Military Madness > Australia to double the size of its Navy at 2.4% of GDP

 

Australia to build biggest navy since World War II amid Pacific arms race

Australia on Tuesday outlined a decade-long plan to double its fleet of major warships and boost defence spending by an additional US$7 billion, in the face of a quickening Asia-Pacific arms race.

Issued on: 20/02/2024 - 08:43

2 min

This handout photo taken and released by the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Defence Force on January 18, 2022, shows defence is pre-positioning HMAS Adelaide to Brisbane. © Susan Mossop, AFP

By:NEWS WIRES

Under the plan, Australia will get a navy of 26 major surface combatant ships, up from 11 today.

"It is the largest fleet that we will have since the end of the Second World War," said Defence Minister Richard Marles.

The announcement comes after a massive build-up of firepower by rivals China and Russia, and amid growing confrontation between nervous US-led allies and increasingly bellicose authoritarian governments.

Is Russia really a rival to Australia?

Australia will get six Hunter class frigates, 11 general-purpose frigates, three air warfare destroyers and six state-of-the-art surface warships that do not need to be crewed.

At least some of the fleet will be armed with Tomahawk missiles capable of long-range strikes on targets deep inside enemy territory -- a major deterrent capability.

The plan would see Australia increase its defence spending to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, above the two percent target set by its NATO allies.

Some of the ships will be built in Adelaide, ensuring more than 3,000 jobs, but others will be sourced from US designs and a still undecided design to come from Spain, Germany, South Korea or Japan.                 

Change, or more of the same?

In 2021, Australia announced plans to buy at least three US-designed nuclear-powered submarines, scrapping a years-long plan to develop non-nuclear subs from France that had already cost billions of dollars.

I wonder how much money moved under the tables for that to happen. I suspect several Aussies suddenly got very rich.

While the Virginia-class submarines will be nuclear-powered, they will not be armed with atomic weapons and are instead expected to carry long-range cruise missiles. They represent a step-shift for the country's open water capabilities.

Experts say that taken together, Australia is poised to develop significant naval capability.

But the country's major defence projects have long been beset by cost overruns, government U-turns, policy changes and project plans that make more sense for local job creation than defence.

Michael Shoebridge, a former senior security official and now independent analyst, said the government must overcome past errors and had "no more time to waste" as competition in the region heats up.

Shoebridge said there must be a trimmed-down procurement process, otherwise, it will be a "familiar path that leads to delays, construction troubles, cost blowouts -- and at the end, ships that get into service too late with systems that are overtaken by events and technological change".

Wooing specific electorates with the promise of "continuous naval shipbuilding" cannot be the priority, he said.

"This will just get in the way of the actual priority: reversing the collapse of our Navy's fleet."

(AFP)

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America's First War with Islam

Thomas Jefferson’s Response to Muslims in 1801 is More Important Today Than Ever

By Diana 

From Wikipedia:

Jefferson

The First Barbary War (1801–1805) also known as the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Coast War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States and the Northwest African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States.

These were the Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, which were enjoying a large autonomy, as well as the independent Sultanate of Morocco.

The war was fought because U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay the high tributes demanded by the Barbary states and because they were seizing American merchant ships and enslaving the crews for high ransoms. 

It was the first declared war the United States fought on foreign land and seas.

From Downtrend:

In 1786, Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain. They asked this ‘diplomat’ by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved her citizens and why the Muslims held such hostility toward this new nation, with which neither Tripoli nor any of the other Barbary Coast nations had any previous contact. The answer was quite revealing.

Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja (the ambassador) replied that Islam:

“Was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur’an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

Does any of this sound familiar? 200+ years later they are saying the same thing and acting accordingly. In fact, they have been doing that for 1400 years in something like 600 wars. Why do people think they are going to change and be nice people? Their true colours were revealed in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Paris, Brussels, New York, London, Spain, etc., etc. It's just a matter of time before their colours show in EU countries that foolishly let them in with little discernment. Why are do-gooders so colour-blind?

That is indeed quite revealing. Yet, America continued paying ransoms to these terrorists for the next fifteen years or so, until Jefferson became President.

Then, the Pasha (leader) of Tripoli sent a demand to the new leader for an immediate payment of $225,000 and $25,000 per year on an ongoing basis. Jefferson flatly refused, leading the Pasha to cut down the flagpole of the American consulate and declaring war on the United States. The rest of the terrorist states followed suit.

Barbary Coast

Jefferson had formerly been against raising a navy, but this soon changed as he was determined to meet force with force. A squadron of vessels was sent to the area and Congress authorized Jefferson to have the US ships seize all vessels and goods that belonged to the Pasha and anything else deemed necessary.

 As they saw the US was actually committed to the fight, Algiers and Tunis quickly abandoned the war and allegiance to Tripoli.

Obviously, the US won the war. In fact, this was the reason why the line “to the shores of Tripoli” was added to the Marine Corps hymn.