Whats your opinion on the Star Wars program

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/World/story_54361.asp

Guess Indonesia don't like it.

Quote from Tachi:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/World/story_54361.asp

Guess Indonesia don't like it.
Well, SAM missiles by there usage can only be used in defence.

And when you read the article you can see that it was the opposition that made the statement. Politics being the same everywhere it is just a case of them saying stuff to get into the papers. In fact you see this behaviour in the Australian paliament every day.

Quote:
Djoko Susilo, a member of the Indonesian parliament's commission for security, defence and foreign affairs, said, "Why do they (Australia) need to buy that kind of sophisticated ship if they don't want to bother Indonesia?" he said.
Because Indonesia is bothering us you wanker :!:
Indonesia believe that the top part of Australia is theirs and they own it, I have one thing to say to them....Bring it bitches!

lol, the refugee wars are coming.... ooo yeah.

Quote from Odyssey:
Quote:
Djoko Susilo, a member of the Indonesian parliament's commission for security, defence and foreign affairs, said, "Why do they (Australia) need to buy that kind of sophisticated ship if they don't want to bother Indonesia?" he said.
Because Indonesia is bothering us you wanker :!:
Indonesia believe that the top part of Australia is theirs and they own it, I have one thing to say to them....Bring it bitches!

untill you actually LIVE in the top part of Australia...you got fuck all to bring... and seen as Indonesia would walk right over us if we didnt have Americas support...i wouldnt bring shit.

Our opinion doesnt matter...so why tell anyone :)

I think that Darth Vader and the Empire are somewhat evil. They are all like "March march march, kill that guy, march some more".

The Millenium Falcon will pwn Darth Vader too.

My 2C.

Heh stay on topic :)

Quote from Milenko:
I think that Darth Vader and the Empire are somewhat evil. They are all like "March march march, kill that guy, march some more".

The Millenium Falcon will pwn Darth Vader too.

My 2C.

Falcon will get pwned by Slave 1.

this topic was always going to head that was.. stoopid americans shouldn't have called it 'Star Wars'

i can see George Bush with his limited IQ having to borrow ideas from others.. but seriously.. Star Wars

Bush probably has a f*cking lightsaber in the white house and a obi-wan plush toy in his bed.

who cares? they're going to do it anyway so you might as well go and play dc :D

Quote from Minorci:
[quote:9fbf3ac21f="Milenko"]I think that Darth Vader and the Empire are somewhat evil. They are all like "March march march, kill that guy, march some more".

The Millenium Falcon will pwn Darth Vader too.

My 2C.

Falcon will get pwned by Slave 1.[/quote:9fbf3ac21f]

its all lies. nothing compairs to the POWER of the Dark Force /me Darth Vader Voice Styles.

A few points --

Firstly, Indonesia is unable to invade Australia. They don't have the means to move their army across the gap; their airforce would be mopped up in short order by ours; and when they go here they'd discover that we've built our force structure and tactics around a fighting retreat from a northern invader. They don't have the logistics or money to make it happen - we'd smack them down.

Secondly, the name "Star Wars" was coined out of an offhanded comment by Carl Sagan, who was a critic of the original program. The name has stuck.

Thirdly, it's a gigantic waste of money. Even the naval SM-3 system under development requires Aegis-class cruisers to use (and that's not even to launch) - like we could afford even one!

Even if they do get across the gap, our army and navy will be going after there logistics elements, from supply convoys, the cargo ships.

At most the Navy will get a small destroyer with the Aegis system on it. Not nearly so nice as the Burke class Destroyer, more like the smaller spanish frigate that are getting the cut down system put on it.

Indonesia is at most a paper tiger, at most they can cause some damage but we would hurt em a lot more. Unfortunately, I, like a lot of other people here are at the pointy end of the equation

this is my opinion.

Bzzzt. Darth Vader was a smarty-pants.

hmm.. you're right.. i f*cked up and went straight for the evil...

Darth Vader is way too Light and fluffy for Georgey boy :)

Well Tachi, serious discussion get railraod yet again

I'm with El Pres on this one but if they get past our military then they are going to run head long into half of Humpty Doo digging up their weapon collection that "disappeared" during the government buy back :)

Quote from HeReTiC:
Indonesia would walk right over us if we didnt have Americas support...
We're part of something called "The Commonwealth" :wink:

yes well the "Commonwealth" is Spread on the other side of the world and Indo is about a 2 hour flight away.

They could be two meters away and they still couldn't do anything. It would be basically the entire western world against them.

Australia's strategic doctrine has, since the Dibb Review in the 80s, been about force and logistical self-reliance, attrition & guerilla-tactic warfare, use of "the gap" and defense in depth.

The key phrase which has dominated Defence Department thinking has been "unacceptable attrition". This is what we would inflict on any invaders: losses too high and too expensive to bear. If you examine the Australian defence forces you will see that they are made to do just that. Frontline defenses in the RAN and RAAF are meant to sink ships before they reach our shores (and there's more than a thousand kilometres between here and Indonesia); and the Australian Army is meant to retreat from the north.

Whilst the enemy's supply line becomes longer and more vulnerable to behind-lines SAS attacks, the Army continues to stall ad bog down enemy invasions by picking off the fringes of enemy forces, and then retreating five kilometres (or ten, or hell, why not a hundred?).

Eventually, once enemy forces have gone far enough into the centre, you bomb the Stuart Highway and the
Railway. They are cut off more than 1500 kilometres from their only supply drop - or in layman's terms, they're f*cked.

This entire plan assumes that nobody will come to our aid at all.

There's intense debate right now about whether it's a good plan. I happen to like it, because it tilts our force structure away from expeditionary activities. Some analysts dislike it because it makes it harder for us to fight in coalitions; like this is a bad thing. Frankly, I see it this way - which is the cheapest, most effective way to defend Australia? The Dibb Strategy? I'm sold.

In terms of dealing with North Korea, there are then three options.

1 - we ignore them. Becoming more difficult all the time.
2 - we join Star Wars. An expensive and uncertain proposition. One thing we do know is that North Korea will be ready before we are.
3 - join the nuclear club. Australia has maintained a "6 months to nuke" policy since the Menzies era, it's why we have ANSTO and the Lucas Heights reactor. We should consider making that "3 months to nuke" capability. It would certainly contribute to an arms race in the region, but the simple fact is that nukes and rockets are not that difficult to build any more. The technologies involved are stable, proven and well-studied. The same cannot be said about Star Wars.

In the meantime, since we are retiring F-111s in favour of F35s, I think we should go for the Marine variant, which is Short Takeoff Vertical Landing capable. The idea would be to try and develop a "guerilla airforce" capability. Northern Australia has hundreds of airstrips which would suit a ruggedised Marine-variant F35. If we could develop a force structure of self-hosting wings of F35s, the airforce would become as hard to kill and mobile as the Army. How do you destroy an airforce dispersed across dozens of hard-to-find locations? Just a thought.

Thats what i thought would be the better plan to.

Also i don't see any point at all in developing nukes. If u use them then other countries will and you will die anyway. Even if no toher countries will its a pretty lame way to win.

Interesting El Pres ^_^

El Pres has pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I like the plan.

I just I want to know what happens to us civillians in Darwin and the rest of the NT ...

Nice to see some students of history.

1. The F-111's were originaly bought with the intention of being able to launch nuclear weapons.

2. Australia having Nukes: Australia mines the materials needed for a Nuclear Weapon and has the technology. Australia participated in Nuclear tests in SA and the NT with both the USA and the UK during the 50's and 60's. Plus there is the speculation that the US has given us some for self defence. And Woomera is the current test site for the CSIRO's rocket range.

3. STAR WARS. George Bush is just resurecting Regan's orginal plan for Nuclear defence that was too expensive to begin with. Laser weapons whilst effective were often impractical as well as various interception systems including jet mounted rockets and jets and tanks with lasers yet now the US claims they have succeded and that the joint strike fighter can carry one!

Seems bush has no original ideas!

No wonder Austalia is becoming richer and the USA poorer if they keep spending so much money. Heard the USA is in debt

" AU = 0.75- 0.81 USD (At this rate it will soon get to .90 or ")
" AU = 7440 rup (Indonesian)

Tachi, if Australia used nukes, most like we wouldn't be nuking cities, but the in fact the logistic elements instead.

Not to mention that Australia has a nice little pesticide industry due to our agriculture. Just change one or two precursors in the reaction and you can get some nasty nerve agents.

So in all probability the ADF would be using these weapons in mainly unpopulated areas against a foreign invader. I don't think the public that counts (eastern seaboard voters) would really mind.

insomnia, about us NT people and the people in northwestern WA, we do what we always do, suck hind tit.

Sif nuking is a lame way to win.

The thing is if you do use nukes in unpopulated areas there will most likely still be some small concentrations of civilans and if the enemy knows you have nukes they could just move into the bigger cities so you have to make moral decisions to use them.

Then if you use them anyway either your enemy or one of their allies or someone that doesn't like a country using nukes will get angry and nuke you anyway. So you would still be stuffed. Basically you can't use them and call a win from it.

Doesn't matter anyway about the nukes, indosnesia wouldn't be able to get enough troops on to the mainland to occupy anything of note or importance.

Maybe, but i didn't aim that at just indonesia. If any country were to attack i think it would be stupid to even consider using nukes as a means of defence or to attack.

Indonesia has quite an impressive Army... they just dont have the Navy to transport :)

Nukes are there to deter others from using nukes: go and review the theory of Mutally Assured Destruction. Notice that North Korea's current prototype rockets can reach anywhere in Australia north of Townsville, and the next generation will probably be able to hit south of Hobart (and, by sheer coincidence, the western coast of the US continent).

We did buy F-111s as potential nuke delivery platforms, and we have remained the only country in the south-east asian region with a strategic bombing capability: we'll lose that when we switch to F-35s.

Tachi, the basic rule of warfare is that winners win by destroying the other guy's military. Capturing civilian targets does not constitute a victory.

Nevertheless in a "total war" situation civilians become valid targets, and the Dibb plan expects invading enemies to drive south. They have three options:

Go west by sea, and get bombed to hell by air bases along the northern coast, and met by land forces moving from Darwin.

Come by land via Darwin, facing the fighting retreat I have already discussed.

Go east by sea, and find that there are even more airforce bases, soldiers and naval ships on the east coast than anywhere else.

West Australia is our weak point, but frankly we can fight an even longer fighting retreat of WA than the NT.

The plan's pretty good, and I don't think we should rush to dump it.

As to using nukes on enemy supply elements, I don't see that happening. When they are not weapons of deterrence, they are weapons to bust open great lines in enemy formations. If Australia was fighting in Western Europe against massive formations of soviet tanks, it'd make sense. But it is exceedingly unlikely that we would face such a situation. In any case the deployment of nukes changes the psychology of a war; it also shows desperation or insanity on the part of the defender.

The dibb plan is based on conventional, non-nuclear defense. Insofar as I believe that defence forces should be defence forces and not suck-up forces, it's a damn good plan.

Is it only me or is it Terrorism that we should be worrying about more?

But then in the Long term, should we be Looking at China and India as real threats?

EDIT: so it can be read by others than Knight

Indonesia = Terrorism
India is no threat to us and we have a reasonably good relationsship with China. As long as we don't go and do something stupid to piss them off then we won't here a peep from either of them.

Terrorism should dealt with as it is: a crime. The British
Army never did much to slow down or stop the IRA in Ireland; most of the effective work was done by British and Irish police.

Terrorists, at the end of the day, are individuals committing organised crimes. Treating it like a quasi-religious war was a foolish, if emotionally understandable, reaction from the US. However other nations have dealt with terrorism without the measures the US have stooped to - the poms didn't invade the Irish republic, for instance, in search of the IRA.

As to China, India and Indonesia, the best way to avoid war with them is to trade with them. However we need to bear in mind Switzerland's example - even friendly neutrality is no guarantee against the occasional madness of an entire nation.

In short, to modify Machivelli's rule, I would say now that "if you want peace, prepare for trade", and add "but keep the bayonets sharp".

Re: Machivelli

heh El Presidente, perhapes a man of uncommonly wise words

even though indonesia has an extremely large army it is worth noting most of it is necessary to keep the country from falling apart. indonesia is NOT a cohesive nation by any means - there are insurgencies in aceh, west papua, southern sumatra to name a few (remember east timor?)

indonesia was traditionally a string of kingdoms across the islands which have been subdued / conquered by java and there is still some hostility towards the javanese. add to these the muslim fruitcakes running around trying to set up an islamic state which is unacceptable both to the civil and military authorities.

the indonesian military has a great deal of clout in the county's parliament and would are unwilling to give up any of their power, and finding themselves embroiled in even a short term conflict with australia for little gain (what would be the point?? lebensraum maybe) would weaken their position. it would also give insurgents at home more freedom to cause trouble while the military are busy chasing ghosts through the deserts and jungles of australia.

add this to el presidentes accurate insights and it is extremely unlikely indonesia would even want to invade in the first place, let alone be able to mount such an undertaking. in europe 4000k's crosses a bunch of different nations, here 4000k's crosses the nullabor.

i think star wars is a pretty pointless program. the cold war is over, large scale ICBM strikes are a thing of the past (unless skynet becomes self aware) and if any country does decide to launch a nuke it is easily tracked back to its source and you can expect a crushing retaliation. todays nuke of choice is packed in a suitcase and left in a toilet somewhere in the middle of the city, or put in a ship and parked a few k's off the coast.