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| Britain |
| Slipping away |
| 2005-08-19 |
| I know you don't like blog postings, but EU Referendum has a lot of good [defense integration] stuff: In terms of strategic alliances, it is a given that one of our most steadfast allies is Australia, tied by bonds of blood and Empire, having fought alongside us in two World Wars. However, as the UK turns more and more to the inwards-looking EU, with its "European defence identity", and its European Rapid Reaction Force – a European Army in all but name – things out in the big wide world are changing. And one of those changes is the forging of a strategic alliance between the United States and Australia, leaving to UK out in the cold. We saw some of this during the Tsunami disaster earlier this year, when Australia and the US were two of the main players in the immediate relief effort, with the UK nowhere to be seen. Now, in a move that is being seen as the latest chapter in the deepening strategic partnership between the Royal Australian Navy and its US counterpart, the Australian government has ordered an upgraded version of the US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class anti-aircraft destroyer to become the Australian Navy's new front-line warship for the 21st Century.... --SNIP-- |
| Posted by:anonymous2u |
| #5 "I think the tsunami relief 'evidence' is better explained by the fact that it happened right next door to Australia and in a neighborhood the US drives through every day on its way to 'work'." Um... lots of places are closer than we are....where were they in the relief effort? We "drive through" the other side of the world regularly? How is this possible? Perhaps a blue water navy has something to do with it? Another q- Could the UK pull off the Falklands war again? Perhaps and perhaps not. But I do know that no EU "military" force will ever fight for anything, ever. |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2005-08-19 16:43 |
| #4 I think the tsunami relief 'evidence' is better explained by the fact that it happened right next door to Australia and in a neighborhood the US drives through every day on its way to 'work'. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2005-08-19 07:32 |
| #3 inexorable. |
| Posted by: RWV 2005-08-19 03:50 |
| #2 There is something to the seemingly inrxorable move by the MoD to equip its forces with European instead of US hardware. The European gear is by design more or less incompatible with the US. By so doing, the MoD is walking away from the alliance with the US. So equipped, their troops would just be in the way on the battlefield and moving towards the same military irrelevance and impotence that characterizes Germany and France. |
| Posted by: RWV 2005-08-19 03:49 |
| #1 Yes we have a good long standing alliance with Britian. Yes we have a good long standing alliance with Ozzyland. The post frames suppositions about Brit & Aus that are nonsense. IMO |
| Posted by: Red Dog 2005-08-19 00:53 |