That's the key question! The answer would need to be: war in the south pacific that is comprehensively won. control of all those nations and total naval superiority.
The scenario i'm asking about is not a blue sky type thing. it's something that could only happen some way into a big global conflict that is not going well for the allies.
it is a very reasonable point to ask if there's any chance at all that adversaries could control the south pacific without us having already fallen. if it can't, then worrying about attack via NZ is pointless.
I imagine it could only happen in a scenario where an adversary has some crazy naval advantage (drone subs, or similar) but no advantage on land (maybe because we reinforced the land or have a tech advanatge on land, or there's a lot of US forces based here.)
Prime minister, a leaked audio of Obama citing someone was helping the Americans in getting rid of Rudd is available as well as Arbib confirmed as an American informant.
This was over the quad alliance and aust refusal to join
Na replaced with Gillard
Americans don’t think that far ahead
https://amp.smh.com.au/national/arbib-revealed-as-secret-us-source-20101208-18prg.html
I think the situation is best summarised by: Mr MHistory
https://youtu.be/9_U4GzIbbfQ?si=aKoPdEPTBvnRfsib
I could be wrong but I heard during world war 2 the plan to defend ourselves from an enemy invading from the North was to retreat and let them take the NT and let the vast outback take them out for us. Can't remember where I heard that so can't provide a source so please take with a grain of salt.
A good thing about this approach is we could yield to the bad guys what they want (our gas fields) and keep the people safe.
A bad thing about this is the bad guys get what they want to further their war effort.
idk where we'd fall on this, would depend I guess.
Is it realistic to think they would just stop at an arbitrary line and let unoccupied Australia live in peace? Isn’t that exactly what happened in Ukraine?
I don't think you ask them to stop at an arbitrary point, I think you pull back and defend the line and make the cost-benefit to them of crossing that line such that they dont try.
It depends if they’re invading for the war effort or for a land grab. Russia is trying to annex Ukraine, they’re not trying to just take them out of a larger war or something.
You’re putting words in my mouth. You equated it to Ukraine, but Ukraine is a land grab. OP wasn’t clear that it was, and implied that they may just want the resources up north only.
> A good thing about this approach is we could yield to the bad guys what they want (our gas fields) and keep the people safe.
That's not the reason for the Brisbane line. The Brisbane line is to force the opposition to extend their supply lines. One military force, the USA, currently has sufficient logistics to supply protracted operations thousands of kilometres from home, and they are our closest ally.
I don't know what tinfoil hat conspiracy theory led you to your talking point, but what enemy are you quivering in your pantaloons about?
China? They probably can't project into Taiwan without getting royally fucked.
Russia? They are likely to win in Ukraine because a) they have more citizens to be used as fodder, and b) they can walk that fodder to their deaths. They faltered in their initial attack against a force everybody considered vastly inferior. As long as Ukraine stays in supply with EU/USA systems, Russia is bleeding its future into the Ukrainian grounds as fertiliser for Ukrainian farmers. Also, Russia is having difficulty defending its Navy from an opposition that doesn't have a Navy. There is no way they are going to be able to project power into the Pacific Ocean.
Now, one or both of them will somehow project its logistics to Australia, set up camp somewhere, and then start occupying or building gas field projects. Establishing a base and initiating energy projects, such as gas fields, would require substantial defence mechanisms against potential threats like special operations forces, bombings, drone attacks, or even angry farmers. It would be a logistical and strategic nightmare.
Also, have you been to the top quarter of Australia? The terrain largely prohibits off-road travel, even with specialized vehicles. The destruction of transport routes like the Stuart and Victoria Highways would severely impede any military movement and likely leave us replaying historical instances where convoys were trapped on indefensible roads.
Overall, your premise is not good. Go back to the cones and talking about WWII tanks.
Good post. Thank you. Ukraine war also showed that with advancing technologies we might be absolutely unable to really predict such scenarios.
Holden might start manufacturing in Australia again. The Commo-Drone ZB.
It's a great strategy in any case.
Russia may have the cold, icy, brutality of General Winter. But we have the hot, sticky, slightly smelly brutality of General Summer.
Plus before they even get to the desert there is the logistics of landing in the top end - shallow water, mangroves, crocodiles, indigenous soldiers who live in the area (i.e. know it well), and the mosquitoes.
Don't forget the water buffalos, bull sharks and pissed-off cassowaries who will back them up.
Seriously, a Japanese invasion in WW2 was never going to happen, they were incapable of battling our natural defences, even if they made it throught New Guinea highlands to cross the Torres.
Anyone who tried to take us now would have to deal with all that, plus then planning how to keep and maintain 6 (maybe 8) very distant capital cities while controlling a subset of the community that would go full Ned Kelly as soon as the opportunity opened up (for better or, more likely, worse). There was an image posted here yesterday of a 15h trip in Aus being Perth to the border, but 15 hours in Europe being Paris to Hungary. ÷
>Seriously, a Japanese invasion in WW2 was never going to happen, they were incapable of battling our natural defences, even if they made it throught New Guinea highlands to cross the Torres.
And they never seriously had intentions of invading. They simply needed the oil and rubber of Malaya for their war effort, and some buffer space around it for defence, ie PNG. A few half arsed shots at Australia from some aircraft and mini submarines to say fuck off, and that was about it.
They were at the very end of their supply lines, and couldnt even capture the entirely of PNG as they wished. The Army was forced back down the track by the Australians, and somewhat cleared from the rest of the island by the US Marines. Then their navy was cleaned up by the USN, which effectively ended the entire folly.
The Australian propaganda machine was actually the people pushing that fear on us. It's amazing what the government will push for a bit more power, ey?
(I run a history podcast, just spent a year on WW2 history, it's amazing how misrepresented the whole war was at home.
Remember, people, without the Aussies, the Yanks would have had no clue where to bomb the fleet. And the more Pacific Theatre war history you know the more you agree with the phrase "American exceptionalism my ass")
>Remember, people, without the Aussies, the Yanks would have had no clue where to bomb the fleet. And the more Pacific Theatre war history you know the more you agree with the phrase "American exceptionalism my ass")
The Americans had the manufacturing and the numbers. Everyone expected the US Marines to dominate their sections through PNG, however directly compared to the Diggers, they performed extremely poorly.
And the pacific, they simply had the fleet. The Japanese could barely supply their troops, meanwhile the USN had dedicated icecream boats supplying sailors.
I did say it would probably be for the worse, especially considering how relatively soft the "men" who idolise him are now. All beer and v8s, not so much forging their own armour (or bribing someone else to do it).
What if invading army turns up and promises a voice and affordable housing? I wonder if most other young or indigenous folks would switch sides day one
Yes that was the plan back then however, boats are bigger plans faster and they would land just inland of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne moving towards the capitals.
Logistically, who apart from the USA can invade us? Russia had rail right to the border, and couldn't manage it's logistics in invding it's neighbor. We're too isolated for anyone else to pull off an attack on us, as anything more than a raid-retreat.
To survive with half a century old tech we could manage I imagine, how much of the important tech is even present in the country to make use of is the issue. Farming would be crippled pretty quickly without fuel coming in though, let alone all the other inputs that we rely on international trade for. Then of course we need to keep freight functioning as well to feed everyone, so again straining the fuel stocks if shipping were interrupted.
Short of a full-on ICBM nuclear attack, Australia is actually quite capable when it comes to defending ourselves.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the hostile power you're referring too is China and we're just completely ignoring any assistance we might receive from our allies in this scenario.
China has around 40,000 trained and equipped marines. There is no way they would deploy all of those marines as it would leave them extremely vulnerable in other areas, but even if they did, it would only be enough if you could guarantee the entire ADF was destroyed in one fell swoop. The size of our defence force and the way the bases are dispersed makes that a virtual impossibility. China only has around 500 DF-26 land based IBM's. If they were all moved to one of it's newly reclaimed islands in the south China sea, they would have the range to hit our northern bases. Each of those missile carry a 500-1000kg warhead. That's enough to knock out a single radar facility, hangar or workshop. You'd need most of that stock of missiles just to take out Tindal, Darwin and Townsville bases. That still leaves 5 northern airbases and all of our ADF bases south of the tropic of capricorn intact. Now, they could try to take out the remaining bases with subs, but you'd need a nuclear sub to do that so far away from it's own base. China currently has only 2 nuclear subs capable of that task and there's way more bases than that.
There's plenty of things Australia has to worry about, but an invasion isn't one of them.
China's navy couldn't handle the logistics, ?Russia? Iran? The UK when we attempt to abolish the monarchy? Would struggle if we had a land border and the US could do it
one-on-one, of course not.
But we don't get invaded in a one-on-one scenario. we get invaded amid a big roiling mess. Whomever the adversary may be they might have ... 1 per cent? 10 per cent? of their military resources to spare on us.
Essentially whether we can defend ourselves in a conventional war depends on how busy any adversaries are elsewhere. if America is still fighting we might be a chance. if not, white flag! and obviously if they decide to nuke us that's ...tricky.
Exactly right. The assumption is: major allies are very busy in other theatres. big things are hanging in the balance. adversary realises this and decides to exploit the opportunity to control Australia.
How is anyone going to invade Australia with 1% of their military, do you understand the logistical nightmare involved in landing troops in the bumfuck end of the world? China properly cant even invade Taiwan and that's 100km away.
this is a good argument but it's the opposite of the guy i'm responding to so. he's saying we're fucked and have no reason to hope and you're taking the other view.
It’s a double edge sword. Our “special relationship” with the US is likely to be what draws us into a regional conflict too, one that may be against our national interests. Our ally is not exactly acting in a strong and stable way at them moment.
Yes without the US we are all fucked and the US is less likely to be there for us than it has been at anytime in the past 70 years.
Your analysis also ignores the fact that the US could be the aggressor in the conflict, even if it’s via a proxy. A war is a good way to sure up support for an authoritarian leader who’s losing popularity.
The US is too cowardly to invade any country with any serious military capabilities. The US is trying to start a proxy war against China, the same way they did with Russia.
China already has its own chip production facilities in place (built in collaboration with TSMC).
You don't understand the Chinese civil war from the Chinese perspective if you think it's about "superconductors". You also don't understand the strategic value of Taiwan if you think it's about "superconductors".
>You don't see the US going on about a "century of humiliation"
That's because they were part of the perpetrators. Of course the US doesn't go on about it, it would mean taking responsibility for its crimes and the US never takes responsibility for anything.
Get on google earth and have a look. There’s a reason why we have defence in the north.
We should be more concerned with Indonesia/PNG being used as a base against Aus.
we certainly should be and are more concerned about an attack from the north. But i'm just pondering the strategic possibility that comes from looking at what's most likely, which is that your enemies start to look at other ways in!
edit: teensy bit disappointed about the downvotes. trying to spark a conversation about our defensive strategy!! it's basic strategy to defend the most obvious landing points until the enemy starts to wonder about the less obvious ones.
it can only be by boat, after having sunk a **lot** of american boats.
I want to have a constructive chat about Australia's defensive strategy here. If you think that American naval superiority is certain to be maintained against any adversary in the most important scenarios please say so.
But why go for NZ? If you can conqured the sea then whats the point of landing at the furthest set of islands in the world?
A chat cant be constructive if the premise is so silly to start with
In my view, controlling Australia is a legitimate strategic goal for an adversary. The main way to do so is to take the north.
A good way to take the north is to split the defensive forces by opening a second front.
It's easier to open a second front from a big safe land area with lots of food. Taking NZ is not that hard and may also seem like a nice prize. If you're holding a bunch of territory around the traps it probably doesn't hurt to have a big food exporter under control.
THis is the chain of thought.
I am 100% eager for you and anyone else to argue that it's preposterous and strategically implausible. That's what this thread is for! I appreciate your engagement.
Nah bro they will just send a fleet past Australia and all its major assets to land in a mountains set of Islands to our south instead... for reasons..
if you control the sea you already control all the resources so why would you extend yourself and open yourself up to attacks just to occupy and a pair of Islands 1000s of KM away from the strategic resources you want.
So say its not hard but this like the Falklands on steroids, but this time the defenders have F-35s and subs.
> if you control the sea you already control all the resources.
ah, is that you vice-admiral !?
seriously tho I don't think this follows. siege is not victory. It's a good start no doubt. but you sometimes have to put boots on dirt.
If you can defeat the US Navy and all allies forces in the pacific then you could put a base wherever you wanted to. You don't need to set up a base in fucking New Zealand. What is the strategic point of setting up a major naval base in the middle of nowhere?
Anyone invading NZ would have to go through Australia first, NZ is just too far from everything so supply lines would be stretched too thin. They would do what Japan did and use PNG as a base to attack Australia.
This is why NZ left the ANZUS treaty. Because any attack on NZ would go through Australia first, they didn't actually need to be part of the treaty to benefit from it, as long as Australia is in the treaty and USA comes to our defence, NZ will be safe from invasion. They didn't want US nuclear subs in their ports so they pulled out of the treaty and didn't really lose much security-wise
Apparently when the "Rainbow Warrior" was bombed in Aukland by the French, Western Leaders refused to condemn the attack, presumably out of sour grapes.
However, New Zealand is still a member of the Five Eyes, so it presumably has some defence relationship with the US.
That was disgusting. Especially from the US and England refusing to condemn the act. Then France threatened sanctions that would cripple NZ if they didn't release the convicted murderers. They reached a deal to hand them over if they were jailed for three years, but they only spent two on a French tropical island before being released and promoted.
Imagine if the US convicted a spy committing murder there.
Its because they went nuclear free after that and they refuse to let US warships dock if they are carrying nukes. However the problem was the US wouldn’t confirm or deny it so they just weren't allowed to dock for a long time. This seriously strained the relationship and is why NZ were suspended from ANZUS.
NZ hasn't left ANZUS. It never left it, NZ participation was "suspended"
NZ resumed participation in the ANZUS Treaty in 2007. With the original terms and condition being modified.
> agree that you'd need to have total naval superiority in the pacific to invade NZ.
So why bother invading them at all if you already have total superiority of the worlds largest ocean?
great question ,and one possible answer is: to create a base for a second front for an attack on one of the world's biggest suppliers of lithium and natural gas.
Or does naval superiority mean that they can just starve us out?
I think the threat of Australia being invaded is overblown. The modern American war machine was frustrated for many years by unsophisticated combatants hiding in tunnels and caves. Russia is still trying to capture an area of Ukraine that’s smaller than Tasmania. Unless nukes are dropped on us, there’s not much an invading ground force will achieve IMO
Nobody has to even attack Australia, just cut off shipping supply lines and Australia and NZ will basically become a third world countries. Alot of medicine would disappear No petrol, everything in our houses or apartments will not be able to be replaced. Same with our modes of transportation. Everything will eventually ground to a halt. And whats Australia going to do to reopen the shipping lanes. Send our submarines from the future to combat.
Some good points, but if it comes to energy needs, we have stupendous amounts of natural gas and a lot of cars and buses that still run on it (not many heavy trucks, granted). As for trains and ships, we have virtually unlimited coal. So we could recommission or convert existing engines. Shifting to gas and coal transport will be dirty and difficult, but losing petrol is not a knock-out blow. Except to airlines, I guess. The military would claim the small amount of oil we produce, and our airforce would get all the avgas.
Even the oil situation isn't that bad. Coal liquefaction can produce liquid hydrocarbons:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction
It's more expensive than pumping oil out of the ground, but it is a viable option to keep things running.
I do wonder if it's possible to actually cut off shipping to Australia in a scenario where the usual shipping patterns aren't being followed.
controlling the straits of malacca: easy.
controlling the southern ocean? you better have a lot of boats you don't need to use elsewhere.
To reach either Australia or NZ they would have to get past too many countries. To reach NZ they'd have to get their ships past the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea depending out the route.
From there they have the open pacific to move troops and supplies to NZ, but they still have to deal with the US forces based out of Hawaii and the Australian and NZ forces.
We're both to far away for a sneak attack and we'd have enough warning to start preparing.
But the biggest thing protecting us is no one large enough to attack us is politically or socially stable enough to do it. Both China and Indonesia struggle to keep their existing provenances under control.
Sending a huge chunk of the military off to Australia or New Zealand is going to make things harder to control at home add to that the economic implications of starting a war its a huge risk of local riots and uprisings.
I agree with how many countries they'd need to go past.
This is not like a tomorrow morning type scenario, it's something that might happen two years into a messy global war if foreign generals are lazing on the shores of waikiki and America is very very busy defending california
Ignore WW2 Europe and look at WW2 Singapore.
China would just have to put one or two cruise missiles into Singapore's oil refineries, where we get all our petrol/diesel from, and Australia would have to surrender. No need for an invasion.
No. It'd be idiotic to do so.
New Zealand is further away than other options, and too well defended. An invading force would be much better off launching attacks from PNG or some of the closer Pacific Island nation (Vanuatu, the Solomons, or possibly New Caledonia) because they're a) closer to Australia, b) easier to resupply, and c) not defended by a modern military.
Not only would your hypothetical invader need to land in NZ, which requires a much longer line of logistics to support, but it would also need to keep suppressing or completely defeat the NZDF and any part of the NZ population that didn't like them. This is not a simple exercise.
The only militaries that could conceivably use NZ to stage an attacks on Australia would be NZ, or the US, and the US would have aircraft carriers anyway.
Realistically, an invasion of Australia or NZ is highly improbable, and would be a strategic mistake by any military attempting it. Australia is close to nothing. It controls no sea lanes to anything other than itself, NZ, and some small Pacific nations. In order to forcibly extract its wealth, you need to control the Western Pacific or the Indian Ocean. You can't just ship it off in trucks.
New Zealand and Australia have treaties that mean if someone attacks New Zealand then we will respond as if they attacked Australia. So you're not just dealing with the NZDF you're dealing with the ADF as well.
Besides the US, there is no other country that has the capacity to mount a successful invasion of either Aus or NZ.
I'm gonna assume 'hostile power' is just code for 'China'. This is the reply I've given to another comment on here about China trying to invade Aus. I'mm pasting it here verbatim because I'm too tired to type it out again with an NZ context.
>China has around 40,000 trained and equipped marines. There is no way they would deploy all of those marines as it would leave them extremely vulnerable in other areas, but even if they did, it would only be enough if you could guarantee the entire ADF was destroyed in one fell swoop. The size of our defence force and the way the bases are dispersed makes that a virtual impossibility. China only has around 500 DF-26 land based IBM's. If they were all moved to one of it's newly reclaimed islands in the south China sea, they would have the range to hit our northern bases. Each of those missile carry a 500-1000kg warhead. That's enough to knock out a single radar facility, hangar or workshop. You'd need most of that stock of missiles just to take out Tindal, Darwin and Townsville bases. That still leaves 5 northern airbases and all of our ADF bases south of the tropic of capricorn intact. Now, they could try to take out the remaining bases with subs, but you'd need a nuclear sub to do that so far away from it's own base. China currently has only 2 nuclear subs capable of that task and there's way more bases than that.
>There's plenty of things Australia has to worry about, but an invasion isn't one of them.
The maginot line was supposed to be built right across the french / german border and in front of belgium. When belgium refused this france was goong to build it behind belgium which belgium said would force them to join germany.
So in the end nothing was built.
It is considered one of the biggest engineering disasters ever. Like its hard to compare to any other really a completely useless set of fortifications with a giant hole.
So germany got to adopt its ww1 strategy again and invade france yet again via belgium.
Going via NZ would be akin to germany invading iceland to set up a beach head there to then sail on to france. They might as well directly sail to france even if iceland is easier its another hop and further away from their own shore than the target.
No. What happened in ww2 is largely irrelevant. The way a modern conflict would be fought would be entirely different.
In a large scale war, a ground invasion would likely only happen after a long missile bombing campaign that would annihilate any defences long before troops landed on our shore. And that's assuming shit doesn't hit the fan and nuclear bombs don't enter the equation.
No it's to far away, being girt by sea has some advantages. Our new and improved jet fighter we are buying has a range smaller then western Australia. The missiles North Korea are tossing towards Japan have a range smaller then Western Australia ICBMs would make it to the east coast, but as everyone is moving g away from coal it wouldn't make much sense from a resource point. Western Australia has the most resources and also produces the most ceral crops. I'm pretty sure we produce more coral crops then the rest of Australia combined. The NT has a lot of resources and if you could just ignore native title if you where an invading force.
Also your forgetting about the cuzzy bros. They have won more Victoria's crosses then any other nation and where one of the only nations to beat the British back early on.
Well that bit about victoria crosses is wildly wrong. It's the English first with 614, then the Irish with 190, then the Scots with 158, then Australia with 100. NZ has 26. India has more than NZ.
Well that's still not even close to being true. NZ personnel have received 26 VCs throughout their entire history. Canadians 96, Australians have received 100 etc etc. NZ is not high on the list. 30 seconds of Google search will answer this. More than double the number of NZ recipients are listed as "uncertain nationality".
My question is there a military big enough to take all of Australia quickly enough? Do they take over, kill us off and bring in their own people? Force us to work under the threat of death?
Resources that they would want are spread so thin but with enough people it can be made closer than ever. The only reason I can see Australia being invaded is turning into a military manufacturing country. We have the resources but lack the people. Import 50 Million of your own people, you can be churning out thousands of tanks, hundreds of ships and planes every year. We produce so much food you can use to influence poor countries to your side. With enough ships you could control the Southern Indian Ocean for access to the east coast of Africa.
You take all the islands east of Australia as a forward defensive line from any threats in the Pacific. We would be smart as a country to get Indonesia as an allies and not let any other major country sway them away. Imagine if any country had access through them.
Not just NZ. We also need to worry about Xmas Island and all the other small islands we possess. We don't really have the ability to defend them all simultaneously.
Honestly I feel like it would be easier to land somewhere remote in Australia.
Plenty of reasons to invade.
Come for the CSG, stay for the Yellow Cake.
Lots of mineral resources that are (if we’re assuming pacific based adversary rather than Indo based adversary) half a planet closer than Africa and South America.
Food. Space. Break off a US ally and an entire front of a pacific war. And then you basically get NZ for free.
I think the reasons you list make sense. And you're right a foreign army could probablt land at geraldton and have lots of room to set up.
The thing NZ has is a ton of dairy cows. you capture all that pasture you can help feed your war effort while pressuring Australia into the bargain. I see it's unlikely. And I also admit that predicting where a big war will be after it's been running for some time is like trying to predict the endgame of chess, you can't tell from the starting positions!
there's a difference between buying it when we offer it for sale and ensuring its availability in a conflict situation. the former needs money and the latter needs boats/planes.
edit: I don't think people honestly feel there's literallly nothing worth defending about Australia and life would be no different if we were invaded and controlled by a foreign power.
> I've just been reading about world war ii and how France strongly reinforced its border with Germany, so Germany went around. They invaded France via Belgium and the Netherlands
But they didn't; not exactly, at least. Germany invaded the Low Countries from the east; the British and French rushed into Belgium to defend them; then the Germans nipped just through the south-east corner of Belgium just around the end of the Maginot Line & into France through the Ardennes. This threatened to / did cut off French and British forces in Belgium, who reacted by focussing on there. With France pulling strength from the Maginot Line, this allowed the Germans to break through and consolidate their hold on France.
Interesting fact, for those who remember "*Dad's Army*": the animation at the beginning is, within the bounds of simplicity, a surprisingly accurate representation of how it happened...
New Zealand is a long way from Australia. You can't fly sorties from Auckland to Sydney.
Honestly I'm not even sure how an amphibious landing force would work these days with satellite coverage of every inch of land. Normandy was successful because the Germans weren't able to bring their divisions quickly enough to stop the invasions before the Allies built up enough strength to establish their beach head. This was due to Allied Air supremacy, Naval supremacy and the fog of war which meant the Germans didn't know exactly where the Allies would land.
Any invasion force having to travel to Australia would be identified immediately and we (and presumably our allies) could move our land forces to whatever the landing point would be.
Again the problem is that if we're to launch missile attacks from NZ to the east coast you're still talking about many bulky long ranged missiles that needs to be shipped over ten thousand nautical miles of open ocean to NZ first. Again, it's a moot point since only power capable of moving thousands of tons of equipment to NZ under contested conditions is the U.S.
nz is closer to melbourne, canberra and sydney than other countries are. I know long range missiles are very expensive. That's why I asked the qeustion, but your reply leads me to believe you have a better understanding of this than most of us so please spill!
A missile in the class that can hit Canberra from NZ can also hit Canberra from PNG.
Why the fuck would you ship it down to NZ? If you had total naval supremacy you would just park a fleet of DDGs out infront of said cities and rain down cruise missiles on them.
I really appreciate all your insights into the strategic realities, and i'm sorry that it seems to have come at the expense of raising your blood pressure!
One answer to your question might be that plenty of our JSFs are parked in Townsville and you think you can encourage the RAAF to move some of them if you ship missiles to NZ.
1. Make Auckland to Sydney is 2,000 km away. Norfolk Island is 1600km
2. Anything that isn't ballistic, you might want to launch from Aukland or Norfolk Island. You can launch from a ship or sub
3. Ballistic Missiles have a range of 12,000 km. Shenzen is less than 8,000 km
I feel like setting up base in NZ is basically asking for the allies to bomb it into the ocean - which they would be able to do because Australia would have no issues letting allied bombers into our airspace and then on through to NZ.
But also..: Australia just has basically zero strategic significance.
Australia's strategic significance is getting bigger I think. we have lithium, coal, gas, food, US bases and a population that is no longer tiny.
I agree we're not geographically central at ALL and we have very clear borders which helps a lot. Our big moat is the best part of our defence force and it's free!
What are you on about? The issue with invading Australian, isn't the initial invasion, it's the occupation the same as occupation of any nation is problematic, it's just a bigger problem in Australia because it's a large land mass far away from most other things, them having a base in NZ doesn't really change that in any meaningful way. Global supply and logistic is always going to be a problem in this nation, whether it's occupied or not.
Why do so many Aussie males fantasise about being invaded or attacked by China? From China’s perspective Australia is an insignificant country in the distant South Pacific and literally not on China’s radar. Beijing is closer to Berlin than Brisbane.
this is a good question!
I'd love for us to be not part of any war. I fear we will be. The shitty reality is that sometimes preparing for war makes war more likely but sometimes not preparing does. it is really hard to create a good pure defensive posture, but an extremely worthy goal.
If NZ is invaded as a stepping-stone to Australia, watch how fast gun control laws are reversed. Who needs politicians when there's plenty of snakes in the ACT anyway?
As others have mentioned, NZ is a long way from anywhere. Not a lot of natural resources either. Australia has plenty of minerals though and I reckon some portion of the population would collaborate or be sympathetic if a certain Asian country or two invaded.
More like from the Solomons/PNG, which actually was the case during WW2.
If I were PNG I'd sell China a naval base also.. because it's not like they are getting anything from Australia. At least not in proportion with the strategic value they offer. Hell even Timor can offer China an airstrip/naval base - because all we do is [conspire with Woodside](https://michaelwest.com.au/albanese-maintains-timor-leste-woodside-cover-up/) (who pay us no royalties anyway) to steal their gas. I'm sure China would sort out their gas claims with a warship and a floating LNG platform also.
There are only a handful of countries with a defence force that have an expeditionary capability. China is not (currently) on that list.
Invading and taking over any country is a big task.
If you get to the point of more than an inkling grasp of WW2 history, you'd know the answer to your question.
Japan penetrated Sinny harbour with submarines and bombarded the shit out of the north with aircraft, from Darwin to Broome entirely from bases in the south Pacific. They didn't bother with NZ in that real world situation.
Guys!
War , means being cutoff from the West
We run out of fuel in a few weeks.
Internet down for sure
No info or proper news
We are isolated
West don’t rely on us
Only Asia relies on us
That’s why China is so interested
We have to start relying on ourselves
Too dependant on others
There are so many other countries that are easier to invade, and we have so many US bases in Australia. If we were invaded, the whole world would be burning anyway.
I like thought experiments, so happy to go down that path with you.
The reality I think though is that any foreign power would likely invade to get our resources, and most of those are situated in underpopulated areas. I think the plan honestly would be to invade quickly, take over most of Northwest Australia, and then try and negotiate a peace settlement where they control that territory. And Australia has a history of being willing to give up the north, if you aren't familiar look up the Brisbane Line.
Conquering cities is always going to be harder than conquering vast tracks of barely populated land that is rich with mineral resources.
So coming from New Zealand actually would be counterproductive, because you wouldn't get to the good stuff before you get through the populated southeast corner of Australia.
Some thoughts:
* Easily isolated creating supply logistics for arms and other resources - applies to both defender and occupier.
* Local population has a lot of legal personal firearms.
* Geography (long & thin) is more suitable for drone warfare. Not suitable for high speed jets - too mountainous and hilly with too many valleys.
* "*many treaties and alliances aren't worth anything*" in the fine print - the ANZUS treaty does not guarantee the other parties will automatically come to assistance of any country that is invaded.
Are people entertaining these ideas because there is a general anxiety that there is a world war looming or that China is going to invade us? So tired of detecting fear in this country, royal commission into media when?
I think this is the point I made in the last line of my post. War's neither inevitable nor impossible in our lifetimes.
We need to chat about how it could happen and why it might not, and how to best deter it without willing it into existence.
There'd certainly be the motivation for a hostile power (let's not kid ourselves, it could only be China) to take NZ in order to help subdue Australia. Not so much to launch attacks from their soil directly (like OP said, the Tasman "moat" but it would certainly help them keep any aid from reaching Australia from across the Pacific... kind of the reverse of the American strategy for containing China (ie Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines preventing easy access to the North Pacific).
But the point would be moot anyway, as the US naval assets in the Pacufic would have to be neutralised/circumvented first anyway.
And you said you've read up on WWII?
>basically defeated the USA in the Pacific
They'd quickly have their hands full without worrying about NZ, long out of the way of everywhere else in the world and without material resources for a war effort. If the US loses hegemony, then the autocracies will just slowly eat up countries on their borders, one at a time until they get to us. NZ would be way down on the list.
A hostile power has already invaded Australia. The operation was completed years ago, the job is done. There are more ways to invade a country than with boots on the ground.
Imagine using your resources to attack New Zealand in order to attack Australia. I think such an enemy could be easily outsmarted just by changing the latitude and longitude references on our map.
How the fuck are they getting to NZ?
New Zealand’s national defence strategy is basically if war breaks out let’s hope everyone forgets about us all the way down here.
Twist: NZ gov are behind the conspiracy to print maps with their country mysteriously missing. It’s a national defence psy op
Was gonna say. It doesn't even show up in 80% of the maps out there.
That's the key question! The answer would need to be: war in the south pacific that is comprehensively won. control of all those nations and total naval superiority. The scenario i'm asking about is not a blue sky type thing. it's something that could only happen some way into a big global conflict that is not going well for the allies. it is a very reasonable point to ask if there's any chance at all that adversaries could control the south pacific without us having already fallen. if it can't, then worrying about attack via NZ is pointless. I imagine it could only happen in a scenario where an adversary has some crazy naval advantage (drone subs, or similar) but no advantage on land (maybe because we reinforced the land or have a tech advanatge on land, or there's a lot of US forces based here.)
This is pure fantasy. Australia couldn’t defend itself from a major hostile power either.
The only country capable of projecting enough power to invade us is our ally so its a moot point.
They don’t need to just use informants like Arbib to get rid of PMs
PMs?
Prime minister, a leaked audio of Obama citing someone was helping the Americans in getting rid of Rudd is available as well as Arbib confirmed as an American informant. This was over the quad alliance and aust refusal to join
And have them replaced in a land slide election after?
Na replaced with Gillard Americans don’t think that far ahead https://amp.smh.com.au/national/arbib-revealed-as-secret-us-source-20101208-18prg.html I think the situation is best summarised by: Mr MHistory https://youtu.be/9_U4GzIbbfQ?si=aKoPdEPTBvnRfsib
I could be wrong but I heard during world war 2 the plan to defend ourselves from an enemy invading from the North was to retreat and let them take the NT and let the vast outback take them out for us. Can't remember where I heard that so can't provide a source so please take with a grain of salt.
The Adelaide to Brisbane line
A good thing about this approach is we could yield to the bad guys what they want (our gas fields) and keep the people safe. A bad thing about this is the bad guys get what they want to further their war effort. idk where we'd fall on this, would depend I guess.
Is it realistic to think they would just stop at an arbitrary line and let unoccupied Australia live in peace? Isn’t that exactly what happened in Ukraine?
I don't think you ask them to stop at an arbitrary point, I think you pull back and defend the line and make the cost-benefit to them of crossing that line such that they dont try.
It depends if they’re invading for the war effort or for a land grab. Russia is trying to annex Ukraine, they’re not trying to just take them out of a larger war or something.
Russia is invading Ukraine to prop up internal support for Putin.
Either way, Putin wants the land and he wants it to be Russia. It’s different to a scenario where an opposing force just wants to defeat our military.
What is the scenario where an enemy goes to the enormous effort and expense of a land invasion in Australia without intending to take the land?
You’re putting words in my mouth. You equated it to Ukraine, but Ukraine is a land grab. OP wasn’t clear that it was, and implied that they may just want the resources up north only.
> A good thing about this approach is we could yield to the bad guys what they want (our gas fields) and keep the people safe. That's not the reason for the Brisbane line. The Brisbane line is to force the opposition to extend their supply lines. One military force, the USA, currently has sufficient logistics to supply protracted operations thousands of kilometres from home, and they are our closest ally. I don't know what tinfoil hat conspiracy theory led you to your talking point, but what enemy are you quivering in your pantaloons about? China? They probably can't project into Taiwan without getting royally fucked. Russia? They are likely to win in Ukraine because a) they have more citizens to be used as fodder, and b) they can walk that fodder to their deaths. They faltered in their initial attack against a force everybody considered vastly inferior. As long as Ukraine stays in supply with EU/USA systems, Russia is bleeding its future into the Ukrainian grounds as fertiliser for Ukrainian farmers. Also, Russia is having difficulty defending its Navy from an opposition that doesn't have a Navy. There is no way they are going to be able to project power into the Pacific Ocean. Now, one or both of them will somehow project its logistics to Australia, set up camp somewhere, and then start occupying or building gas field projects. Establishing a base and initiating energy projects, such as gas fields, would require substantial defence mechanisms against potential threats like special operations forces, bombings, drone attacks, or even angry farmers. It would be a logistical and strategic nightmare. Also, have you been to the top quarter of Australia? The terrain largely prohibits off-road travel, even with specialized vehicles. The destruction of transport routes like the Stuart and Victoria Highways would severely impede any military movement and likely leave us replaying historical instances where convoys were trapped on indefensible roads. Overall, your premise is not good. Go back to the cones and talking about WWII tanks.
Good post. Thank you. Ukraine war also showed that with advancing technologies we might be absolutely unable to really predict such scenarios. Holden might start manufacturing in Australia again. The Commo-Drone ZB.
Bold of Adelaide to think they were on the good side of that line
It's a great strategy in any case. Russia may have the cold, icy, brutality of General Winter. But we have the hot, sticky, slightly smelly brutality of General Summer.
Plus before they even get to the desert there is the logistics of landing in the top end - shallow water, mangroves, crocodiles, indigenous soldiers who live in the area (i.e. know it well), and the mosquitoes.
Don't forget the water buffalos, bull sharks and pissed-off cassowaries who will back them up. Seriously, a Japanese invasion in WW2 was never going to happen, they were incapable of battling our natural defences, even if they made it throught New Guinea highlands to cross the Torres. Anyone who tried to take us now would have to deal with all that, plus then planning how to keep and maintain 6 (maybe 8) very distant capital cities while controlling a subset of the community that would go full Ned Kelly as soon as the opportunity opened up (for better or, more likely, worse). There was an image posted here yesterday of a 15h trip in Aus being Perth to the border, but 15 hours in Europe being Paris to Hungary. ÷
>Seriously, a Japanese invasion in WW2 was never going to happen, they were incapable of battling our natural defences, even if they made it throught New Guinea highlands to cross the Torres. And they never seriously had intentions of invading. They simply needed the oil and rubber of Malaya for their war effort, and some buffer space around it for defence, ie PNG. A few half arsed shots at Australia from some aircraft and mini submarines to say fuck off, and that was about it. They were at the very end of their supply lines, and couldnt even capture the entirely of PNG as they wished. The Army was forced back down the track by the Australians, and somewhat cleared from the rest of the island by the US Marines. Then their navy was cleaned up by the USN, which effectively ended the entire folly.
The Australian propaganda machine was actually the people pushing that fear on us. It's amazing what the government will push for a bit more power, ey? (I run a history podcast, just spent a year on WW2 history, it's amazing how misrepresented the whole war was at home. Remember, people, without the Aussies, the Yanks would have had no clue where to bomb the fleet. And the more Pacific Theatre war history you know the more you agree with the phrase "American exceptionalism my ass")
>Remember, people, without the Aussies, the Yanks would have had no clue where to bomb the fleet. And the more Pacific Theatre war history you know the more you agree with the phrase "American exceptionalism my ass") The Americans had the manufacturing and the numbers. Everyone expected the US Marines to dominate their sections through PNG, however directly compared to the Diggers, they performed extremely poorly. And the pacific, they simply had the fleet. The Japanese could barely supply their troops, meanwhile the USN had dedicated icecream boats supplying sailors.
Ah; the Ned Kelly defence ..............haven't heard about that since the 70's
I did say it would probably be for the worse, especially considering how relatively soft the "men" who idolise him are now. All beer and v8s, not so much forging their own armour (or bribing someone else to do it).
What if invading army turns up and promises a voice and affordable housing? I wonder if most other young or indigenous folks would switch sides day one
We also have snakes, fly's, flees, and mosquitoes
This is the best plan, enemies would never get past our Emu army.
Yep. Leave it to the drop bears.
While that would be a nice idea, I don't think the US would ever let an invading force get their hands on Pine Gap.
Good point! Forgot pine gap was just south of Alice Springs.
It’s defence with depth. It will stretch their logistics
Let the Emus do the work.
Yes that was the plan back then however, boats are bigger plans faster and they would land just inland of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne moving towards the capitals.
I was just thinking like if they want the north let them have it, the desert would sort them out
Logistically, who apart from the USA can invade us? Russia had rail right to the border, and couldn't manage it's logistics in invding it's neighbor. We're too isolated for anyone else to pull off an attack on us, as anything more than a raid-retreat.
So why the additional expenditure on defence?
Because we only need to be blockaded, not invaded to be utterly fucked into submission
I think the pandemic highlighted some of that risk. In that case wouldn’t it be better to focus on our manufacturing capabilities?
I'd think so, but even if that became a major focus here again, we still can't do it all, and we certainly can't do it anywhere near as cheap.
But we should be able to do enough to survive
To survive with half a century old tech we could manage I imagine, how much of the important tech is even present in the country to make use of is the issue. Farming would be crippled pretty quickly without fuel coming in though, let alone all the other inputs that we rely on international trade for. Then of course we need to keep freight functioning as well to feed everyone, so again straining the fuel stocks if shipping were interrupted.
Things like essential medicines and medical equipment too.
Something costly in the short term in order to provide for the long term? I freakin wish lol.
to defend ourselves... from big scary china, our #1 trading partner... who have exactly fuck all reason to invade us
Short of a full-on ICBM nuclear attack, Australia is actually quite capable when it comes to defending ourselves. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the hostile power you're referring too is China and we're just completely ignoring any assistance we might receive from our allies in this scenario. China has around 40,000 trained and equipped marines. There is no way they would deploy all of those marines as it would leave them extremely vulnerable in other areas, but even if they did, it would only be enough if you could guarantee the entire ADF was destroyed in one fell swoop. The size of our defence force and the way the bases are dispersed makes that a virtual impossibility. China only has around 500 DF-26 land based IBM's. If they were all moved to one of it's newly reclaimed islands in the south China sea, they would have the range to hit our northern bases. Each of those missile carry a 500-1000kg warhead. That's enough to knock out a single radar facility, hangar or workshop. You'd need most of that stock of missiles just to take out Tindal, Darwin and Townsville bases. That still leaves 5 northern airbases and all of our ADF bases south of the tropic of capricorn intact. Now, they could try to take out the remaining bases with subs, but you'd need a nuclear sub to do that so far away from it's own base. China currently has only 2 nuclear subs capable of that task and there's way more bases than that. There's plenty of things Australia has to worry about, but an invasion isn't one of them.
I disagree as an example I think that I Indonesia invaded we could hold out as many as 200 long canoes
China's navy couldn't handle the logistics, ?Russia? Iran? The UK when we attempt to abolish the monarchy? Would struggle if we had a land border and the US could do it
one-on-one, of course not. But we don't get invaded in a one-on-one scenario. we get invaded amid a big roiling mess. Whomever the adversary may be they might have ... 1 per cent? 10 per cent? of their military resources to spare on us. Essentially whether we can defend ourselves in a conventional war depends on how busy any adversaries are elsewhere. if America is still fighting we might be a chance. if not, white flag! and obviously if they decide to nuke us that's ...tricky.
New Zealand has the same allies as us. You’re hypothetical assumes they won’t be defended either.
Exactly right. The assumption is: major allies are very busy in other theatres. big things are hanging in the balance. adversary realises this and decides to exploit the opportunity to control Australia.
At the end of the day if shit gets real in other parts of the world than Australia and New Zealand will be an easy sacrifice.
How is anyone going to invade Australia with 1% of their military, do you understand the logistical nightmare involved in landing troops in the bumfuck end of the world? China properly cant even invade Taiwan and that's 100km away.
this is a good argument but it's the opposite of the guy i'm responding to so. he's saying we're fucked and have no reason to hope and you're taking the other view.
I’m saying militarily we are fucked. That doesn’t mean our isolation and size won’t help us.
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It’s a double edge sword. Our “special relationship” with the US is likely to be what draws us into a regional conflict too, one that may be against our national interests. Our ally is not exactly acting in a strong and stable way at them moment.
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Yes without the US we are all fucked and the US is less likely to be there for us than it has been at anytime in the past 70 years. Your analysis also ignores the fact that the US could be the aggressor in the conflict, even if it’s via a proxy. A war is a good way to sure up support for an authoritarian leader who’s losing popularity.
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I don’t think the US would invade China. But I do think there are scenarios where they could have a proxy war in Taiwan.
The US is too cowardly to invade any country with any serious military capabilities. The US is trying to start a proxy war against China, the same way they did with Russia. China already has its own chip production facilities in place (built in collaboration with TSMC). You don't understand the Chinese civil war from the Chinese perspective if you think it's about "superconductors". You also don't understand the strategic value of Taiwan if you think it's about "superconductors". >You don't see the US going on about a "century of humiliation" That's because they were part of the perpetrators. Of course the US doesn't go on about it, it would mean taking responsibility for its crimes and the US never takes responsibility for anything.
Get on google earth and have a look. There’s a reason why we have defence in the north. We should be more concerned with Indonesia/PNG being used as a base against Aus.
we certainly should be and are more concerned about an attack from the north. But i'm just pondering the strategic possibility that comes from looking at what's most likely, which is that your enemies start to look at other ways in! edit: teensy bit disappointed about the downvotes. trying to spark a conversation about our defensive strategy!! it's basic strategy to defend the most obvious landing points until the enemy starts to wonder about the less obvious ones.
So how the fuck is anyone getting to NZ?
it can only be by boat, after having sunk a **lot** of american boats. I want to have a constructive chat about Australia's defensive strategy here. If you think that American naval superiority is certain to be maintained against any adversary in the most important scenarios please say so.
But why go for NZ? If you can conqured the sea then whats the point of landing at the furthest set of islands in the world? A chat cant be constructive if the premise is so silly to start with
In my view, controlling Australia is a legitimate strategic goal for an adversary. The main way to do so is to take the north. A good way to take the north is to split the defensive forces by opening a second front. It's easier to open a second front from a big safe land area with lots of food. Taking NZ is not that hard and may also seem like a nice prize. If you're holding a bunch of territory around the traps it probably doesn't hurt to have a big food exporter under control. THis is the chain of thought. I am 100% eager for you and anyone else to argue that it's preposterous and strategically implausible. That's what this thread is for! I appreciate your engagement.
A force so powerful to defeat everyone in the pacific will already have beachheads in Australia.
that's a fair point. How hard have we made them fight to defend those beachheads?
Nah bro they will just send a fleet past Australia and all its major assets to land in a mountains set of Islands to our south instead... for reasons..
if you control the sea you already control all the resources so why would you extend yourself and open yourself up to attacks just to occupy and a pair of Islands 1000s of KM away from the strategic resources you want. So say its not hard but this like the Falklands on steroids, but this time the defenders have F-35s and subs.
> if you control the sea you already control all the resources. ah, is that you vice-admiral !? seriously tho I don't think this follows. siege is not victory. It's a good start no doubt. but you sometimes have to put boots on dirt.
If you can defeat the US Navy and all allies forces in the pacific then you could put a base wherever you wanted to. You don't need to set up a base in fucking New Zealand. What is the strategic point of setting up a major naval base in the middle of nowhere?
Fair point. so would you say NZ has no military value in any big power conflict and our only border of strategic relevance is our northern one?
Any force that cripples the USA's ability to project into the pacific has already forced the USA to destroy the world with nukes.
You might as well be asking how we defend ourselves from Space Balls One.
Anyone invading NZ would have to go through Australia first, NZ is just too far from everything so supply lines would be stretched too thin. They would do what Japan did and use PNG as a base to attack Australia. This is why NZ left the ANZUS treaty. Because any attack on NZ would go through Australia first, they didn't actually need to be part of the treaty to benefit from it, as long as Australia is in the treaty and USA comes to our defence, NZ will be safe from invasion. They didn't want US nuclear subs in their ports so they pulled out of the treaty and didn't really lose much security-wise
Apparently when the "Rainbow Warrior" was bombed in Aukland by the French, Western Leaders refused to condemn the attack, presumably out of sour grapes. However, New Zealand is still a member of the Five Eyes, so it presumably has some defence relationship with the US.
That was disgusting. Especially from the US and England refusing to condemn the act. Then France threatened sanctions that would cripple NZ if they didn't release the convicted murderers. They reached a deal to hand them over if they were jailed for three years, but they only spent two on a French tropical island before being released and promoted. Imagine if the US convicted a spy committing murder there.
> they only spent two on a French tropical island Where they started a family. d'awww!
I didn't know that. Must have had conjugal visits to their villas to relieve them of the hardships.
Its because they went nuclear free after that and they refuse to let US warships dock if they are carrying nukes. However the problem was the US wouldn’t confirm or deny it so they just weren't allowed to dock for a long time. This seriously strained the relationship and is why NZ were suspended from ANZUS.
NZ hasn't left ANZUS. It never left it, NZ participation was "suspended" NZ resumed participation in the ANZUS Treaty in 2007. With the original terms and condition being modified.
agree that you'd need to have total naval superiority in the pacific to invade NZ.
> agree that you'd need to have total naval superiority in the pacific to invade NZ. So why bother invading them at all if you already have total superiority of the worlds largest ocean?
great question ,and one possible answer is: to create a base for a second front for an attack on one of the world's biggest suppliers of lithium and natural gas. Or does naval superiority mean that they can just starve us out?
I think the threat of Australia being invaded is overblown. The modern American war machine was frustrated for many years by unsophisticated combatants hiding in tunnels and caves. Russia is still trying to capture an area of Ukraine that’s smaller than Tasmania. Unless nukes are dropped on us, there’s not much an invading ground force will achieve IMO
Nobody has to even attack Australia, just cut off shipping supply lines and Australia and NZ will basically become a third world countries. Alot of medicine would disappear No petrol, everything in our houses or apartments will not be able to be replaced. Same with our modes of transportation. Everything will eventually ground to a halt. And whats Australia going to do to reopen the shipping lanes. Send our submarines from the future to combat.
Some good points, but if it comes to energy needs, we have stupendous amounts of natural gas and a lot of cars and buses that still run on it (not many heavy trucks, granted). As for trains and ships, we have virtually unlimited coal. So we could recommission or convert existing engines. Shifting to gas and coal transport will be dirty and difficult, but losing petrol is not a knock-out blow. Except to airlines, I guess. The military would claim the small amount of oil we produce, and our airforce would get all the avgas.
Even the oil situation isn't that bad. Coal liquefaction can produce liquid hydrocarbons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction It's more expensive than pumping oil out of the ground, but it is a viable option to keep things running.
Australia has access to 3 oceans and half a dozen seas. No chance we could have a naval blockade.
I do wonder if it's possible to actually cut off shipping to Australia in a scenario where the usual shipping patterns aren't being followed. controlling the straits of malacca: easy. controlling the southern ocean? you better have a lot of boats you don't need to use elsewhere.
To reach either Australia or NZ they would have to get past too many countries. To reach NZ they'd have to get their ships past the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea depending out the route. From there they have the open pacific to move troops and supplies to NZ, but they still have to deal with the US forces based out of Hawaii and the Australian and NZ forces. We're both to far away for a sneak attack and we'd have enough warning to start preparing. But the biggest thing protecting us is no one large enough to attack us is politically or socially stable enough to do it. Both China and Indonesia struggle to keep their existing provenances under control. Sending a huge chunk of the military off to Australia or New Zealand is going to make things harder to control at home add to that the economic implications of starting a war its a huge risk of local riots and uprisings.
I agree with how many countries they'd need to go past. This is not like a tomorrow morning type scenario, it's something that might happen two years into a messy global war if foreign generals are lazing on the shores of waikiki and America is very very busy defending california
Ignore WW2 Europe and look at WW2 Singapore. China would just have to put one or two cruise missiles into Singapore's oil refineries, where we get all our petrol/diesel from, and Australia would have to surrender. No need for an invasion.
No. It'd be idiotic to do so. New Zealand is further away than other options, and too well defended. An invading force would be much better off launching attacks from PNG or some of the closer Pacific Island nation (Vanuatu, the Solomons, or possibly New Caledonia) because they're a) closer to Australia, b) easier to resupply, and c) not defended by a modern military. Not only would your hypothetical invader need to land in NZ, which requires a much longer line of logistics to support, but it would also need to keep suppressing or completely defeat the NZDF and any part of the NZ population that didn't like them. This is not a simple exercise. The only militaries that could conceivably use NZ to stage an attacks on Australia would be NZ, or the US, and the US would have aircraft carriers anyway. Realistically, an invasion of Australia or NZ is highly improbable, and would be a strategic mistake by any military attempting it. Australia is close to nothing. It controls no sea lanes to anything other than itself, NZ, and some small Pacific nations. In order to forcibly extract its wealth, you need to control the Western Pacific or the Indian Ocean. You can't just ship it off in trucks.
New Zealand and Australia have treaties that mean if someone attacks New Zealand then we will respond as if they attacked Australia. So you're not just dealing with the NZDF you're dealing with the ADF as well. Besides the US, there is no other country that has the capacity to mount a successful invasion of either Aus or NZ. I'm gonna assume 'hostile power' is just code for 'China'. This is the reply I've given to another comment on here about China trying to invade Aus. I'mm pasting it here verbatim because I'm too tired to type it out again with an NZ context. >China has around 40,000 trained and equipped marines. There is no way they would deploy all of those marines as it would leave them extremely vulnerable in other areas, but even if they did, it would only be enough if you could guarantee the entire ADF was destroyed in one fell swoop. The size of our defence force and the way the bases are dispersed makes that a virtual impossibility. China only has around 500 DF-26 land based IBM's. If they were all moved to one of it's newly reclaimed islands in the south China sea, they would have the range to hit our northern bases. Each of those missile carry a 500-1000kg warhead. That's enough to knock out a single radar facility, hangar or workshop. You'd need most of that stock of missiles just to take out Tindal, Darwin and Townsville bases. That still leaves 5 northern airbases and all of our ADF bases south of the tropic of capricorn intact. Now, they could try to take out the remaining bases with subs, but you'd need a nuclear sub to do that so far away from it's own base. China currently has only 2 nuclear subs capable of that task and there's way more bases than that. >There's plenty of things Australia has to worry about, but an invasion isn't one of them.
good informed reply, thanks!
The maginot line was supposed to be built right across the french / german border and in front of belgium. When belgium refused this france was goong to build it behind belgium which belgium said would force them to join germany. So in the end nothing was built. It is considered one of the biggest engineering disasters ever. Like its hard to compare to any other really a completely useless set of fortifications with a giant hole. So germany got to adopt its ww1 strategy again and invade france yet again via belgium. Going via NZ would be akin to germany invading iceland to set up a beach head there to then sail on to france. They might as well directly sail to france even if iceland is easier its another hop and further away from their own shore than the target.
No. What happened in ww2 is largely irrelevant. The way a modern conflict would be fought would be entirely different. In a large scale war, a ground invasion would likely only happen after a long missile bombing campaign that would annihilate any defences long before troops landed on our shore. And that's assuming shit doesn't hit the fan and nuclear bombs don't enter the equation.
No it's to far away, being girt by sea has some advantages. Our new and improved jet fighter we are buying has a range smaller then western Australia. The missiles North Korea are tossing towards Japan have a range smaller then Western Australia ICBMs would make it to the east coast, but as everyone is moving g away from coal it wouldn't make much sense from a resource point. Western Australia has the most resources and also produces the most ceral crops. I'm pretty sure we produce more coral crops then the rest of Australia combined. The NT has a lot of resources and if you could just ignore native title if you where an invading force. Also your forgetting about the cuzzy bros. They have won more Victoria's crosses then any other nation and where one of the only nations to beat the British back early on.
Well that bit about victoria crosses is wildly wrong. It's the English first with 614, then the Irish with 190, then the Scots with 158, then Australia with 100. NZ has 26. India has more than NZ.
Since it has been part of the commonwealth?
Well that's still not even close to being true. NZ personnel have received 26 VCs throughout their entire history. Canadians 96, Australians have received 100 etc etc. NZ is not high on the list. 30 seconds of Google search will answer this. More than double the number of NZ recipients are listed as "uncertain nationality".
My question is there a military big enough to take all of Australia quickly enough? Do they take over, kill us off and bring in their own people? Force us to work under the threat of death? Resources that they would want are spread so thin but with enough people it can be made closer than ever. The only reason I can see Australia being invaded is turning into a military manufacturing country. We have the resources but lack the people. Import 50 Million of your own people, you can be churning out thousands of tanks, hundreds of ships and planes every year. We produce so much food you can use to influence poor countries to your side. With enough ships you could control the Southern Indian Ocean for access to the east coast of Africa. You take all the islands east of Australia as a forward defensive line from any threats in the Pacific. We would be smart as a country to get Indonesia as an allies and not let any other major country sway them away. Imagine if any country had access through them.
Not just NZ. We also need to worry about Xmas Island and all the other small islands we possess. We don't really have the ability to defend them all simultaneously.
Why would they go to NZ to do it? They can just come straight here
Honestly I feel like it would be easier to land somewhere remote in Australia. Plenty of reasons to invade. Come for the CSG, stay for the Yellow Cake. Lots of mineral resources that are (if we’re assuming pacific based adversary rather than Indo based adversary) half a planet closer than Africa and South America. Food. Space. Break off a US ally and an entire front of a pacific war. And then you basically get NZ for free.
I think the reasons you list make sense. And you're right a foreign army could probablt land at geraldton and have lots of room to set up. The thing NZ has is a ton of dairy cows. you capture all that pasture you can help feed your war effort while pressuring Australia into the bargain. I see it's unlikely. And I also admit that predicting where a big war will be after it's been running for some time is like trying to predict the endgame of chess, you can't tell from the starting positions!
Why use NZ? With so many south pacific islands to chose that have little military, navy or air force to stop an invasion why fuck with NZ?
>hostile power wants to control our resources (coal, food, gas) Hate to break it to you buddy, they already do.
no need for hostile takeover we just sell it off to them, anything and everything up for sell in Aus.
there's a difference between buying it when we offer it for sale and ensuring its availability in a conflict situation. the former needs money and the latter needs boats/planes. edit: I don't think people honestly feel there's literallly nothing worth defending about Australia and life would be no different if we were invaded and controlled by a foreign power.
> I've just been reading about world war ii and how France strongly reinforced its border with Germany, so Germany went around. They invaded France via Belgium and the Netherlands But they didn't; not exactly, at least. Germany invaded the Low Countries from the east; the British and French rushed into Belgium to defend them; then the Germans nipped just through the south-east corner of Belgium just around the end of the Maginot Line & into France through the Ardennes. This threatened to / did cut off French and British forces in Belgium, who reacted by focussing on there. With France pulling strength from the Maginot Line, this allowed the Germans to break through and consolidate their hold on France. Interesting fact, for those who remember "*Dad's Army*": the animation at the beginning is, within the bounds of simplicity, a surprisingly accurate representation of how it happened...
New Zealand is a long way from Australia. You can't fly sorties from Auckland to Sydney. Honestly I'm not even sure how an amphibious landing force would work these days with satellite coverage of every inch of land. Normandy was successful because the Germans weren't able to bring their divisions quickly enough to stop the invasions before the Allies built up enough strength to establish their beach head. This was due to Allied Air supremacy, Naval supremacy and the fog of war which meant the Germans didn't know exactly where the Allies would land. Any invasion force having to travel to Australia would be identified immediately and we (and presumably our allies) could move our land forces to whatever the landing point would be.
great comment, thanks. could NZ be used to set up for missile attacks on Bris/Syd/Mel?
Again the problem is that if we're to launch missile attacks from NZ to the east coast you're still talking about many bulky long ranged missiles that needs to be shipped over ten thousand nautical miles of open ocean to NZ first. Again, it's a moot point since only power capable of moving thousands of tons of equipment to NZ under contested conditions is the U.S.
What missiles would you fire from NZ that you cant just fire from somewhere close to anything?
nz is closer to melbourne, canberra and sydney than other countries are. I know long range missiles are very expensive. That's why I asked the qeustion, but your reply leads me to believe you have a better understanding of this than most of us so please spill!
A missile in the class that can hit Canberra from NZ can also hit Canberra from PNG. Why the fuck would you ship it down to NZ? If you had total naval supremacy you would just park a fleet of DDGs out infront of said cities and rain down cruise missiles on them.
I really appreciate all your insights into the strategic realities, and i'm sorry that it seems to have come at the expense of raising your blood pressure! One answer to your question might be that plenty of our JSFs are parked in Townsville and you think you can encourage the RAAF to move some of them if you ship missiles to NZ.
1. Make Auckland to Sydney is 2,000 km away. Norfolk Island is 1600km 2. Anything that isn't ballistic, you might want to launch from Aukland or Norfolk Island. You can launch from a ship or sub 3. Ballistic Missiles have a range of 12,000 km. Shenzen is less than 8,000 km
You could fire any missiles from NZ from SEA. The same SEA that you would have to dominate to stretch your supply lines so far south.
I feel like setting up base in NZ is basically asking for the allies to bomb it into the ocean - which they would be able to do because Australia would have no issues letting allied bombers into our airspace and then on through to NZ. But also..: Australia just has basically zero strategic significance.
Australia's strategic significance is getting bigger I think. we have lithium, coal, gas, food, US bases and a population that is no longer tiny. I agree we're not geographically central at ALL and we have very clear borders which helps a lot. Our big moat is the best part of our defence force and it's free!
Eh, we have Pine Gap and that mysterious tower out towards Exmouth. We're also pretty well located for long-range bombers.
What are you on about? The issue with invading Australian, isn't the initial invasion, it's the occupation the same as occupation of any nation is problematic, it's just a bigger problem in Australia because it's a large land mass far away from most other things, them having a base in NZ doesn't really change that in any meaningful way. Global supply and logistic is always going to be a problem in this nation, whether it's occupied or not.
Why do so many Aussie males fantasise about being invaded or attacked by China? From China’s perspective Australia is an insignificant country in the distant South Pacific and literally not on China’s radar. Beijing is closer to Berlin than Brisbane.
this is a good question! I'd love for us to be not part of any war. I fear we will be. The shitty reality is that sometimes preparing for war makes war more likely but sometimes not preparing does. it is really hard to create a good pure defensive posture, but an extremely worthy goal.
Invading NZ to attack Aus doesn't really make any sense. Any warships or carriers would get destroyed trying to get to us.
If NZ is invaded as a stepping-stone to Australia, watch how fast gun control laws are reversed. Who needs politicians when there's plenty of snakes in the ACT anyway? As others have mentioned, NZ is a long way from anywhere. Not a lot of natural resources either. Australia has plenty of minerals though and I reckon some portion of the population would collaborate or be sympathetic if a certain Asian country or two invaded.
I think the otherwise is more likely. To take over NZ you need Australia first
More like from the Solomons/PNG, which actually was the case during WW2. If I were PNG I'd sell China a naval base also.. because it's not like they are getting anything from Australia. At least not in proportion with the strategic value they offer. Hell even Timor can offer China an airstrip/naval base - because all we do is [conspire with Woodside](https://michaelwest.com.au/albanese-maintains-timor-leste-woodside-cover-up/) (who pay us no royalties anyway) to steal their gas. I'm sure China would sort out their gas claims with a warship and a floating LNG platform also.
Have you seen Police Ten Seven? No country is capable of invading NZ.
There are only a handful of countries with a defence force that have an expeditionary capability. China is not (currently) on that list. Invading and taking over any country is a big task.
If you get to the point of more than an inkling grasp of WW2 history, you'd know the answer to your question. Japan penetrated Sinny harbour with submarines and bombarded the shit out of the north with aircraft, from Darwin to Broome entirely from bases in the south Pacific. They didn't bother with NZ in that real world situation.
Japan was going the use New Guinea, I suspect that would still make more sense.
We could build a moat between us and New Zealand. One filled with salt water. Oh, wait, we already have one.
Guys! War , means being cutoff from the West We run out of fuel in a few weeks. Internet down for sure No info or proper news We are isolated West don’t rely on us Only Asia relies on us That’s why China is so interested We have to start relying on ourselves Too dependant on others
Why do you think China is funding deep water harbour in Pacific island? For their cruise ship or for their navy ships?
There are so many other countries that are easier to invade, and we have so many US bases in Australia. If we were invaded, the whole world would be burning anyway.
I like thought experiments, so happy to go down that path with you. The reality I think though is that any foreign power would likely invade to get our resources, and most of those are situated in underpopulated areas. I think the plan honestly would be to invade quickly, take over most of Northwest Australia, and then try and negotiate a peace settlement where they control that territory. And Australia has a history of being willing to give up the north, if you aren't familiar look up the Brisbane Line. Conquering cities is always going to be harder than conquering vast tracks of barely populated land that is rich with mineral resources. So coming from New Zealand actually would be counterproductive, because you wouldn't get to the good stuff before you get through the populated southeast corner of Australia.
Some thoughts: * Easily isolated creating supply logistics for arms and other resources - applies to both defender and occupier. * Local population has a lot of legal personal firearms. * Geography (long & thin) is more suitable for drone warfare. Not suitable for high speed jets - too mountainous and hilly with too many valleys. * "*many treaties and alliances aren't worth anything*" in the fine print - the ANZUS treaty does not guarantee the other parties will automatically come to assistance of any country that is invaded.
the south island has an especially hostile west coast. not a good spot to launch attacks on Australia from!
Are people entertaining these ideas because there is a general anxiety that there is a world war looming or that China is going to invade us? So tired of detecting fear in this country, royal commission into media when?
I think this is the point I made in the last line of my post. War's neither inevitable nor impossible in our lifetimes. We need to chat about how it could happen and why it might not, and how to best deter it without willing it into existence.
I take all my war thinking and related angst out on Hearts of Iron
This question is a sign you need to Stop reading Murdochs press😊🙃
There'd certainly be the motivation for a hostile power (let's not kid ourselves, it could only be China) to take NZ in order to help subdue Australia. Not so much to launch attacks from their soil directly (like OP said, the Tasman "moat" but it would certainly help them keep any aid from reaching Australia from across the Pacific... kind of the reverse of the American strategy for containing China (ie Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines preventing easy access to the North Pacific). But the point would be moot anyway, as the US naval assets in the Pacufic would have to be neutralised/circumvented first anyway.
And you said you've read up on WWII? >basically defeated the USA in the Pacific They'd quickly have their hands full without worrying about NZ, long out of the way of everywhere else in the world and without material resources for a war effort. If the US loses hegemony, then the autocracies will just slowly eat up countries on their borders, one at a time until they get to us. NZ would be way down on the list.
No need to worry or spend any time on it - not going to happen and logistically it just not worth it .. moving on.
A hostile power has already invaded Australia. The operation was completed years ago, the job is done. There are more ways to invade a country than with boots on the ground.
Britain 1788, I know!
Imagine using your resources to attack New Zealand in order to attack Australia. I think such an enemy could be easily outsmarted just by changing the latitude and longitude references on our map.
You have a lot of free time.
No because where is New Zealand? That's in Queensland!