Australia, our longtime ally on the other side of the globe, is beefing up its defense forces in anticipation of a weakened America and strengthening regional powers like India, China, and Russia, on top of threats from North Korea and Islamist terrorism. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has released a report about Australia’s national security issues in the coming decades and the need to reduce reliance on America.
Who can blame him? America seems to have lost something when President Bush left Washington to make way for President Obama. Look at how this President is solving the financial crisis: borrowing trillions of dollars from China. And national defense? Obama hasn’t taken long to cut defense budgets and scrap military projects. All this amid China spending way too much on its military, achieving innovative milestones in weaponry and modernization of its forces, including a shadowy cyber command which has infiltrated computer networks of other governments. China also maintains close ties with rogue North Korea and Russia, and is becoming an economic and military threat to democratic neighbors like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, and Australia.
At least P.M. Rudd has the guts to face the problems and resolve to strengthen Australia. Meanwhile, our president prefers to go on the road to give speeches and do televised press conferences with feel-good scripts fed from the trusty (most of the time) telepromter.
