With respect Peter, I think the emboldened was a typo. Austria is not next door to Indonesia, and if you meant Australia - if I understand my history correctly; the Aussies kicked the Indonesians out of East Timor when 4,500 Aussies faced off 26,000 Indonesian military and militias. The Aussies were joined by 650 Canadians, 300 Gurkha riflemen, over 1,000 New Zealanders, a number of other nations including Portugal and Thailand also sent small forces. It was noted in Australia that, despite being asked, the US refused to send any troops to Timor - their only support was logistical. The Indonesians didn't even put up a fight against the Australians - so I don't know where you get the idea that the Australians couldn't fend off the Indonesians if they had to.
Australia despite having a population less than 1/10th of Indonesia, has an annual military budget more than 3 times bigger. It has more aircraft and roughly twice the number of armoured fighting vehicles - only the Indonesian Navy is bigger, but their ships are pretty old and apart from some frigates built in the 80s and 90s, are mainly small coastal defence vessels, which I doubt would give the RAN's Aegis-equipped DDG's, FFGs, and SSG's too much curry.
Oh, I wish I were a glow worm,
for a glow worm's never glum,
'cause how can you be grumpy
when the sun shines out your bum!
Peter1469 (01-17-2019)
. The EU is a collection of individual sovereign nations in Europe , not one country...whereas currently , the US is one very confused country.......mainly because the future and status quo has changed dramatically and is still changing rapidly , against the wishes of neocons in the US government. Trumps trade war with China has been a flop , and the trade deficit has increased rather than reduced . Also Chinese investment in the US has fallen sharply ........all bad signs.
The EU was set up as an economic trading bloc . It was never suggested that Brussels wanted to override the sovereignty of EU members .....an attempted European take-over by stealth , which is starting to fall apart. In Europe , sovereignty will eventually rise above the desires of the unelected chair polishers in Brussells . Regarding Russia's long term goals , you really need to discern between Russia and USSR........the US likes to think they were responsible for the breakup of the Soviet Union , but they really had no say in it . If you read up on the last 1000 years of Russian history you will better understand what has created modern day Russia. Russia has never invaded another country or shown aggression towards another country without provocation ........their long term goals are plainly documented for anyone to see . Putin and his government are what's presently holding the world together , during an unprecedented period of American unending geopolitical nonsense and desperation.
Peter1469 (01-17-2019)