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magic9mushroom  If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me  1yr ago (abc.net.au)   1697 thread views

Interview with chief Australian spy re: possibility of great-power war (among other things)

abc.net.au

This dropped a few days ago: the head of ASIS (Australia's version of MI6 and the CIA) gave an interview. It's 26 minutes with no speedup option, so while most of it's pretty interesting I'll give some timestamps for things that are relevant to the broader geopolitical situation and thus might be the most interesting for non-Australians (as opposed to "how does ASIS work" and "reflection on specific past incidents"): 5:00-7:00, 9:17-11:17, 21:59-25:29 and to some extent 16:25-18:19.

Thought this might be of interest to you guys; also interested in what others think he meant with the various vague allusions, since I have my own ideas but I could be projecting my prejudices.

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I want to ask: why are we listening to interviews given by spies of all people, anyway? We know those are the people whose job literally is (or was, if you believe they really aren't an asset anymore) to lie and deceive. What utility could be gained from hearing them speak, other than finding out what it is that their handlers want you to believe?

What utility could be gained from hearing them speak, other than finding out what it is that their handlers want you to believe?

Pretty much this. I'd like to see whether Australia has its own state narrative or whether it just has one derived from Turbo-America's narrative. But first I'd like OP to write up a summary of the interesting bits (pinging @magic9mushroom). As a Motteposter I can stomach 80,000 word manifestos with ease but I'm allergic to any video more than 3 minutes long.

Australia has pretty much swallowed the American narrative. Outside of ex-Prime Minister Keating who remains anti-anti-Chinese and anti-New Cold War, everyone else is lined up with the US. Australia is part of AUKUS against China, Australia sent troops to Iraq to support the American Special Military Operation there, sent equipment to Ukraine against the Russian SMO. Australia does freedom of navigation exercises in the SCS, booted Huawei from 5G, tries to counter-bribe Pacific Islands away from China...

America does not have a more loyal or subservient ally than Australia. Even Britain didn't show up for the Vietnam war.

Vietnam is interesting, mostly because I didn't know Australia participated until I played Rising Storm 2 for the first time. I have to wonder if it's simply because they're in the Pacific and thus much closer to Asia and the happenings there. They were concerned about the Japanese during WWII, I think.

Plus, also, the sparse urbanization of Australia probably helps its cultural makeup be similar to that of the US. Also, cars (we Americans have our muscle cars, the Australians have their V8 sedans).

Indeed, there was a lot of concern about Japan invading in WW2. The most interesting thing is that despite all this concern about Japan and now China, the Australian military is a complete disaster. 60,000 troops across all services - barely even a drop in the bucket. Submarines are a complete disaster, acquisition is at least a decade behind schedule, something like a billion paid in fees to the jilted French consortium. No nuclear submarines until the 2040s.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/nuclear-powered-submarines-for-australia-what-are-the-options/

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZRSb9c-mHM0

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