![]() ![]() Which brings us to Talisman Sabre, the recently completed biennial military exercise with Australian and American troops, along with participation of an impressive number of other nations. Transformational thinking by military leaders and strategists as well as lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, is leading to significant changes in how competition and conflict in East Asian waters can be managed. The US, Australia and others press ahead with plans and contingency preparations. ![]() On the other hand, as work on a checklist for a classic High Noon gunfight proceeds, Washington and its allies wait for their opponent to make the first move, much as Great Britain waited eight months for Nazi Germany to make good on its declaration of war. With both sides continuing to build up arsenals, recruit allies, seek forward outposts from which to threaten the other side and to posture, just as the US and the Soviet Union did for nearly 45 years of the Cold War. Media reporting on recent war gaming in western capitals on such a conflict suggest catastrophic consequences for both sides and perhaps no outright winner. Some predict the conflict could start sometime in this decade. So, along with other nations, Australia is now considering how best to prepare for a potential major conflict in Northeast Asia that more than a few analysts believe could break out. In the end, the choices of the two likely major combatant nations and the consequences of their actions, intended or otherwise, may very well give Australia little choice in the matter. Some have argued our extensive economic ties or, as others have suggested, a sort of policy middle-ground between Washington and Beijing. ![]() In recent years, Australia has attempted to judge whether or not its geographic distance from Northeast Asia could spare the Lucky Country from involvement in or consequences of a conflict. It was not far enough from the terrible, eventual environmental consequences of nuclear warfare that swept over the entire globe. Australia, in this fictitious tragedy, is one of the last surviving outposts of humanity, thanks to its distance from the nuclear battlefields. ![]()
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