Sunday 1 March 2009

Australia's military position

According to the latest information, Australia's current military strength stands at:
Army: 26,611 full time and 15,892 Reserves
Airforce: 13,521 full time and 2,653 Reserves
Navy: 12, 935 full time and 1,785 Reserves

...with 59 main battle tanks, 71 F/A-18 fighters, 21 F-112 strike aircraft and a small handful of surface craft vessels (6 mine hunters, 4 guided missile frigates, 8 frigates, 9 amphibious landing craft and 6 submarines).

Australia ranks 13th in terms of military expenditure but only ranks 68th in terms of size of armed forces. Australia's modest military outlay of $24B USD in spending in compares very small to France at $61B USD, the United States at $713B (ex NATO) and China at $61B USD.

In total, this is a very small but high tech level military force and suitable for the South-East Asia region. The suitability of having battle tanks remain questionable given the lack of possible deployments which would require this type of armament.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are welcome but are subject to moderation.