Quote:
Originally Posted by gunnut
It looks like a trend similar to the old gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century.
Back then, the ultimate power projection tool was the battleship.
Today, it's transformed into a naval expeditionary force package complete with organic air cover.
The rise of another colonialism?  |
For us, yes. We are the Colonial power in the South Pacific. The big dogs like the USA and China are either uninterested (USA) or still incapable of projecting power here (PRC). That leaves us. The other large players here are either only concerned with self-defence (Singapore, Malaysia) or are too busy handling their own problems to deal with anyone else's (Indonesia, Thailand).
That leaves us, with NZ as our off-sider and some help from the US, UK and EU when they can be bothered, and some manpower from our afforementioned neighbours, to handle the many basket cases of the neighbourhood.
The big one is PNG, which is custard any day now. Especially if they finish replacing those spears with proper guns and bombs. Timor is also a disaster zone that will probably only get worse as time goes by. Especially since they've recently decided welfare, education, health and infrastructure isn't what they want to invest in. No, they reckon a military build-up is the ticket.
In both cases, there are more and more guns and people who know how to use them, which means that a company of light infantry and 200 police is no longer sufficient force to deal with a crisis there. And that's going to get worse, not better.