A former senior Australian military officer says it wouldn’t take much for an enemy to cut off fuel, food and other supplies to the continent, making his country easy to defeat in a war.
Defense Strategy and Capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst, Dr. Malcolm Davis, noted that a warning by an incoming senator, Jim Molan, that Australian forces would be rendered almost useless in just 19 days was “absolutely true.”
He further noted that Australia is “one of the few countries in the world that does not take our energy security seriously.”
Molan, a former senior military officer, said on Wednesday that if his country ran out of gasoline, diesel and other fuels, the military would be rendered virtually useless.
Molan was the chief of operations for coalition forces in Iraq.
Warned Davis: “It would be a Mad Max world. Our society and our economy would begin to fall apart very quickly.”
What’s more, neither official is sure the U.S. could or would come to Australia’s aid. [source]
(Analyst comment: Australia is one of the “FIVE EYES” members — Western countries that share intelligence including the U.S., New Zealand, Britain and Canada. I’m not convinced at all that the U.S. wouldn’t aid Australia, but the gentlemen are correct in that elected leaders should be more cognizant of the country’s military and strategic vulnerabilities.)
Information in this article helps satisfy Priority Intelligence Requirement 2: What is the current situation report and risk of war in each of the four flashpoints? To subscribe to one of our threat intelligence newsletters: Click here.
