mainland China. And no shit they do, Taiwan has been a separate but related island forever. It has the awkward distinction of being the retreat point for the Chinese Nationalists, but thats a pretty small part of the islands population.

Anyway, i suppose its all way more complicated than all this, and thats exactly why I find Keatings comments on so many of those matters so poor. He presented simple solutions that would see Australia more alone instead of more engaged in the region. A loner nation, instead of a friend nation.